"That's no moon!"
On April 1st, amongst all the pranking, Valve quietly released the Potato Sack deal on Steam. Another in the distributor’s kickass indie bundles, this one offers 13 games including Audiosurf, Amnesia: The Dark Decent, and Super Meat Boy for $37 (75% of the games’ regular prices). As if that wasn’t enough, buyers also get a TF2 “potato hat”. It’s a great deal, and lots of gamers — myself included — snatched it up.
But as people began to play the games in their Sack bundle, they noticed something odd. Namely… potatoes. Everywhere. Some of the games have potato levels. Some have a giant potato in the background where there wasn’t one before. And, um, who is Super Potato Boy?
It turns out that Valve is set on maintaining their postion as the coolest developers/distributors ever, and infused the Potato Sack with elements of an Alternate Reality Game (or ARG), probably for the impending release of Portal 2. (Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Portal 2!) There is, of course, a wiki where folks are documenting their Sack discoveries and trying to figure out what it all means.
I have loved ARGs ever since The Beast in 2001, and it’s nice to see Valve carrying on this fine tradition.
About a week ago Dragon Age 2 player Bastal posted an impassioned plea on the official Bioware forums asking the developers to think of the poor straight male gamer. Basically, Bastal feels that Bioware games in the past been have “designed for the [straight] male gamer in mind” and that this trend should be continued indefinitely. Bastal senses that he is not the only target market for DA2 and is quite put out about it, going so far as asking for a “No Homosexuality” toggle.
A few different responses come to mind:
1) There are no options for straight males in DA2?! One of the potential companions is Isabella, a hot busty rogue chick in a thong. It’s hard to get more direct than that! Bastal dismisses her as being “exotic”, which sounds suspiciously close to “not white enough”.
2) DA2 is a role playing game. I am entirely straight in real life, for example, but in-game my female Hawke is knockin’ boots with Isabella because that’s what I imagined her character would do. A role-playing game does not have to reflect real-life preferences.
3) I am utterly confused by Bastal picking DA2 of all things as his masculinity hill to die on. Anecdotally, 90% of the people I know who bought the game are women! Bioware knows their market better than I do, but Dragon Age (and Mass Effect, for that matter) has always struck me as a franchise that would heavily appeal to a wider array of gamers than usual.
In short, in an industry where the vast, vast, vast majority of products are catered to the interests of one group, it’s insulting to complain that you don’t have 100% of that market’s attention.
Of course, DA2 Head Writer David Gaider answered Bastal better than I can, particularly with this bit:
“You can write it off as “political correctness” if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They’re so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don’t see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what’s everyone’s fuss all about? That’s the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.”
My favorite response, though, has to be this snarky one posted in a MetaFilter thread on the subject: “I’m not a gamer, but it sounds like pretending to be straight is hard when there are other options.”
Hollywood is making a live action version of the anime classic Akira? Well, um.. okay. I can’t really imagine how that will work, but I guess I’m willing to wait and see.
Wait, Hollywood is making a live action version of the anime classic Akira with the leads being played by pretty white guys? And Robert Pattinson is short-listed for Tetsuo? Oh.. well I’m willing.. to.. wait.. and.. AHHHHHHHHHHH. WHYYYYYYYYYYY.
I believe this YouTube video shows some rushes from the new production. *cough*
The Sims is cute, but says nothing about the human experience except that if you spend the whole day eating pizza in your room, the night will be full of weeping and someone will poop on the furniture.
— MetaFilter user byanyothername in a great thread on female game character design (click for link!)Further to our rant about the Dragon Age 2 DLCs earlier this week, IGN just posted a review of both new “expansion” packs and found them to be wanting. Huh, the DLCs seemed light on content? Well color me surpri– oh, no wait, that’s exactly as I expected. Thpppppbbbbbbbbpt.
(On a different topic, we have a Prolixity Facebook page now! Please friend us if you’re so inclined.)
The much anticipated Dragon Age II launches today in North America. RPG nerds, rejoice! Most of us probably won’t get around to playing it until after work tonight, but you’d better hussle because the first DLC content pack is already being promoted.
Wait, what?
That’s right, the company that brought you the haggling NPC in Dragon Age: Origins has topped their previous levels of irritating shilling by releasing the full game and promoting the first DLC at the same time. Remember when DLCs were actual packs that extended content after a game had been out for a while? Is there any reason to believe that The Exiled Prince isn’t just content that was ripped out of the main game to be sold for extra money later?
Bioware makes excellent games, and are widely known for the making of said excellent games, but their attitude towards DLCs is getting insulting. I just want to hit some trolls without feeling like I’m being shaken by the ankles for any spare change.
But don’t just take my word for it: Rock Paper Shotgun is downright curmudgeonly about The Exiled Prince pack.
There better be a lot of combat micromanagement, sideboob, and charming British princes in DA2 to make up for this mess, or I will TOTALLY consider not buying Mass Effect 3. For a few minutes, anyway.
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