Girl gamers? I understand your pain.

You’re torn. You're conflicted. You're unsure. On one hand, you love videogames for all the obvious reasons. They’re fun. They’re pleasantly addictive. They come with a rich and popular culture. On the other, they’re often shallow. They can be sexist. And more often than not they send heroines into battle with naught but a thong to guard them.

I hear you, sister - men are pigs.

It's no secret that video games have developed a bad reputation amongst non-gamers for creating a gallery of shallow, oversexualised female characters. Snobbish fans of other entertainment mediums hang their hats on this; they love to point out that whilst our heroines seem to be paid by the midriff, there wasn’t a navel to be found in Citizen Kane. Our favourite industry has leapt many a hurdle since its economic genesis in the mid 80s, bounding repeatedly and with quantum leaps towards fully-fledged artistic respectability, but characters like Lara Croft, Cammy, Sivir and hundreds of others hold it back.

If you’re a man, pick your favorite male protagonist. Someone cool, and heroic (if you can't think of anyone, go with Han Solo). Now close your eyes and imagine them as accurately as you can. Make sure to account for every detail - their height, weight, stance, clothes; all of it. Once you've got a clear image, pin it down in your mind. Got it? Good.

Now have that character meet your gaze.

Now give him a speedo.

Now make him dance. He seems different now, doesn’t he? At the very least, he's less badass than when clothed. Do you still want to cheer for that character; want to lead him into dangerous battle? That’s how I imagine women feel about their videogame heroines.

Anybody who’s spent a summer of adolescent sexual tension at theatre camp knows that a character is only as good as his or her costume. You immediately realise that Malcolm Reynolds is a bona fide hero because his outfit screams 'space pirate'. We all know that a worn leather jacket + weathered brown fedora + ripped khaki adventurer's shirt = caution-to-the-wind, globe-trekking archaeologist. Combine face piercings, a hooded leather jacket and a $10,000 shopping spree at Hot Topic and what do you end up with? The troubled cyberpunk genius Lisbeth Salander, from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. These are just a few iconic characters that to some extent are defined by what they wear, by how they are presented to us.


So when a game company dresses their leading female character in a slutty bikini covered in knives, what do you think of them? Are you struck by their intelligence? Do you think they could be a doctor, or a philanthropist? Maybe a Congresswoman? I bet Margaret Thatcher wore her medieval G-string to work.

As a fan of good storytelling, I have trouble viewing scantily-clad warrioresses as real characters. They’re too impractical to be real people. Too shallow and robotic. Their existence makes me turn off the PS3; turns me away from their products. And I’m not the only one.

To be fair, there are plenty of videogame heroines with the two-hit combo of clothes and personality to choose from. Alyx Vance, from Half Life 2. Chell, from Portal. Zelda, from the Legend of Herself. Samus Aran, from Metroid. Jill Valentine, from Resident Evil. Faith, from Mirror’s Edge. Jade, from Beyond Good and Evil. Female Shepard, from Mass Effect. There are plenty of respectable women-folk to be found in the great game character sisterhood. But at the end of the day it's the gun-toting, skin-baring, Victoria's Secret model look-a-likes that seem to get the most attention.


By continuing to loudly voice how much we the gaming community enjoy seeing these clothed, believable female characters in our games, perhaps we will convince game developers guilty of oversexualising their female characters into changing their tune. If we stand together as consumers and call for more independent, badass lady-folk in our games, we might get them.

But as long as the videogame industry allows companies to create games about X-rated beach volleyball, it will remain barred from the lounge of artistic respectability, and therefore continue to press its hands longingly against the window as it watches art, film and literature converse tastefully amongst one another whilst wearing smoking jackets, puffing on expensive Cuban cigars and mahogany smoking pipes.

It's up to us to keep demanding respectable female characters in our games, brothers and sisters. We’ll slow the creation of over-sexualised video game heroines yet. And I don’t care if that lingerie is made of diamond-coated mithril tungsten - it’s not going to stop that swarm of arrows flying full-speed at your crotch.

Labels: Beyond Good and Evil, Dead or Alive, Feature, female gamers, Film tie-in, Greg Mengel, Lara Croft, League of Legends, Mass Effect, Metroid, Mirror's Edge, Opinion, Portal, Zelda

The industry is full of sequels, but which franchises aren't getting their due for follow-ups? Chris Hawke looks at seven titles in need of new iterations.

