Men in distress, and the women who save them

Have y’all been keeping up with Anita Sarkeesian’s Damsel in Distress video series, which “explores how the damsel in distress became one of the most widely used gendered clichés in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself.” The second episode was just released yesterday, and it covers violence against women in videogames within the previously mentioned trope. Sarkeesian’s analysis is very interesting and well-executed (save for one moment where she breaks professionalism for a snarky jab of Bionic Commando‘s main dude’s arm), but be warned, there are graphic scenes of violence against women used throughout, and spoilers are an unconcerned thing of the past, for games both new (Pandora’s Tower) and old (Breath of Fire IV).

I do hope that Sarkeesian eventually examines that games that do–or try to–steer away from the blatant damsel in distress trope, whether successfully or not. I agree fully with her point that you can like and love something immensely while at the same time also be critical of its problematic parts. Heck, take Fallout: New Vegas, a game that literally freezes or glitches out every time I play it, but I just enjoy the world so much that I keep coming back. That said, I also think there is something beneficial to be gained from praising the games that try to go a different route.

Before we get going, let me come clean. I am a writer and an artist, a creator if you will, and some of my previously published work might possibly have hints of the damsel in distress. I say hints as I don’t believe I have it exactly on the nose, often using the trope as a base and then spinning it so that the damsel ends up saving herself. Most importantly is The Stolen Lovelight, a short graphic novel that I wrote and my wife Tara Abbamondi drew. It is about a young woman named Arisia Randir who is trapped in a terrible relationship. With seemingly no way out, she ends up paying for her own kidnapping. Men and men-like things will try to save her from further trouble, but she’d rather handle things on her own and find a new place to call home. And that’s my pitch, I guess.

Originally, I tried to come up with some kind of cute, whimsical title to counter the whole damsel in distress thing (like Distressed Dudes), but my short analysis is better served with a straightforward approach, and so listed below are a few videogames that I’m aware of where you play as a woman, and you’re off to rescue a man…a man in distress.

Beyond Good & Evil

One of the earlier missions in Beyond Good & Evil has green-lipped, photo-snapping Jade sneaking into a DomZ facility to rescue Double H, a heavily built IRIS operative who has been kidnapped and tortured to the point of incompetence. His physical appearance against Jade is striking, what with him fully decked out in a knight’s suit of armor. I suspect that Michel Ancel was having some fun here, as now you are the knight in metaphorically shining armor in this scenario, plucking him from harm’s way to get him on your team. Later on, Pey’j, the father figure in Jade’s life, also gets kidnapped, giving you a reason to fly to the moon.

Primal

Man, I really love Primal, and yet it’s a game I’ve never completed. Grrr. It’s on my wishlist for 2013, but we’re almost halfway through the year, and I’ve made zero progress on putting the game’s disc in my PlayStation 2. Granted, I am working on Chrono Cross at the moment, so there’s at least that. Anyways, in Primal, you play as Jennifer Tate, a 21-year-old woman who has to travel through various demonic realms to retrieve her stolen boyfriend. Lewis is in a band, but a bunch of demons believe that they need him to…uh, create chaos. So he is abducted, and Jen is hospitalized. A tiny gargoyle helps her on her path to saving her boyfriend and, ultimately, the world.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest has the evil pirate Kaptain K. Rool nabbing the titular hero of the first game. You know who I speak of. Turns out, despite being a crocodile, he really loves his fruit, and won’t hand Donkey Kong back over unless Diddy returns his previously stolen hoard of bananas. More importantly, you can play as Dixie Kong, Diddy’s girlfriend, who can use her ponytail as both a weapon and way to glide across large gaps.

—

I know it’s only three examples, but those are all I can think of at the moment where the man is in distress, and you play as the woman (er, female monkey in Dixie’s case) rescuing him.

Can y’all think of any others? Inform me in the comments section below.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #19 – Fire Emblem: Awakening

The trials of Chrom
Cost many their lives, too bad
Permadeath is tough

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Nowi and Norne are no more as Fire Emblem: Awakening marches on

In actuality, Fire Emblem: Awakening‘s Chapter 23 “Invisible Ties” could have ended with several other deaths, but only Nowi and Norne fell down, never to get back up. That now brings the total to…21 dead characters in this permadeath playthrough. I am unstoppable.

One of those two that kicked the bucket is a main story character, who I recently married to Kellam and saw have a half-mime, half-dragon child with, and the other came from the Bonus Box, which means she is, alas, nonessential. But she was pretty special to me, seeing that I had leveled Norne up to 20, then reclassed her to a Sniper, and had her hit the level cap for a second time. She was wicked killer with all kinds of bows and had excellent range, so seeing her struck swiftly down was not easy to endure. Nowi, as a Manakete, which is the Fire Emblem way of saying dragon, was not very active in battle, having only the ability to breath a fireball now and then via Dragonstones. I used her enough to form a relationship with Kellam and bring forth her future kid, but that was about it. She “retired” at the ripe age of over 1,000 years old.

