I've played games long enough to understand that most combat resolutions involve charging headfirst in a battle like a bull in a china shop and getting to an end-zone by any means necessary. But, in recent months, I've brushed up on another gameplay method -- the art of stealth. A warrior in the blazing sun can win a fight with his weapons, but a thief in the night can achieve no less the same fruits of victory through silence and shadows.

I recently picked up both Assassin's Creed 3 and Dishonored for my 360, and was forced into two very different situations that allude to a common purpose---defeating enemies without being seen. I initially found this to be a challenge because I've been so enamored in traditional games where you just ran into a fight and didn't necessarily give a rat's ass if you were spotted or not. Yes, rushing into a battlefield with guns blazing is an awesome adrenaline rush. But, games like Assassin's Creed and Dishonored show that fights can be daftly avoided and swiftly won before your enemy can even see it coming, and that has been a great source of appeal to me personally ever since I began experimenting with Assassin's Creed Revelations many months ago.

From the aforementioned Assassin's Creed to other games like Hitman, Tenchu and Metal Gear Solid, stealth-based gameplay is an experience in and of itself; something outside of what a lot of us are used to. It maintains the spirit of traditional action genres, but mostly encourages the option of stealth tactics to get past tricky situations without implicating the player in needless bloodshed. In some cases, stealth is the only means of success against enormous impossibilities; like a room full of bloodthirsty, gun-toting barbarians that you can never defeat on your own or with friends. I've found that a lot of seemingly impossible situations and puzzles can be solved simply by ending and/or avoiding conflicts before they begin. While the concept itself is not new, , we're nonetheless seeing more and more next-gen franchises adopt this approach to combat and refining it; most notably the Assassin's Creed series and Dishonored; both games pitting the player in roles of assassins who have the choice of cutting down enemies behind their backs.

And outside of killing anything that doesn't move, there are other key factors of interest concerning the stealth approach in games. You have to get from one area to the next or fulfill a non-lethal objective under the cover of darkness. And you need to understand the very real risk of getting spotted, and knowing what to do if the worst should befall you. To most gamers, the thought of avoiding a fight doesn't seem all that fun. But think about it. When you're sneaking around, you feel a heightened sense of tension that you wouldn't feel when you're repeatedly fighting face-to-face against a physical onslaught. And if you are caught, you're caught with your guard down and forced to improvise under a very narrow timeframe, even when you think you're prepared. Psychologically, the feeling of getting 'caught' is much akin to the thought of having your deepest, darkest secrets revealed. At that moment, you would not know what to do, and all the preparation and hindsight you may think you possess abandons you, leaving you utterly helpless and forcing you to think as light on your feet as humanly possible.

Sounds unpleasant? Yes, it does. But, what other traditional, no-frills action game ever really gave you that feeling? That experience? The thought of controlling the situation before it controls you? The risk of exposure? This is what can make games fun and rewarding all in the same token. And it's an idea that, I think, should have been explored more thoroughly in earlier games dating back to the early and mid 90s that merely hinted at the prospect of stealth based approaches. Metal Gear Solid is a notable exception to that, and look how it turned out.

The unabated thrill, uncertainty and suspense associated with stealth gameplay is a very different experience outside of traditional action games, and one more and more developers will want to explore -- even with existing franchises that can appropriately make use of it. For me personally, this kind of gameplay experience is invigorating and intriguing; the likes of which I haven't felt in a very long time. It compliments most kinds of action games by de-emphasizing the predictability of standard combat and introducing a risk-versus-reward system. Developers will want to draw on the idea of such a system even if not just for the sake of an idea like stealth-based gameplay. Other ideas can be birthed from this principle. As such, the industry needs to think of ways of giving gamers a thrilling experience that goes beyond the redundancy of going through the motions. The art of stealth, I believe, is one of many elements that can provide that if done right and done effectively.

And it just may be one possible shot in the arm (out of many) that the industry needs -- even if the industry itself doesn't see it coming.

I recently got into the iOS version of a popular Fantasy Flight game called Elder Sign (Elder Sign: Omens for iOS). It's a table-top game with a myriad of cards, representing investigators, adventures, and items, as well as various types of tokens. Your outcomes during adventure play are determined using dice, but there's a whole lot of strategy involved.

The entire thing is based on Lovecraft mythology, something I previously only had a passing knowledge of. I knew he was an inspiration for Stephen King and the creator of the Cthulhu mythos. But the more I dug around, the less I liked what I was learning about the actual author, namely he was a big fat racist (well, he wasn't actually overweight, but you get the gist). Though he was wed to a Jewish woman, he was an outspoken racist who seemed to believe that people of color were trash.

