An animated GIF of Sarah Palin being hit in the head by Angry Birds characters while holding a rifle.
It’s a little late today, but hey – it’s still Friday! Feel free to talk amongst yourself about anything you’d like, as long as it abides by our discussion policy. Hope everyone has a great weekend full of fun gaming! 
I know Valve is generally good about including POC and females in its newer titles (mostly I’m thinking of the love for Alyx Vance and the Left 4 Dead series), so it’s intriguing to play through Half-Life right now, as I am.
Things that caught my eye/ear: in the very beginning of the game, there is an announcement of what Black Mesa is looking for, in terms of future employees, and it makes sure to state that it is an equal opportunity employer. While I have seen both black and white male scientists (all of the latter are older), I have yet to see any female characters whatsoever.
I’m very curious to see how the series progresses through the two expansion packs I have, as well as through Half-Life 2 and its episodes.
I don’t think there are any female personnel in Opposing Force or Blue Shift either, ignoring whoever recorded the tram messages and whoever was the basis for the HEV training hologram. I think her voice actor provided the samples they play when the buses stop here in town now, which was kind of freaky the first time I heard it.
There -is- a really interesting offshoot, in that the PS2 version came with a co-op expansion titled Half-Life: Decay, where you played a pair of female scientists during the resonance cascade event.
After that though, there’s… what? Alyx, Dr. Mossman, and one or two white female faces and voices in the HL2 games? Aside from Dr. Vance, I think there’s only one black male face. Then, I don’t recall there being many generic survivor faces going around at all.
I was reading about Decay, and was fascinated, but it seems while there are PC ports, they are of questionable legality. I picked up everything but Half-Life 2, which I’d previously owned, through the last Steam sale, so figured it was time to give it a go.
Yeah, by and large, Valve is still a company who puts forth more white men than others, but they seem to making small strides here and there. L4D2 had two black characters, albeit only one female. Chell in Portal is not only a woman, but appears to be a WOC. I imagine there’s plenty to write about in terms of retrospectives (especially if one were to dig and note employee changes and on which projects they worked).
There were a couple of guys, over at Somethingawful, doing a Let’s Play of Decay a while ago. I lost track and interest because they spent the first parts messing around with their crowbars, but imagine that it’s still up on Viddler or Vimeo if watching it is worth your time.
And you’re right, Valve is getting better at widening their repertoire of character designs. It’s one of the reasons why I like them as an outfit.
I had the best Friday ever. I stayed up all night with a friend, because I had the day off. Then I went downtown with my roommate and got some silly earrings and a couple of sarongs, and found a cute little treasure chest that looked at me and yawned wide as if to say, ‘Put your gaming dice in me. You know you want to.’
Then she took me to her salon and treated me to a desperately needed haircut. Oh, wow, they made me feel like a queen and left my hair looking the best it has in… ever.
And through it all, I was as upbeat and social as anything. I’ve been diagnosed with social phobia and generalized anxiety, so I’m usually dead quiet when I’m not exclusively with friends. Tonight I was chatting away with total strangers, and it was awesome.
I FINALLY managed to beat New Super Mario Bros. Wii! Now I have to collect those stupid coins so I can unlock that stupid bonus world.
Other than that, I’ve mostly just been napping all day. That’s what happens when you wake up at 3 in the morning. :/
I somewhat feel the same, in that I really like NSMBW, but damned if it doesn’t feel like an obligation. I always wonder if it got harder or if I just got worse.*
*I actually know that I got worse, but I like to pretend that it got harder.
Miyamoto is on record as saying that NSMBW’s difficulty is between SMB3′s and SMBW’s. So yeah, we got worse.
ANGRY BIIIIIRRRRRDS! I love that game, although after a while I get super mad and frustrated at it and I HAVE to put it down.
If you have an iPad, there are some classic Sierra adventure games you can now play on it for free, through the browser: http://sarien.net/ Including Space Quest 1 & 2 and King’s Quest 1-3 (no QFG though…. YET?!?). (Of course, they have been available for a while to play in a regular browser.)
This weekend is reserved for working on my next cosplay and generally being productive. But right now, it’s FFVII time!
I’m not sure what’s up with QFG–in general, not only on Sarien. King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest, and even Police Quest have had bundles released in recent memory, while QFG just sits alone in the corner, pouting (I will shower you with love soon, dear game, now that I have DOSBox installed again).
Wonder if there are some legal issues there tying it up.
It IS weird how it always seems left out of stuff like this. I’d also love to be able to play Eco Quest again! That’s another game I played over and over.
I’ve been playing Oblivion. And getting slightly frustrated with how Shivering Isles portrays disability. ._.
I always told myself I would get around to that, but never did. Is it fun enough to overlook the issues?
I really liked it, and mostly I’m finding I can overlook the details when they are a bit problematic, and it’s a lot less problematic then I first thought. (at the moment, I’m more bothered by the golden saints–and dark seducers, for that matter, but I got thrown in prison by the former–being officially a matriarchal society and dressing for the male gaze)
Like, to an extent it just seems like most of the characters are just odd people, and not really representing actual mental illness or anything. Which makes it much easier to overlook any problematic subtext, at least for the purpose of playing the game. (And I mean, a lot of the characters are portrayed pretty neutrally. So some of the time it may also be the best portrayal of mental illness in video games, though to be fair that says more about society than about Shivering Isles.)
I should also add that I actually really dislike the term ‘mental illness’. I just couldn’t think of anything better ._.
I know NOTHING about this except that the link was just posted on another forum, but someone here might be curious:
http://www.minigayboyfriend.com/ (Some sort of ipod dating sim?)
Indeed, it’s an iDevice App that’s similar to a dating sim, specifically targeted to male same-sex couples. GayGamer had a review of it here: http://gaygamer.net/2010/12/review_mini_gay_boyfriend.html
I’ve yet to play it, but many of the GayGamer staff seem to be enjoying it.
thought you guys might enjoy this:http://www.gabbysplayhouse.com/wp-content/doodles/sexism-all.jpg
“It’s all PC ‘n stuff!”
haaaaa
how I hate that sentiment
Eep.
(Which is to say, that’s entirely accurate.)
The funniest thing about that image is posting it to a public profile basically turns it into exactly that thing. You have people discussing it and one guy disagrees and basically parrots the entire male-side verbatim.