::pours one out for the bow and the beast::

However, as I’ve come to experience in Fire Emblem: Awakening, everything balances out. So while I lost two members of the Shepherds, I also gained two new ones. Alas, for extremely story-related reasons, I can’t say who I got, and hopefully I can keep them alive long enough to not have to spoil y’all over their reveal. I like them flavor-wise, but neither seem to be anything great in terms of weapons and skills, and seeing how late they are joining my team, I won’t have many more chances to grind them up in levels and relationships. I wonder if I can get a future child from them though…

Anyways, based on what happens in Chapter 23 and how it relates to the opening level of the game, I kind of thought it was the final battle, but it looks like there are a few more to go. Despite all my losses, I think I can do it. The Shepherds will  be victorious. I know, famous last words.

How do you pronounce Serge in Chrono Cross?

Yesterday, I finally got around to kickstarting my goal of finishing these five videogames some time this year, starting off with Chrono Cross. It’s an RPG I’ve played countless times before, but always only up to a specific point; generally, it is around the time you switch, for story-related reasons, from controlling Serge to controlling Lynx. Tara recently replayed, too–well, back in October 2011–but she ended up getting stuck somewhere. I don’t remember where. Maybe she can elaborate in the comments below. I dunno…I just lose interest after awhile, and then something new and shiny takes hold of me, and I never return, which is a shame as it is one of my favorite gaming adventures thanks to its stellar soundtrack and versatile combat system. I blame myself more than the Frozen Flame.

I’ve got just about four hours under my re-playing belt at this point, but I’ll save my musings and love and admiration stuff for a separate post. For now, let’s talk about something that Tara and I can’t agree on: how to pronounce Serge’s name. To me, I say it like “surge of water,” and given what happens to him in the alternate realm…well, that fits. Tara, however, pronounces it like “ser gey,” with a flair to the whole thing. I’m not so sure how I like that. Since this is the PlayStation 1 and voice acting was extremely limited back in the day, we don’t ever hear anyone say his name out loud, especially since the player can also change it to Pauly or Potasio or whatever they feel like calling our blue-haired silent protagonist. And so I turn to you, dear Grinding Down readers, to voice your opinions.

All right, hopefully there’s a poll below for you to click on. I don’t make many of these so I’m not too confident on how to embed ’em. If it’s there, say your peace:

Doritos Crash Course 2, now with free-to-play gimmicks

Over the years, I’ve stepped away from Doritos. It all really started when I got seriously ill the day Obama was first sworn into office–not because, just using that day in history to place you in the moment–and ended up vomiting a lot back in my teeny, tiny studio apartment before passing out for hours in bed while FX continuously played Troy for like six to eight hours. It was a nightmare. And I had eaten some Doritos Cool Ranch chips earlier for lunch that day, and well…they weren’t any better coming up. Ever since then, I’ve fully stayed away from all things Cool Ranch–called Cool American in Sweden, something I learned recently from Giant Bomb–but have, on occasion, enjoyed a Nacho Cheese chip now and then.

But I’m not here to just talk about chips. Doritos does other stuff, too. Like videogames. Well, they support folks making games and use their name to brand it. If you’ll recall with me, back in late 2010, a game called Doritos Crash Course was released for free on the Xbox 360. It was surprising, for sure, an energetic mix of timed platforming and region-related spectacle, but fun all around. As well as free. It’s now been a couple years, and we’re getting the sequel for free too, though it has changed quite dramatically, even if it looks and–for the most part–tastes the same.

Instead of having levels based around specific regions like the United States or Japan, they are now built thematically. The first one is a jungle, maybe Mayan-based. And the second one appears to be snowy. Don’t know what the other two look like. Originally, your goal was simply to get to the end of the course in the best time, avoiding pitfalls along the way; now, as you run left to right, you can collect Stars, tackle secondary objectives, and use alternate paths to get to the end faster and much more successfully. Stars are used to purchase things outside of the level–these can be Avatar accessories, which do come with a stat and flavor text, or additional levels, side paths, and jinxes. And then this is where Doritos Crash Course 2 shows its free-to-play side, with you being able to buy additional Stars with real money. Well, real money that you turn into Microsoft Points. But still: microtransactions.

Just like in Happy Wars, I can easily ignore all the FTP gimmicks until it gets in my way of actually playing the game. So far, that hasn’t happened, though it looks like I’ve have to return to previously completed courses to find hidden stars if I want enough to unlock more levels. No big deal. I just don’t want to have to pay for power-ups or extra Stars in hope of progressing forward. The game suffers from tiny text syndrome, which makes reading some of the level requirements and secondary objectives dang difficult, but when in full screen, the game is pretty and runs smoothly. You can now run up walls, too, which I don’t remember being in the original, and it can be tricky, though Tara found a way to squirrel hop from wall to wall which is pretty effective. Hey, we also played some local multiplayer, too, which zooms out extremely far, but we were still able to run and climb with the best of ’em.

