In which the creators of the Orange Box are all sexist.

[zombine]

[Alja-Markir]

Is the game that entertaining? Or that gruesome?

The game isn't quite as directly funny of course, but the section where the heavy and the scout are fighting over the sandwhich in the one video? The sound clips employed there are from the game itself, with animation made to match. The voices from the videos are the same, albeit in shorter, different responses and taunts and stuff, and they're quite fun and funny.

In other areas, it's entertaining in a different way. Certainly the fast paced nature of the game leads to some great moments, as does the chaotic nature of things. A lot of times you'll be fighting like mad and somehow you'll either die incredibly, kill someone incredibly, or watch someone get killed incredibly, and it's kind of a mix of "Whoah!" "Awesome!" and "HAHAHAHA! HOLY CRAP!" all rolled together.

There are also lots of times when a good plan and good teamwork just comes together, and those times feel awesome. It's probably the best multiplayer FPS I've ever played, because it's polished, balanced, exuberant, gorgeous to look at, and light-hearted enough to keep you from getting too pissed off every time someone kills you. The implementation of a kill-cam, showing you who killed you and from where, also adds to making it less painful to get sniped without warning or such.

As for the gruesomeness, guys do explode like in those videos, and they do roll around in bits with large blood sprays, but it's all very cartoony and stylized so it's not all that shocking. The blood was actually implemented for practical purposes, as a way of indicating to a player that they hit their target. You shoot someone with a pistol head on, you see a large and visible blood spray to the side of your target, against normal physics, to act as a visual indicator of a hit. Very useful.

~Alja~

- Addendum -

1) I find that drawing to be... I dunno.. it seems offensive on some level. Not sure. More at eleven.

2) I think a big factor in making the TF2 characters male is the target audience. The typical FPS player is male, and is expecting to roughhouse with other guys in a kinda brotherly frag fest. Overall, most men prefer to play male characters.

There is, of course, an exception. I call it The Chun Li Effect. Back when I was a lad, I played Street Fighter II a lot and I loved to use Chun Li as my go-to fighter. The reason, aside from being good with her, was that I kinda had a sort of "That's my girl! Kiss his ass!" attitude toward her. I always felt a disconnect, because I couldn't exactly put myself in her shoes mentally, but I could root her on and coach her, so to speak. By comparison, whenever I played as Zangief for example, I never had that disconnect. It was always the first person "Yeah! I just crushed his head with a dropkick!" instead of the second person "Ooh, nice shot Chun Li!"

[Scone]

Mostly, I'm curious about whether this was done to help market the game. I'm worried that the cast of TF2 was made all male because they thought that the players would all be male and they only wanted to feature those archetypes which would most excite the players. There's nothing wrong with this; most/all games are made this way. It just seems kind of lame if such a major factor behind the design of the characters was marketability. I like to think Valve is more interesting than that.

Maybe even because they have some idea that TF2 is likely to osmose some of the Counter Strike crowd.
"Dude, you play as a girl? What a total cockfag."

Wow, I rambled again. 10 more points if you read it.

=D

[Scone]

Is the game that entertaining? Or that gruesome?

As for the gruesomeness, guys do explode like in those videos, and they do roll around in bits with large blood sprays, but it's all very cartoony and stylized so it's not all that shocking. The blood was actually implemented for practical purposes, as a way of indicating to a player that they hit their target. You shoot someone with a pistol head on, you see a large and visible blood spray to the side of your target, against normal physics, to act as a visual indicator of a hit. Very useful.

~Alja~

If happen to be eliminated in a way that causes you to explode, and the person who did it happens to be near the crater when the kill cam goes in for the still frame, little chat bubbles will appear over parts of your body letting you know which part the body it was. I think my personal best was when the game identified six different body parts.

"This is your head!"
"Here's a part of your leg!"
"Your right hand!"
"Your liver!"

[Sable]

why is the demo-man a ridiculous scottish black guy

Because it is awesome.

TF2 is a lot of fun, and the Incredibles-style artwork makes it impossible to take it seriously. It's a game to blow off steam and have a good time. It's all very tongue-in-cheek.

[emma]

1) I find that drawing to be... I dunno.. it seems offensive on some level. Not sure. More at eleven.

I find it pretty awesome. Though I enjoy how three of the girls are still wearing skirts, and there's two more in huge heels. I love the sexism that is just normal in popular culture - you never see female superheroes in anything other than 3 inch heels. Practical.

