By Michelle Perez
Every morning when I wake up, I drink some coffee and put listen to this as loud as humanly possible.
If you don’t, I feel sorry for your lot in life. A man who doesn’t know what he stan for may wander wayward and unknowing, counting the days until some meaning is made manifest far too late. Like a goddamned mummified cocoon opening, you’ll gaze on at yourself in the mirror as a grey haired Republican Moth slowly breaching the large, dusty smelling bio-mass . Or you get there, and you get caught in the moment reconciling the fact you’re a kinda completely an asshole, like . Kanye West taught us you can only Watch The Throne when you Attain The Throne, but you must subvert The Game Of Thrones (Having Sex With Siblings, Dragons). West veered away from The Violent Sexual Imagery of George R.R.R.R.R. Morton and instead starred in a video where a half naked model caved his skull with a shovel. Kanye can’t be humble in ways you and I can, so he does us a service by fucking hating himself more than anyone else possibly can. Phil Fish hasn’t learned this technique, That Fine Self Hate Swag so his arrogance has no true anchor in self depreciation and the fruits it produces.
This is not an argument for treating yourself horribly, mind you. It’s more of a hastily put together observation of creative archetypes. Hideo Kojima, for example often tweets about the records he enjoys or takes photos of his food. He employs sexual dysfunction and kink into the various psychopaths that inhabit the Metal Gear World, to impart some sort of quasi-filmic subtext to their world. The entirety of Kojima’s creative energy is based in a world where he sets his owns terms and goes up against an opponent of his own choosing: previous Metal Gear games. It’s an egoless endeavor, where he dazedly walks around directing the creative energies of others in a production capacity while holding true to the world he birthed, stumbling about like a child genuinely not understanding what he is doing but realizing it is fun.
There’s a sincerity to the sometimes unimaginably stupid, positively kitschy and undeniably unique Metal Gear games that often has me laughing at the pretense of video games with a “serious story”. Sure, the video games have a capacity to be serious, but often are not in the slightest, or are unintentionally humorous as a result of even attempting such a feat. A good case study of this would be the first Deus Ex.
Maybe that’s too extreme an example, but I can’t help but feel developers buying into their own bullshit upon being successful instead of wandering around, stoned on the ecstasy of their art form and the act of creation. Many are guilty, few are explicitly named or are condemned to the point of being cliché, or are too goddamned big and faceless to pin on any one culprit (THIS SUBTLY ALLUDES TO THE COMPANY COMMONLY KNOWN AS ELECTRONIC ARTS, YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF THEM). For the sake of having no stake in the industry or desire to work within it on a professional level, I offer a well intentioned series of statements that may come off as negative, but I have your best interests at heart, America.
WHAT KEN LEVINE STAN FOR: SELF DELUSION OR FEIGNED IGNORANCE TO THE OBVIOUS
At the Gamers with Jobs Podcast, Ken had said with great certainty a state that I feel is the litmus for whether or not anyone wants to seek out what he has to say about the video game industry:
“We had a room full of college students, in some fraternity in some state school somewhere – this is about a year ago – and they had never heard of Bioshock. None of them. Not a single one,” he said. “I think as an alpha gamer you assume that, ‘whether you’ve played Bioshock or not, you’ve heard of it, right?’ These guys had never even heard of it.”
As someone who blindly loves the series I can’t help but think two things:
1. If The Alpha Gamer exists, I don’t want to see what it looks like. Imagine it, a pile of black mashed potatoes with erroneous Mad Catz cords forming the circulatory system, and a crude carapace of discarded cardboard Dreamcast boxes emblazed with Japanese Dating Simulator titles letting you know which organs do what on The Alpha Gamer. Its skull is a Virtual Boy extending its visor outward, letting you see into it its dark heart. You cry and cannot stop approaching The Alpha Gamer, it loves you. It reads aloud Phil Fish Tweets. Its name is Fred.
2. I’m fairly certain college students are more into social games or are anime nerds, in which case it is with great certainty the only games they are playing will be either multiplayer bastions like Halo or Call of Duty or with the latter anime nerds, World of Warcraft/Magic The Gathering. That’s it. There is literally no middle ground worth discussing at all. The only college kids I’ve ever heard discuss Bioshock went to Digipen, and I use kids in a loose sense of the word insofar as people who make video games aren’t people so much as they are digital essences of those who will form the greater backbone of Video Games, likely going on to make iOS garbage or pretty good stuff like Portal or game eerily similar to San Francisco Rush.