Looking forward to checking out more. Oh, and it is still a ton of fun to slide down a slope, jump to a trampoline, and fly over some deadly obstacle to finish in first place. Mostly because my Avatar whips out an electric guitar and jams.

Had to kill off Cordelia in Fire Emblem: Awakening to make room for future kids

All right, another one down and out–by that I mean “retired” this time, not dead dead–in Fire Emblem: Awakening. No surprise, really: it’s Cordelia, a member of Ylisse’s Pegasus Knight Squad. And that means a single thrown stone can take her out, and since the enemy AI loves to attack the most vulnerable character at any given chance, even if it makes no sense strategy-wise, she fell fast after I accidentally moved her too close to a horseback archer’s range. A shame, really, as things were turning around for the Shepherds. Well, in my eyes, at least; everyone totally understands that, at this point, I’ve now killed 20 of my loyal friends, which irrefutably means I’m a terrible tactician. But we were growing closer, like a family.

Speaking of that, I got myself married. Woo! Well, for a second time. Don’t tell Tara. Her name is Say’ri, an old-fashioned princess if there ever was one, and we’re pretty pleased as punch to become one. From that, we were able to create our future kid Morgan. Kellam and Nowi also hooked up, producing a future dragon baby with the best name ever: Nah. Unfortunately, I flubbed up; long before these two marriages came and happened, with me learning how the future kid paralogues worked, I had Stahl and Panne unite in true love. However, during their kid’s paralogue battle, I accidentally picked the wrong side, and the only other rabbit beast thing left the realm for good, slain by what could have been her new companions and parents. My bad. I didn’t know…though I totally should have known.

So, lost one, but gained two. I also managed to complete both Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 with everyone safe and sound. Alas, at this point, I can’t really make many more kids because most of the story-related characters needed for pairing up with those that still remain and are kidless…are dead. See, I knew there would be drastic consequences to this whole permadeath thing. Poor Frederick must now cut off his genitals and become a eunuch.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #18 – inFAMOUS 2

Cole: ice or fire
Stop the Beast, cure the sick, save
New Marais, shocking

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Collected all those scattered Blast Shards in inFAMOUS 2

I’m nearing the end of inFAMOUS 2–sorry, quick aside, but I previously wrote the game’s name as inFamous 2, and the copyeditor in me will not rest until I owned up to the error and corrected it going forward even if it is a weird way to write something–and I don’t expect to ever play it again despite their being two paths to go down. One is good and saintly with ice powers in tow, and the other is evil and dark, circled by fire. If you know me, you know which way I’m playing; for those that are new, I’m always a good Samaritan first. It’s not that I don’t enjoy playing evil from time to time, but I get the sense that the game doesn’t change a whole lot by doing a few missions morally different.

With the last mission, I assume it’s the last since it is called “The Final Decision,” in sight, I’m trying to wrap up a number of side stuff before I close the book on Cole’s second chapter. My main objectives are finding all the Dead Drops, liberating the second island fully, and collecting all the Blast Shards. Maaaaaybe play a few more user-generated levels. Out of those three dreams, I’ve now found all hidden Blast Shards, and as a collectible, they are both a lot of fun to collect, as well as extremely rewarding in that a set number of them increase the amount of electricity power Cole can use. They remind me a bit of Precursor Orbs from the Jak and Daxter franchise, and nothing of those dumb flags from Assassin’s Creed. There is certainly an art to collectibles, something I’d like to explore down the line.

Basically, any time you ping the New Marais map for sources of electricity, Blast Shards appear for a second or two as a blue dot. Then you gotta find them, and they are relatively easy to see as they are glowing crystals, but most of them are tucked up high on rooftops or ledges, meaning you have to do some climbing. In total, there’s 305 of them, and you’ll come across them every step of the way early on in the game. It’s only after you’ve found about three-fourths of them that you have to begin paying attention and hunting them down, which is not as tiresome as one might think, thanks to Cole’s superhero powers of zipping up buildings and gliding across telephone wires. I found my 305th one out in the water last night, and upon collecting it, Cole accidentally took a dip, dying from the splash. Regardless, I got the Trophy, and I do believe it’s my first Gold one, unless I got one in Vanquish.

Tonight’s goal is to find three (or maybe it’s four?) more flying birds for the rest of the Dead Drops. I think I have run out of side missions though, meaning I can’t free the second island from enemy oppression. Might be wrong, might have to check online to see if there’s anything else I can do. After that, it’s off for Cole to fight the Beast, use the RFI, and watch another classic ol’ Western with his best bud Zeke. Mostly because then I can download Sleeping Dogs (free this month for PlayStation Plus users!) and have some more zany open-world fun, though probably with a lot less zapping and sticky ice grenades. Can’t say that for sure though.

