Recent content by Usagi Vindaloo

JRPGs seem to be the only game genre that actually gets this. Seriously, look at Sephiroth and tell me he wasn't designed to appeal to a female audience. ;-) More on topic, another female gamer here who enjoys everything from the Sims and Peggle to WoW, Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed. Like...

Blizzard + Bioware for a Mass Effect MMO that captures the amazing narrative strengths of Bioware with the excellent MMO design of Blizzard. This would be the MMO that would actually pull me away from WoW, if it existed. I would also gleefully accept the reverse, Bioware taking the Warcraft...

I'll second the notion that a lot of "girly" franchises do not age well for more mature audiences, probably due to a general infantilization of female children. Whereas male children are encouraged to enjoy action, which is mostly ageless/timeless/etc, female children seem to be more "told" to...

The problem is that a lot of the (stereotypical) guys who are obsessed with finding a relationship aren't doing it because they want an equal partner to cooperate with, live life together, etc. They're doing it because they want a girl. The girl herself is almost an afterthought, it's what she...

Thank you for responding to this better than I could. It always confuses me to see people saying that diversity will somehow drive people away from games as opposed to engaging with people even better. I'm the whitest girl you'll ever meet, but show me a game where I play a gay Muslim man and...

While you have a point about villanous groups not always being multi-cultural, the same cannot be said for heroic groups. There's plenty of opportunities for multi-ethnic or otherwise diverse groups of heroes and supporting characters. Last time I checked, the US Army had plenty of Muslims...

1) Huh. So friendship, brotherhood/sisterhood and loving your fellow man is politics now? I always figured that was just basic human decency, no politics at all. 2) I don't think any values are being dismissed or any values are being dictated. The only thing that is being "dictated", if...

I have a problem with ANY person being portrayed as a mook. That's actually one of my biggest issues with video games and their narratives in general; that the enemies feel like cannon fodder and stuff to shoot rather than realized characters in their own right. In this, I will agree, Muslims...

Who said anything about politics? Where are the politics in having tons and tons and tons of awesome characters from all walks of life? Surely having a wide range of character types, backgrounds and stories only strengthens a narrative and pulls us in deeper to the emotional core of the work? I...

No, I read that as saying that he has a problem with them being portrayed as ONLY villains and nothing else. Not only that, but that the portrayal reduces them to moving targets to be shot, as opposed to fully realized, living and breathing characters. To put it another way... say you have a...

But it's not just a handful of people. It's not just Muslims who want/should want more balanced Muslim representation... it's white people, black people, Asians, Mexicans, Polynesians, and pretty much every other ethnicity/religion/etc I've missed. And they, in turn, should be all gung ho and...

I think the author's argument is very clear. It is NOT "there need to be fewer Muslim villains" but has always been "there need to be more Muslim heroes," or on a more nuanced level, "there need to be more Muslim characters who are more than just cannon fodder/stock bad guys." There are lots...

An interesting article, but I have to say I disagree with most of it. For one thing, the big issue with RealID is not this. It's the fact that it will encourage MORE hate speech and horrible behaviour. At the moment, when I post, I'm Elfin McPallyface, prot paladin, and as such my opinions...

I do see what you mean. Under that rationale, though, it STILL doesn't make sense of the majority of actors/characters/etc to be white. Because under your argument, it doesn't matter what color the superhero's skin is... so why not cast/create more PoC characters as well as white? It's not like...

Definitely agree on that last point! I think the reason people pull out the "race card" is that racism is not always about an action, but... I dunno, a state of being? Like, I don't think Shyamalan and the producers sat around saying, "Colored people suck, let's hire white actors!" If they did...