Sexism in the gaming world

Sexism in the gaming world

Sexism has existed in the game world as long as both genders have been playing video games, it is one of those few controversial subjects in the gaming world that a lot of the time goes unnoticed and unfortunately unchecked.

Most men who have been caught making sexist comments towards woman in the online gaming world claim they were simply making harmless banter and joking around, if this is true then it is as equally as bad as if they were purposely making sexist comments.
On the other side of all this woman say they do notice the negative comments being made and a lot of the time just brush them off and don't bother repodning to who said them in the first place, a lot also said that the problem itself is due to the design of some mmo games where woman are depicted as sexual objects a lot of the time, as well as some actions they can perform in a game such as dancing in an mmo, is highly sexualized.

Thankfully there is hope to this issue that some games have been tackling head on to try and resolve.
One game in particular is in fact a game called leuge of legends, where a person's gender is not disclosed and when playing players are unable to tell the gender of there fellow team mates or enemy team mates, as well as that there is no in chat options and the typing options filter out any negative banter, this takes away most negative ways bad players can negatively go about saying awful things, this is a tactic most other could and should use, it works and makes the game more enjoyable for everyone, hopefully we'll be seeing this tactic used in more player based games in the future.

FALLOUT 3

Fallout 3 is one of those games that comes once in every year or so that launches a ridiculous amount of copycat games that try to reach the height of popularity that it did, only a few other titles have and only a few have surpassed it in its genre and one of those was its sequel’s Fallout New Vegas. I have chosen this game for a few key reason’s, both personal and for the fact that the game did so well for so many more reasons, the first is because it’s the game that got me into full on gaming and made me fall in love the post-apocalyptic genre and for me most importantly the art of the post-apocalyptic world. The main reasons for why I chose this game are because of the incredible amount of stuff you can do in the game and the different ways you can play the game not to mention the amazing story of course.

In the game you are placed in the somewhat unfortunate shoes of the lone wanderer, don’t let the name deceive you, you start out as a vault dweller which is a reference to the original game, but after the your father, the vault doctor leaves the vault which no one has ever done so in over 200 years not since Armageddon occurred, so you are told, and you are forced out of the vault on your own accord to a certain degree to search for your father and what happened to him and most importantly why he left in the first place, your journey takes you out of the vault and back into a few other ones, and out into what’s left of Washington DC or at least what’s left of it, at the start you charge head on into the quest to find your father but are very quickly side tracked with helping others, or joining their rival to rob them or just plain kill them and their rival. The many quests you’ll undertake range from a whole variety of things and come from a colourful range of people, some quests are questionable morally and others are clearly for the greater good, and almost all have repercussions no matter what choice or side you chose, above all one thing is clear, all roads will eventually after hours and hours of playing will lead you to your father, after you as the player actually realise that he was the person you were looking for in the first place you angrily ask him why he left you and his reasons are pretty dam just, what happens next in the game can range from too many options, so I’ll leave it to you the reader to discover what happens next.

The mechanics of the game are also what makes the game so legendary in its own right, the first thing most player realise at the start of a game is that you can play it as either a first person shooter or third person shooter, which is different compared to other games that don’t have “mmo” at the start of their titles. On top of that, the gameplay itself is fluent, fast paste and above all engaging, it also introduced something that hadn’t been seen before since one it’s more original titles back in the 90s, a little something called V.A.T.S, V.A.T.S allows you to in a way pause the games to select an area of you opponent to possibly land a critical hit on, the parts you can shot are pretty basic and where ever you hit will have a different effect, say you choose the leg to shoot and the opponent survives, for the rest of the gun fight or melee fight that opponent will be limping, or if you shoot an arm, this may have the chance for them dropping whatever weapon they are using and possibly even break it if you choose to shoot the weapon itself, but there’s a catch to all of this and that is there’s a chance you will miss or the opponent may even dodge the shot, it also depends on your positioning too, if you plan on shooting them in V.A.T.S you need to have a clear shot of the target, and if you do, the results are very much satisfying.