TOOM, a clickable moment in one man’s nonsensical day

All right, I’ve given another Ludum Dare 26 game a go. This time, it’s TOOM by Mike Kasprzak and Derek Laufman. Overall, I’d call it pretty slow and highly nonsensical, but still worth your clicks, if only to experience the way the camera works as you move around the screen. Also, it looks fantastic, thanks to solid animation, a phantasmagoric color scheme, and pixels that shine with character, even if many of the items ultimately aren’t used.

In TOOM, you control a generic-looking working man–he’s got a tie and either a name badge or pocket protecter thing going on with his button-down shirt–on what I have to assume is his day off. His apartment consists of one long room, which sits high up in the trees on metal stilts, swaying lightly in the wind. It’s obviously future tech, and so I’m sure no one is worried about large gusts or mindless lumberjacks, but you’d never catch me relaxing way up so high. You can click around on different items in the room, and at the far right end of it is something called a Hyper Tube, which you can’t use just yet. Though not explicitly said, the goal is to use that tube. As you click around and open cabinets and trash cans in search of clues, a few items get added to your inventory. Eventually, after all your hard work–I won’t spoil the step-by-step solution though I will say that not everyone is a fan of frozen friends–you are able to use the Hyper Tube. Cue black screen with the word FIN on it. All in all, took me about ten minutes to get through.

My two biggest problems with TOOM are as follows: 1) the ambient music loops, but not endlessly, cutting back to the beginning of the song in a jarring manner after a minute or two, which even causes the game to stutter for a half-second and 2) the inventory and how to use the items within it was not easy to grok. In fact, I think I just got lucky most of the time, constantly clicking on literally everything I could. Guess I’m use to being able to click an item in the inventory and then click what to use it on. Wanted more, even if it was just a text description, mostly because I’m not sure why that thing that was in the freezer was in the freezer. Fairly small complaints, really.

Even after completing the game, I don’t fully understand its name…wait, is the joke that TOOM backwards is moot, which can mean “of little or no practical value or meaning.” Is that it? If so, I don’t think that’s entirely the case here and the developers might be a bit too hard on themselves, but when your reward for finally figuring out exactly what each item is used for and getting into that Hyper Tube is a fart and toilet flush…well, yeah, it does feel kind of unessential in the long haul.

Two more deaths and a confession for Fire Emblem: Awakening

I have a confession to make: I reloaded a previous save in Fire Emblem: Awakening last night after losing too many–in my opinion–key characters during Chapter 19 “The Conquerer,” which felt like a slaughtering in all definitions of the word. And by key, here is who died during that one battle: Kellam, Nowi, and Norne. Two main storyline characters and one downloadable archer from the Bonus Box section, but I was mostly annoyed with losing Kellam, as at this point in the game I’ve reclassed him to be a Great Knight, making him an efficient killing machine. So yeah, I felt a conflicting twist in my chest the entire time, watched the cutscene after the battle, and decided restart my 3DS before I got too far in and accidentally saved away my digital friends.

The irony is that after reloading my previous save, I lost two other characters afterwards while grinding in better preparation for a second stab at Chapter 19. I figured that this was the game’s way of punishing me for going against my promise of permadeath all the way through. I’m not the only one feeling that hurt; see ya, Olivia and Mycen–it’s been real.

Right. I was using Reeking Boxes in some of the later parts of the map–depending where you use the item, the stronger the enemies will be, which of course means more XP to be gained–and this map was inside a castle, which meant tight halls and limited movement. Unfortunately, I moved Olivia too close to Serra, my healer, who was too close to an enemy unit. Once it was the enemy’s turn, they immediately made a bee-line for Olivia, striking her down in two axe swings. A shame she couldn’t sexy dance herself out of that fight. As for Mycen, a magic user toasted his Fire Emblem Gaiden butt, and I had only recently downloaded, fought, and recruited him to the Shepherds a chapter ago.

So now I’m down two more characters, which means I’m not fighting with a full company of characters in Chapter 19. And I need as many peeps as possible to survive that ordeal, considering how many enemy units there are and how often the reinforcements get called in. I was able to get Stahl to propose to Panne, and they got married. I’m not sure how to go about getting them to breed and make kids yet, and I’d love to have their child in the fight. I’m also trying to pair up myself (the Avatar) with Say’ri in hopes of stronger stats and a child. But it looks like if I’m to get past Chapter 19 any time soon, with all my friends save and sound, I will need to dip back into the Bonus Box for some extra characters. Any suggestions on who to recruit would be appreciated, and for all intents and purposes, I won’t be bringing back dead downloaded characters again, even though you totally can.

Onwards, I struggle. I mean…march.