Despite what you might have been led to believe, people like change. Change is new and fresh, fun and exciting; it brings out your inner-child and lets it romp through unique experiences and original delights. Move past the façade of peripheral details, and you'll see people are getting bored of Call of Duty, because it's been the same since 2007, whilst Battlefield 3 is bringing something sparklingly virginal to our eyes. Every now and again, a developer likes to take a dive into the crisp waters of innovation and swim with the dolphins of vicissitude; out of this comes stunning games that blow away the cobwebs with unseasoned ideas and exploratory themes.

But, for some reason, many of these IPs (intellectual properties) never get fully used. Perhaps people forgot about them. Perhaps they were too before-their-time. Perhaps one of the developers pissed in the pool, and the pool turned an odd and wholly-unappealing colour, and everyone got disgusted and left, and the dolphins swam away.

Or something.

Whatever the reason, these are a handful of unique and original IPs that are simply collecting dust.

Mirror's Edge

Listen; it wasn't great. EA finally shrugged off the title of 'Evilcorp' in 2008 by taking risks and trying newfangled concepts with Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, rather than just milking the same old sports titles. They still do that, of course, but at least those sports titles are now awesome. Mirror's Edge was cutting-edge, intriguing and exotic, but that doesn't mean it was any good. The horribly facile story did disgusting things to the original theme - a silently oppressive city with a dark cop at its centre - and the game became full of piano concertos and flying doves. Mirror's Edge had problems, and one central fault; it was unformed. It was full of brilliant ideas and motifs, hurriedly scrunched together and chucked onto a disc. Mirror's Edge, as a series, needs a bit of time and practice to mature, and a second game is vital to that. We'll just have to hope that Dice understand the goldmine they're sitting on.

The Chronicles of Riddick

Stealth is dead. Thief 4, Hitman: Absolution, the new Splinter Cell; these might just be able to revive the limp, lank and lifeless corpse of my favourite genre. But for now, there hasn't been a good stealth game in ages; one that really focusses on staying hidden, slipping between shadows and silencing some unfortunate soul before sneaking back to secrecy. Riddick was at the forefront of that. It may not have been as flashy as the Splinter Cell series, but it was stealth in its purest form; you, two Ulak blades, and a spaceship full of bad guys. Nothing else is so immersive and enjoyable as The Chronicles of Riddick for silent violence, with visceral combat and a truly dark tone to the plot. Whatever Starbreeze have planned next, I hope Vin Diesel is ready.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Yep, another article from me where I fawn over Eastern European games. By now, you should get the point; all those Ukrainian developers like 4a Games, or GSC Game World? They're brilliant. And S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is the most haunting, stunning, surprisingly dazzling and preposterously magnificent thing you can play on your PC. A multitude of problems are swept away by the sheer single-minded passion for post-apocalyptic beauty. So why the hell haven't we had a proper sequel?!

Even in 2007, Shadow Of Chernobyl looked old and tired, yet the same engine had to bear the brunt of two 'expansions'. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been confirmed, but nothing's been seen of it thus far. Before it's too late, GSC - before someone else steals your essence - make the most of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Tom Clancy's EndWar

Whether or not you think EndWar's key distinguishing feature - the ability to control units with your voice - was a gimmick or a revolution, at its core the game was rock solid. The basic gameplay features were well-implemented, the story did enough to drive you forward, and it was just good fun to play. Then, factor in the voice commands, and EndWar becomes something special. Yes, it's only because of those childish fantasies that come bubbling up to the surface, but speaking into a mic and have the units on screen react? Hell yeah.

It's more SingStar than Company of Heroes; you can feign panic in your trembling voice when under pressure, or triumphantly order everyone to move up. It's as much fun coldly telling troops to "leave no survivors" in monotone as it is to scream, "Hoorah! Great hit, Bravo Two!", imagining that, somehow, those little specks you survey are real and carrying out your every command with loving duty. EndWar gave you a God Complex, and it felt great. The sooner Ubisoft can pull EndWar 2 out of limbo, the better. My people need me.

Brothers in Arms

Yes, there's a Furious 4. And all the insipid bile that spilt from my mouth splatted on the keyboard and managed to turn into words. The long and short of it; Furious 4 isn't a true Brothers in Arms. No, BIA is a lot more than just mowing down cannon-fodder. Second World War may hardly be an original setting, but Gearbox's tactical first/third-person shooter hybrid gave an exhausted, weary and drab setting some much-needed life. The puzzle-like gameplay perfectly complemented a thrillingly mature, grown-up story - two things you won't find anywhere else on the market today. BIA is the very antithesis of cookie-cutter combat, and I can only hope it gets better soon.