Now, it's easy to say, well, that shouldn't affect your appreciation of his work if the writing itself is good, but I think it's understandable that anyone would be concerned about, at the very least, being subconsciously influenced by such a destructive personality trait -- that was my initial response.

But the Call of Cthulhu mythology is undeniably alluring, with its noir settings and absolutely dreadful creatures and outcomes. The Elder Sign game is addictive beyond belief, and I must admit, I'm now quite curious to delve into some of Lovecraft's novels. It's an interesting quandry, but one I don't think can be so easily dismissed.

I think another concern is, are the other folks into his writings interested solely because of the horror tales, or are they in agreement with his racist views? It's impossible for me not to wonder when encountering folks who are raving fans of Lovecraftian lore.

The guy's been dead for close to a century now, but it seems his horror has lived on in more ways than one. Is there a writer/game maker/artist that has presented you with a similar challenge philosophically?

"She doesn't look like a gamer"

That was something I saw said in Gamespot's Twitch chat last week. To me that quote just seems kind of absurd, as if females that play games must look a certain way and anything else must be treated with suspicion. Anytime the issue of sexism gets brought up on a lot of games sites (like this one), some of the comments get pretty terrible.

It's hard to say how it got as bad as it is and there is far more to say than I could possibly do so in any reasonable amount of time, so instead I'm just going to try to just talk about a couple of specific things.

Within the gaming communities themselves there need to be mechanisms in place to prevent abuse being hurled across voice chat and people just abusing the communication tools that each of the platforms offer. XBL has been the prime example of this but it's hardly isolated to just there. And I think it goes beyond anonymity and usernames, I think something like that would see some improvement but there are plenty of sites that do have good communities that allow for only online handles.

The suggestion of lifetime bans doesn't sound too terrible, it would give some sort of consequence for one's actions. That wouldn't stop them from making a new account (you could disable it at a console level, but there are problems with that when it comes to people buying second hand) but given how much gets tied to those accounts now, achievements, DLC downloadable games it would definitely be a consequence to being abusive on a given platform. While you could make an argument that it might be a bit harsh a punishment, I think that it should at least be a potential tool to be used.

In the less controversial tools that platform holders could use they could put in just easier tools to mute certain players. If a certain person is getting muted by every player they come across they should probably just start off games muted by default. Just taking away their megaphone would do a great deal to improve just the overall environment in online games. There is something to be said for trying to promote people not being jerks in your communities, but I don't really have any ideas on that particular front.

Now onto the actual game side of things, women are remarkably poorly represented in games. That's not to say there aren't female characters, but there's a remarkable lack of diversity amongst those characters and only a small handful of them are actually strong characters. More often than not they're throwaway characters designed as a plot device, scenery or just as a sexual object.

An individual instance of any of this stuff wouldn't be so terrible by themselves but the fact that they are far and away the majority of what we have is really quite bad. As a whole we have managed to create a whole bunch of female characters that are little more than objects for sexual fantasy, from skimpy outfits to completely over sexualised body images. Yes there are unrealistically proportioned male characters as well, but there exists the diversity of what a male character can look like and also they aren't made to look that way for the purposes of sexual fantasy but power fantasy.

This in turn makes a lot of games just much less appealing to a lot of women. When you have characters that are little more than walking breasts, it's not hard to figure out why they aren't characters people identify with or memorable. Think about the most memorable female characters in games, Samus and Alyx Vance immediately come to mind along with a handful of others. They were full characters in and of themselves and that's what makes them awesome. But there aren't enough of them, women make up half the population on the planet we should be doing better than this.

I suspect that a lot of this has to do with the fact that the majority of game creators happen to be male. Here in the UK the last I heard we have a massive 12% of game developers being women. That's fairly significantly down from many years ago, but that's still pretty bad no matter how you look at it. I think we should be having a larger influx of new game developers coming out soon through newer games courses so that should give some push but I'm not holding my breath for something drastic.

Part of getting more women in games development is just getting more women to be more active in games and games communities. That doesn't mean that we need to start making games specifically for women, in fact that philosophy has frequently backfired for just making utter rubbish. But by making the games less exclusionary in nature and by increasing the diversity in the games that we make. If developers keep making nothing but male power fantasy games we're in for a pretty big uphill battle.

So just a last open letter to game makers, don't make the pandering BS that so frequently gets put into games. I get that it sells, but it's cheap. Your game might be great, despite your skimpy female armour that protects exactly zero vital organs. It wouldn't be the first time and it almost certainly won't be the last. We can do better than that and yes there is sexist behaviour and themes in other media, but just because that's true doesn't mean that we can't do just a little bit to make our little corner better.