It’s part of a greater body of Levine quotes that embodies the lack of honest critique or inability to critique with a fully rounded worldview that plagues the industry. I’ll start with something small, from an IGN article wherein Levine “Fucking Plays Dumb”. The italicized portions will denote Sense.
Irrational Games co-founder Ken Levine has spoken out on the attention being paid to BioShock Infinite’s main character, Elizabeth. In a new interview, Levine says he’s disappointed that gamers are spending so much time discussing her physical appearance rather than discussing the game’s story.
They are probably discussing prominent breasts because her tits are popping out in an “Intellectually Engaging Experience”. I could be wrong here but they are huge.
“You know, I think there’s two questions there. One is ‘does she need to be pretty?’ and another is ‘does she need to be voluptuous?’ or whatever,” he told OXM. “In terms of her body type, I think certainly people on the Internet have spent way more time thinking about Elizabeth’s chest than I have. It’s something I’ve barely thought about.”
YOU ARE A FUCKING LIAR. WHILE THE CREATION OF A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR GAMER IS A COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCE, TO SAY YOU HAVE BARELY THOUGHT ABOUT THE DESIGN OF A MAIN CHARACTER IN A GAME THAT WILL MAKE YOU MONEY IS LAUGHABLE TO POINT OF BITING DOWN AND SWALLOWING BROKEN MASON JAR GLASS/BLOOD/WATER IN THE MASON JAR GLASS.
Levine says he would have preferred if players had reacted to Elizabeth’s struggles instead of her looks. “It’s disappointing when [Elizabeth’s appearance] becomes a focus for conversation because that was never my intent and it’s sort of a disincentive. I’d much rather talk about what she’s going through as a person, but whatever. They have the right to shout out whatever they want,” he said.
This is a very diplomatic way of bullshitting. In the bolded portion, very neutral language is used in the face of the fact this is him “speaking out” on the Titty Situation. “You know, I’d rather talk about the Sword Fights Ivy in Soul Calibur engages in, but if people want to talk about her attire, eh fuck it this is a Free Country.
According to Levine, Elizabeth’s low-cut outfit isn’t her most striking feature. To Levine, it’s the character’s eyes that stand out.
“I’ve spent way more time thinking about her eyes than her chest because eyes show a ton of expression, and you see her at a great distance,” he said. “AI characters get very, very small very, very quickly, so you need to be able to recognize her silhouette, the shape of her body. Her color scheme’s actually very simple, you know, the sort of two tone color look. That’s all to do with this sort of exaggeration.”
“You like anime, right? Well, I’ve kind of made her look like anime if the tits are a little too abrasive for you.”
Levine also compared Elizabeth’s outfit to comic book outfits. Coincidentally, Catwoman’s new costume stirred up its own controversy for being too revealing in 2011.
“I know this from comic books: if you look at certainly the iconic superhero outfits, they’re all very simple color schemes, and that was because of the printing technology they had at the time, but it also allowed those characters to have an iconic look,” he said.
Oh man, because if there’s a defense you want to mount on character design clearly the best choice would be to evoke comic books! Comic books are likely the highest heights of feminist character design, why just look at Witchblade or Gen13!
Pictured Here: Witchblade. No I’m not fucking with you.
Pictured Here: A female teenager. Yeah.
“So you have to make judgements about exaggerating certain things if you want them to scan at a distance, which Elizabeth needs quite often because we don’t do a lot of cutscenes. We can’t always put the camera right up to her like we did at that scene at the end [of the E3 demo], where she takes your hand and puts it around her neck. So, you know, we make certain decisions, creative decisions along the way that are generally driven by what’s going to make this character work and relate to the player.”
“If we want to sell this, we’re gonna need to tap into Male Privilege. That means we need to Harley Quinn The Living Fuck out of female characters, a reality we’d rather not engage discussion in. Let’s keep the pretense of this being intellectually engaging, though.”
Levine added that Booker, BioShock Infinite’s other main character, is equally good-looking, and that there’s no reason to single out Elizabeth.
“In terms of ‘does she need to be physically attractive?’ Booker’s not exactly an unattractive dude himself. He doesn’t have a spare tire, and he’s a good-looking guy,” he said. “Generally, people in media are more attractive than the average person. People like looking at attractive people.”
More neutral, double talking bullshit. Booker may be attractive, but insofar as having maybe one distinct difference from any other FPS protagonist. When you do see him, he is wearing Old Timey Clothing. Aside from that he is another vanilla scoop from The White Guy with A Gun Factory, visually. Maybe I’m being a cynical asshole. Let me check out that poster I got from PAX.