All up the game delivers as something to keep you entertained for hours on end, whether you play it for the in depth story or the fluent gameplay or just to explore the wasteland to see what there is to be seen, no matter the reason people play fallout 3 either way you will get sucked into the world as the lone wanderer.

By Lloyd Clasby

Genre

The subject of genre is a broad and wide subject that applies to many different things in a game, unlike most things in the game industry though it affects the very core of a game, the very essence of a game is what genre it is.

The base meaning of genre is what kind of game it is in the first place, is the game something that will shock you and have you jumping out of your chair? or is it a run and gun shooter where if something moves in the game the first thing you think to do is shot it.
Genre also affects the environment and general setting of the game, it may be in a lush jungle or a barren wasteland, but in some cases a game includes a bit of everything in a game and that too is a genre all on it's own on a whole other level, and is yet another example of  how broad the subject of genre is and will continue to get.

Ludonarrative Dissonance

Ludonarrative Dissonance is basically when somehting in a game doesn't quite add up or make sense and just plain makes you go "huh?".

This is an issue of which has exsisted in the gaming industry since its early arcade days, these days it mainly effects holes in storys or glitches that mess with the game but at first seem as if they were meant to be there. alot of these are fixed with bug patches or when it comes to the issues with the story, fixed in a sequal.

In some casses these bugs and story holes have actually worked out to make the game better and more popular and are sometimes even purposefully put in games, these are sometimes called "easter eggs" and are something that is to be expected in tripple A titles and are seeked out early after the games realease.

To sum up there really isnt a good or bad side to this whole thing, the mistakes that are made in this are either made apart of the game or simply vanish in a games patch shortly after they are spotted.

Graphics vs Story

The discussion of graphics vs story is one that has been going on for a while, both sides have a rather large amount of people supporting the two and it has been a discussion on the even more so rise with better graphics coming in with better game engines and even more epic and all inspiring story’s to top last year’s epic tale.

Graphics today have been getting better and better with advances in computer technology and how far you can actually push a game system graphic wise, with games coming out that are as big as a continent and look amazing graphics seem to be going stringer than even in the game industry and showing no signs of stopping especially with new and better game engines coming out and the latest consoles both being more affordable than ever, graphics are on the up and up and it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop anytime soon.

Everyone loves an epic story that gets your heart racing and the emotions going off, epic stories are everywhere in the world but in the games industry you can’t just use any old story you heard or read about, it’s got to be even more epic than last year’s amazing tale of hero’s and monsters and plot twists, it needs to always be more than its predecessor, more epic, more amazing just more in every way, it’s this very drive for more is what makes new game story’s always better and it’s rather clear that this is going to continue as long as there are games to play and people to gawk in amazement.

Both sides have their good and are rather equal in ways as well but what is better? That friendly reader is up to you.

3D VS 2D

The battle between the greatest of the great is a battle that has been raged since video games infant days, the pros and cons of these two legendary graphics has been as level as that the hate people have for white chocolate to dark, there are equal amounts of good and bad two these two and the war doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon in fact it looks more along the lines of speeding up.

3D made its first major daube in the early 90s with the release of games like tank wars and maze wars, both had very early 3D graphics but back then they were pretty damn impressive and still are in their own way even today, these day 3D graphics are used primarily in triple A games, this is mainly because games of this stature are more so meant to immerse the player more than anything and with today’s 3D graphics the best way to do this is with 3D graphics.

2D, a graphic option that almost all games are built off or evolved from, one that even today is heavily used, some of the top games use 2D graphic and still have the ability to look amazing, Minecraft is a damn good example of this, on top of that, 2D games have the ability to not only look amazing but be massive, due to their lack of graphics the games can be as big as the developer wants, again Minecraft is a good example of this.

So which is better? That’s not up to me that’s up to you.