SimCity

The idea of building, maintaining, sustaining and advancing a city may seem mundane in 2011; in the saturated world of Cities XL and Cities in Motion, SimCity is surely just another endless pit of time-waiting, fruitless architectural escapism, right?

Shut your mouth and rinse it with razor blades. SimCity is the original; the daddy of all your micro-managing desires. There's something oddly addictive about a birds-eye view of your whole creation, and SimCity nailed that element of ownership. Your city was your city, a Genesis and Revelations all rolled into one, starting with a single plot of land and unstoppably expanding to the all of the four corners of the Earth. I only hope that when SimCity makes its jubilant return, it moves with the times; better graphics, more choice, and maybe a bit of politics thrown in.

Road Rash

"You get to hit people, on bikes". Those were probably the only words spoken at the proposal meeting back in 1991, followed by a slow nod and a growing smile from EA then-boss Trip Hawkins. There are games that let your crash a bit, sure; Burnout even makes it the central focus of the gameplay. But, even with such violent racers drifting about the place, Road Rash still has that unique, resolute desire for speed and brutality. Instead of constant corners and backtracking, it's just one long stretch of road. The other racers aren't forced near you by an invisible elastic band - you progress, you see them, and you chain-whip them into oblivion. EA say they're trying to get Road Rash into the next generation, and with concepts like this, I can't see why they've taken seven years to reboot the franchise.




I can only hope all seven of these underused IPs get back onto our platforms soon. In the meantime, what series would you like to see return? Tell us in the comments below.

Labels: 2011, Brothers in Arms, Chris Hawke, Mirror's Edge, Road Rash, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., SimCity, The Chronicles of Riddick, Tom Clancy's EndWar

Mirror’s Edge is one of my most favourite games of all time. It’s a game of simplicity; a sublime experience where all excess between you and the the game environment is thrown out the window. It’s defenestration of the superfluous in favour of immersion, and that’s a wholly unique concept for video games.

Mirror’s Edge for iPhone is not this, but it is worthwhile in its own right. While the console iteration of Mirror’s Edge was a first-person experience, the iPhone iteration is a side-scrolling platformer among the lines of Canabalt. As a game about fluid momentum, Mirror’s Edge translates extremely well to this type of gameplay, and the iPhone is a great place to execute it.

On consoles, Mirror’s Edge was somewhat difficult to control, but Mirror’s Edge on iPhone - we'll refer to it from now on as 'ME iOS', for simplicity's sake - is smooth and intuitive. To make Faith run in a given direction you swipe either left or right, to make her jump you swipe up, and swiping down makes her slide. It’s a pretty simple set of commands, but the game achieves that desirable zen-like sensation of fluidity by churning these variables together, and adding a handful of micro-gestures that increase how quickly Faith can traverse. It’s a little more complicated than Canabalt, for instance, where your only control is when and how long to jump, but ME iOS not so complex that it’s frustrating.


ME iOS is a short experience, and no single level is completely satisfying either, as each is short and typically littered with a few enemy encounters. Similarly to the console version, the enemy encounters are the game’s weakest aspect: combat in ME iOS is frustrating, a nasty road-bump on an otherwise calming experience. Faith can slide, jump kick and disarm enemies she meets by swiping either down, up, or left and right, but each option will either follow lethal gunfire, slow Faith down, or eventually kill her and end a run if failed. None of these consequences enhance the game experience; rather, they detract from it. Like the Mirror’s Edge on consoles, ME iOS would benefit from either retooling the role of combat or doing away with it altogether, especially as it interrupts the more satisfying fluidity of the gameplay.

Since this mobile version of Mirror’s Edge succeeds so well in delivering a calming, zen-like experience, I would have appreciated some longer levels, or perhaps a mode of infinite level generation where I could just keep running and navigating. As it is, I probably won’t return to ME iOS, simply because the levels aren’t worth returning to once you’ve mastered them. There are collectible runner bags, akin to Mirror’s Edge on consoles, but they are frustrating to reach and don’t really exemplify the game’s controls and what kind of gameplay they can achieve. Still, if you liked Mirror’s Edge and can find enjoyment in spurts of fluid platforming, Mirror’s Edge on iPhone is definitely worth checking out.

7/10 [?]

Labels: 2011, App, DICE, EA, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mirror's Edge, Parker Scott Mortensen, Review