Naw, dude has his hair flared a bit upwards, and he is brandishing an arm/outstretching his arm to protect her breasts. That’s it. Dude just looking like a regular-ass dude. An aside, did ya’ll like Days of Future Past?
IGN IS A BASTION FOR SCUM, CAN ONLY BE VIEWED THROUGH INDUSTRIAL GOGGLES
Hell, sexualizing things doesn’t have to be an exercise in banging out repugnant teenage sexual idealization to fit profiles that exist. We all got bathing suit parts, ain’t no need to be coy about it, but for fucks sake if you get paid to write, if you even imply on accident that you are some crude manifestation of a Video Game Journalist pull your head out of your ass and learn about the process of due diligence. I stabbed my foot with a dull carrot knife for about 20 minutes after looking up the IGN editorial by Hilary Goldstein on Resident Evil 5 , in regards to charges of latent racism in the game. Of particular note is its final paragraph. That isn’t to dissuade you from thinking what precedes it is anything less than fucking garbage, but let’s pick our battles:
I don’t begrudge anyone who finds the imagery in RE5 offensive. But I don’t believe that vilifying Capcom for its artistic vision is appropriate. This controversy illustrates that race relations remain a major issue in America and Europe. Electing an African-American President doesn’t suddenly wipe away the past few centuries of prejudice, nor does it create a level playing field for blacks in this country. But attacking a videogame isn’t going to fix these things either. Perhaps it’s time to let go of what a game represents to us individually and move the dialogue to a more significant issue: How do we create a world where opportunity is not merited by the color of one’s skin?
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK EVERYTHING THAT LED YOU TO THE POINT OF WRITING THAT SENTENCE AND SAYING “BY JOE I’VE GOT IT. NOT ONLY WILL I PETER OUT, BUT IN ONE FELL SWOOP I’LL ALSO BRING ABOUT GREATER DISCUSSION ON OF RACE THROUGHOUT A LARGELY XENOPHOBIC BASTION OF WHITE MALE CONSUMERISM. WHERE’S MY CROWN?” Where do you bastards come from, where an editorial means being a voice of reason solely through the act naming no causes and that it is only sensibilities being offended, and it doesn’t merit vilifying a company. Yes, you scum it does, and you’re a goddamn liar. Is Hilary Goldstein your real name?
How about this: Bad Boys 3 opens with Will Smith and Martin Laurence walking around kitting up like the film “Black Hawk Down”. The requisite jokes happen and Will makes a small comment about a large chicken he sees in the distance, calls it a “Big Momma”. Martin Laurence frowns and the crowd heartily laughs at that little inside joke. Will Smith, he’s so funny they’ll say. Then from behind some bushes of the native camp a bunch of black men in corpse paint and red lipstick run at them with spears and tribal masks, with bones through their noses. I’m gonna guess at this point you’ll audibly hear people snapping iPhone pictures and you’ll check your twitter. A new hashtag reads #BadBoysBlackface and you’ll see about fourteen angry Shaq tweets on the subject, and news outlets are on fire.
That is actually what Resident Evil 5 is, and no amount of invoking the Spanish denizens of RE4 or mentioning the two white zombie character models is going to change this.
I remember one level of the game involving having escaped a huge group of black dudes, three that eerily resembled Saddam Hussein in late afternoon wear without the signature beret, and that axe dude. I’m on the street and this lady screams for help. This fairly affluent looking white lady is yanked by her arm into the dark scary building alone and I thought “Oh no, Rhianna is gonna help me commit a strange hate crime. Well, let’s go save that English speaking white woman from the black dude with our guns.”
If a game journalist isn’t content with not knowing how to grasp world issues with little gems like “reason” or “knowledge of the outside world”, they can settle for making shit up . (via- http://gamejournos.com/ )
Are you guided by your ethics? (Some of the Nietzsche lovers would say no, unless they are the sub-human slaves. I’d laugh, because you’re a fucking joke of a human being if you love Nietzsche, and I pray for you and whatever college debt you accrued while reading garbage for war buff nerds and right wing sociopaths. I’ll laugh harder if you did it for free at the library.) For those who are, I’d advise you to take stock in what you stan for. And I don’t mean the platitudes. What have you experienced and seen in our world on a daily basis that informs your sense of self, and your ability to report what you see? Do you have the strength of will to engage, debate and challenge or will you stand by meekly, like a Lucasfilm employee? Do your Soul’s Dick become Hard upon actually saying something, instead of idly speaking? What you stan for?