Also, Alja, thanks for the info on the game, it was interesting.

[Cake]

I begin by admitting that I am not the first person to figure this out, but like Jer and the Monorail (a children's book title if I've ever heard one), I came to this realization on my own.

Portal contains only women (I will not call the companion cube a man, despite any use of the masculine pronoun; we are discussing sentients, not affectionates) and TF2 contains only men (let's just agree that the pyro, though masked, does not have breasts).

Do you think the teams putting this game together thought about that when they were doing it? The entirely single-player game has only women, the entirely multi-player game has only men. Were they trying to state that women are less likely to multi-play than men? Were they trying to echo an already accepted (though dubious) belief among game creators? Did they miss an opportunity to turn this whole thing on its head by not playing with the gender issue more than they did?

Do you care?

It means women are more likely to need to escape froma psycho computer, and men are more likely to kill each other over a brief case.

[The Happy Friar]

TF2 was all male because it was a winder-waker artistic take on the original TF for Quake: over the top blowing crap up (the Q1 TF had more attitude then the remakes/ports for other games did, nobody could pull it off until TF2). Nothing more complex then that.

Portal used female persona's because it's more pleasing to everyone & fit the general tone of the game. Could of been a 12 year old boy who hadn't hit puberty too or brent spiner, wouldn't of mattered. A pleasant voice to hear = a pleasant voice to hear.You project portals not because you're some vagina loving hussy but because it's cool & nobody's made a game like that before.

there's nothing "deep" about either game. No political or sexism statements, you just play a game. Next we'll hear how chinese checkers is much more feminine them "regular" checkers because there's no kings & you have dips in the board, obviously vagina's.

[Alja-Markir]

Could of been a 12 year old boy who hadn't hit puberty too or brent spiner, wouldn't of mattered.

Commander Data: Computer, please start program Portal0017.

*beedle-dee!*

~Alja~

[DicyDax]

I say you suffer from offensisensitivity (or whatever that's called)

[Vaughn]

I say you suffer from offensisensitivity (or whatever that's called)

Thats correct,
give or take an obsolete hyphen

[Corax]

no i dont care and whoever thought of this is sexist.

[Wraith]

Dude, if you stretched any further you'd be Dhalsim.

[Jer]

I think the Heavy is pretty obviously a post-op transsexual.

Actually, there have been a lot of good articles put out regarding a feminist interpretation of Portal, from affective to psychoanalytic. That said none of them will ever be considered to be of academic rigor because they are based on video games.

As far as TF2 is concerned, I would remember a couple of things. First, TF2 is the sequel to a game in which the same or similar characters appeared, albeit under a less cartoony guise. In that game, all the characters were male. Second, it makes little sense to make only certain characters female and certain characters not, especially when this distinction in and of itself could enforce gender stereotypes. Finally, while giving the player the option of choosing a sex might seem the obvious answer, this would undermine one of the basic innovations of TF2: when I look across an area, regardless of lighting, particles or other factors, I know who is shooting at me because I can see their silhouette. Twice as many models means twice as many character types, and this could make the characters harder to recognize at a glance.

[blackdragontaz]

why is the demo-man a ridiculous scottish black guy with one eye

Why not? It makes for the lolz.

[Unclever title]

why is the demo-man a ridiculous scottish black guy with one eye

Because he's a stereotypical non-stereotype.

Plus it's hilarious.

[RandomCheese]

Spy- Possible, this would be the opposite logic of the sniper; a female assassin/sapper.

Well technically it wouldn't work unless all of the characters are females, seeing as the spy's main purpose is to disguise themselves as the enemy.

Maybe the reason why all the caracters in TF2 are men is because some people may find it wrong to hurt a lady.

[iwashere33]

why not petition valve to make a patch to change them all into nude women?

[SecondChild]

The entire gaming industry is male-centered in its marketing and usually in gameplay, as well.

Personally, I would consider Chell being the protagonist of Portal to be a step in the right direction, and hence the Orange Box is less sexist than many games where you have no option for a female protagonist, let alone no choice but to play as a female.

*shrug*

[Mats]

It seems this hasn't been posted yet: Neko's female scout.


Another thing to consider is that the game is kinda old fashion, like this is the mid fifties if you disregard the high-tech. Personally I picture the female scout as a more rockabilly gal. With low-cut shoes without heels and an office/pants dress (can't run very well in a skirt can ya?)

