Interesting Links for 13-01-2015

[andrewducker]

• Finally, a guide to successfully interrogating terrorists
  (tags: terrorism interrogation psychology )
• We have experienced anarchy like this before. We should not over-react to it
  (tags: liberal anarchy terrorism violence law politics )
• £300 for a job reference is the latest outrage in the exploitation of interns
  (tags: work OhForFucksSake

Comments

[ext_2864067]

Femshep is far superior, certainly.

On a more general note, having spoken to a professional animator about this, there -are- significant (and costly) differences when you're animating two genders rather than one, unless you just want to do it really, really badly.

Also, it requires either a lot more voice-acting or some very fumbling pronoun-awkwardness, in many cases.

Also also, though many plots could quite comfortably accommodate either gender of protagonist, some really wouldn't; some really good and worthwhile plots, as well. Take Far Cry 3 - the whole twisted (and highly underrated, IMO) plot with the Rakyat breeding cycle would make rather less sense with a main character who isn't male. Or they'd have to flip the gender of another major character, which would make certain scenes and plot elements deeply problematic in ways that I expect the people reading this would really get quite angry about.

Whether gender diversity would make that much of a difference in terms of plot and dialogue, does depend rather on your plot and setting. In many settings, particularly those that attempt to extrapolate from the real world, gender does not exist in a vacuum - there's a whole pile of context there.

Bioware go out of their way to be gender-diverse (and I do mean gender-diverse; not going to go into details due to spoiler reasons, but they seem to get better at this with every iteration. Plus, they're naturally far better at this when they're using their own IP.)

I have a lot of respect for Bioware for laying down so much money, and taking such reputational risks, on this (and on sexuality). But even they run into problems with this. Take Khalisa al-Jilani, a pointedly annoying reporter who turns up now and then in the Mass Effect games to harangue the protagonist; characters have the option of a violent response to her. However, that act of violence comes across significantly different when it's a male Shepard doing it rather than a female one. Even were it not for the fact that differential gender politics still exist in the setting, the gender difference in this scenario would cause it to have different meanings to the audience.

So in short, my feelings on this: more gender diversity overall in gaming would be (almost unquestionably) a good thing, though it'll require some risks from both audience and publishers. More gender diversity within individual games would be very good, though expensive and will therefore be slow progress. And total gender diversity in every individual game would be undesirably restrictive in terms of plot and writing.

[octopoid_horror]

Fallout: New Vegas handles diverse sexuality very well, without it involving player romance (although you can get shagged by a rather assertive robot, if that's your thing)

It also has a bisexual character who isn't portrayed as a sex-hungry slut, which is nice.

Mass Effect chat: since Bioware for some reason didn't allow for human/Krogan romance, it's still pretty cool that you can get together with Jaavik. Very awkwardly, admittedly.

It's also very neat that romance blossoms between two of your crew if you don't get involved with either of them.

[pashazade]

it's still pretty cool that you can get together with Jaavik. Very awkwardly, admittedly.

Do you mean after the party in Citadel? I woke up My Shep woke up with him and was terribly embarrassed - I'd been hoping she was hoping to rekindle things with Garrus. "Garrus! I am dancing awkwardly near you. Why do you not notice? We are both really good at shooting things. And now my heart is....fairly robust, actually. OOH, ALCOHOL!"

Dammit, now I need to go back to that half-finished playthrough of ME2.

[octopoid_horror]

Yep, that's it.

I was a one-Turian woman all the way through Mass Effect 2 & 3, because Garrus is a dreamboat. Also his totally awkward seduction made it all worthwhile. I have feelings about Garrus. ALL THE FEELINGS.

It's pretty awesome that you can mess things up with some of the "romance" too. If you approach Jack for sex earlier on when she's angry rather than romance later, she won't speak to you afterwards and it's just a one-off, and you can even end the game if you foolishly attempt to get things together with Morinth.

[octopoid_horror]

Also, Citadel is a great demonstration of why choices and characterisation matter in games. The whole point of Citadel is that who your Shepard is, who their friends are and what you choose to do really matters because half the DLC is pretty much just about those relationships and (since it came out after ME3 and blatantly works better as a coda than where it's meant to sit chronologically) getting some kind of happy but a shade bittersweet closure on Shepard & co.

If you were just a floating hand carrying a gun who made no meaningful narrative choices, the DLC wouldn't be nearly as good as it was.

I absolutely loved that two different players could experience the party completely differently, and every romance option leads to a different, equally cute, date.

[pashazade]

Citadel is probably the greatest piece of fan service ever made. It's how to do fan-service. It's a love-letter to the characters, to the players and to the game. (And contains some damn fine action gameplay). I did play it in the middle of my first playthrough, and knowing that my people were all off to fight the Reapers (and Shepherd did not think that many of them would survive*) made it gloriously poignant.

Mass Effect 3 is the only game that has ever made me cry.

-I am the very model of a Scientist....

*fade to black*"

[octopoid_horror]

Agreed.

I was also Somewhat Emotional at the end of events on Tuchanka, during the goodbyes before the final assault on the beacon, and at the end of Citadel when you're on the way to the Normandy.

I played Citadel about a week after completing ME3 and it worked perfectly as a coda, whether you took it as a flashback to happy times or as a "and they lived happily ever after". Hot sex with weird aliens and drunken parties in someone else's apartment are Why We Fight!

I tried starting a new playthrough of the trilogy as a renegade (I'd been all paragon, all the way through the trilogy) but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't be a bastard to Wrex, and it would get worse from there on.

It's always seemed really strange, looking at screenshots or watching gameplay videos because I imagine Shepard as looking like, well my Shepard. It just looks wrong if he/she is different to that.

[pashazade]

I was a one-Turian woman all the way through Mass Effect 2 & 3, because Garrus is a dreamboat. Also his totally awkward seduction made it all worthwhile. I have feelings about Garrus. ALL THE FEELINGS.

ALL THE FEELINGS. I was going to romance Garrus in ME2 anyway (I'd wanted to in the first game) but the awkward seduction made it so worthwhile. Not to mention "I had reach but she had....flexibility"

And Oh God! - Mordin's sex advice.

[octopoid_horror]

Garrus was also the least creepy romance by far. Everyone else in ME2 whether Shepard was male or female had a whole lot of awkward going along with it.

The parting dialogue with him at the finale of ME3 and the date you go on in Citadel were great too.

Also and most importantly he's Garrus.

I like to think that my Shepard and Garrus had galaxy-spanning adventures with Grunt as their wayward proxy son <3