But it is as you say; it's stereotypes, and for females they can't really use modern stereotypes (yey, big boobs and thin waists, that would be even more sexist than the total absence of the opposite gender).


I'd say, most of the world suffers from offensive sensibility, why do you think that the demo man has a Scottish accent instead of maybe an African? Well first it's rad he's a scottsman =) second, it reduced the chance of being sued or slandered from being accused of racism.

Addendum: take in mind that the classes has to be equal, therefore the hitboxes of the characters needs to be the same. Ergo, the characters need to be the same size. The world is not very sensible about depicting large and fat men, a woman in the same size might not be so accepted.


///MJ

[SecondChild]

She has detachable arms?! =0

[Alja-Markir]

I think I figured out what I find so disconcerting about that above image, with the whole crew "feminized". Not a single one of them is ugly. None of them are overweight. None of them isn't "sexy" or "cute" or both, and that's pretty much my single biggest complaint in the portrayal of women in modern media is that they are only ever shown airbrushed and "beautified".

Every last one of the male characters are somewhat ugly. Every last one of the female counterparts is made out to be like a doll. It's a difference in social expectations. If a woman isn't twenty pounds underweight her whole life she's called fat, but guys can be twenty pounds overweight and no one notices. Women who don't wear make-up are considered plain, but almost no men wear makeup. Women are expected to wear closely fit clothing, men often wear loose comfortable clothes instead because there's no pressure not to. It goes on and on.

Look at almost every video game in history. The women characters tend to fall into a few basic stereotypes. A popular one is Amazon-esque, rough and tumble women (who still manage to be "sexy", with massive breasts and idealized figures) like Tifa Lockheart, Lara Croft, Morrigan Aensland, Samus Aran, etc. Then there are the Cleric-esque characters, typically small and weak, they're largely healers, magic users, or have "magic-girl" style powers of some sort, who play up the "cute" aspect of things (or perhaps the "Lolita" aspect), with examples including Aeris Gainsborough, Princess Peach, Talim, Princess Zelda, etc.

~Alja~

[Cake]

Do you have a problem with good looking girls? Are you jealous of them?

[Allen!]

Alja, you could say that males typically fall into the same sort of stereotypes, as well. ZOMG SEXISM.

It's fantasy, dude. It's escapism. If I wanted real life shit, I'd go out into the street, guns blazing, to see all the ugly people I wanted. Turrah.


Turns out, in the long run, nobody gives a shit. That scout has a mannish face ANYWAY, sorry to burst your bubble. All it is a dude with a slightly overdeveloped chest. Oh my. That's totally not uncommon in the real world, actually. So, it's just another scout guy. Awesome.



Why, pray tell, do people - men and women both - feel the need to point out things like this? Who the fuck cares? Don't we have better things to do than worry about whether so-and-so's tits are Bs or Cs, or if whatshisface is a total jerk to all the women around him?

Games are tailored to their ideal demographic. Lemme ask you a quick question, and let's see if you can get this one right:
What are the vast majority(VAST.) of gamers, console or otherwise?

Take a quick second. Think about it. You can do it.

Did you say "Male"? If so, you're correct! What do boys like? If you're a guy, you can answer this one. If you're a girl and you can't answer it... Then you're like, eight, or something.

Guys love tits. Guys love curves. Any guy that doesn't is going to marry a fat chick and live in a trailer park. Or they're gay. So guys like to play guys that make them feel bad ass, so they can save the big titted, slow witted girl that can't help herself for shit. I don't know what women want to play, and I don't honestly care, because I don't even play video games so I can drool, or because I like the political ramifications of the game, or the lovely gender balance or imbalance.

I play games cause they're good.

Is TF2 good? Is the Orange Box good?
I say yes, so... Shut up. Stop talking about this.


/rant



I bet this was like... Three weeks too late to really matter, but the thread got bumped, and I felt like ranting about piddly things.

And if you think the Pyro is attractive in that picture... Seek help.

[SecondChild]

Here is a mock-up for a female Heavy Weapons expert I found on another forum:



Might be a closer analog, but the little girl with a minigun from the above posted picture seems much funnier to me. Although perhaps unfair, since you want HWs to be large (hence easy) targets.

Whatever, it's all just personal preference. People are going to make mods, it happens. If you don't like the options that are already out there, make your own. *shrug*

Oh, and on the topic of the female scout pic posted above; that's a great character design. Functional and funny.