What?

Gender issues are as relevant as ever. It's a hot topic in gaming (evident in a lot of great Gamespot articles and posts), but resonates even more when discussing the global culture in general. Anything commercial in our society is extremely genderised (every other product comes in blue for boys and pink for girls, it's ridiculous). Furthermore, women are being extremely hypersexualised (80s music videos seem so innocent now). Mistreatment and harassment of women (or men, for that matter) is something we should not tolerate, ever. Yet it happens, a LOT. If you're saying: 'but... nowadays women are mostly treated equally', chances are you're a caucasian male. As in real life, ingame harassment of women is more often (and far less benign) than you might think. We need to define the source of this. It matters why are things the way they are - if we know why, we can see the whole issue as a part of the bigger picture, and then make correct judgements.

The bigger picture is: it's a Man's world. Notice the big M. Unfortunately, general attitude is that being a Man means YES to domination, competition, ruthlessness. It also means NO to empathy, love, peaceful resolution. This is true for most of the entertainment industry, business, art, scientific circles and, well... any area which revolves around money. This is the rule you follow 'if you want to be on the top of the hill', as Lennon once said.

Barbie dolls for men - majority of games add shoulderpads though

Why?

If a woman wants to be more than an object (and that's a natural need and right of every human being) she is culturally encouraged to be strong and independent - by becoming a Man. This is why games like 'Lollipop Chainsaw' or movies like 'Sucker Punch' are bad examples of feminist characters. It's made by men, for men. It has nothing to do with feminism. It's false empowerment. (Become a Man, you woman, because your womanly characteristics are inferior. Show some skin in the process, too.)

Both men and women are encouraged through media (and all kinds of social interactions) to be more of a Man (dominating, competitive, ruthless), because Man = succesfull, Man = power. Actual men who aren't Men enough are seen as feminine and therefore not worthy of respect. Sadly, a lot of these men end up as bitter insecure douchebags who hurl ingame chat insults and vulgar talk at women. Do they feel threatened by these women? Do they subconsciously fear the fact these women might turn out too real, shaking up the fantasies fostered by the omnipresent pop culture? I'm not sure.

Everything revolves around me (but you are not my mother, you female player of games you, therefore I don't have a clue how to act or interact)

How?

I have a better question. How do we change this? Of course, the first step is to try and promote tolerance in our online communities; with time a shift in attitudes could (will?) happen. But if we really want this (online & offline) autodestructive practice of bitter hating to stop (and not just shift focus to some other group of individuals), we as a society need to stop worshiping power. We need to stop allowing 'Expendables', 'Transformers' or 'Sex and the City' to plant images of ideal men/women into our childrens minds. We need quality, meaningful stuff which will outweigh all the junk (which won't, and shouldn't necessarily go away) by giving us believable, truly empowering characters. Game designers need to have Bechdel test on their mind when creating characters and plots. Unless these become the rule instead of exceptions, we will find ourselves in 2042 - still having this conversation.

Inequality is a tough thing to eradicate, if all we change is terminology. If all we change is which gender, subculture, minority (or majority!) is looked down on - it's nearly impossible. As with any other social or individual activity, Gamer should not be a label burdened with gender. It should represent affiliation with a thoughtful, playful community which exists to connect people. Playing games outside of narrow and arbitrary borders defined by gender should not be an issue.

So dear readers, guys and girls, let's keep our minds and hearts open. Hating is never ok, even when it seems justified. If you disagree on any particular points I made, I would be very interested to hear you out. I've been wrong before

System Wars Magazine, the brainchild of Willy105, reached the respectable age of 5 today. Even though I only have been working on SWM since the last few issues, I still managed to make a solid contribution to the anniversary issue that appeared today. It can be read here. My part in this was not only contributing a few articles, but also editing the other articles (mainly the reviews) to ensure consistency in terms of both layout and grammar. SWM also happens to be the reason why I haven't been updating this blog as much as I'd like lately, but hey, I'm still around. You just need to click a few buttons to get to me, that's all.

Now excuse me as I go defend my Top 10 FPS list.

The following piece was written for this weeks Chalk Talk task:

Representation, respect, rights. All of these words are key when the topic of girls in gaming shows up. Since the early beginnings, women have struggled to make an impression or even be respected within the gaming universe. How many women can you name in the gaming industry? There are some catastrophic issues with being female and into games, none of them to do with the women themselves, but rather what transcends.

The simple act of enjoying a game online boils down to either being insulted or being subject to crude remarks and offensive slurs. Of course I am not female; I know nothing of really how it feels to be on the end of the following borderline abuse, but this is not something that is acceptable in anyway. Where it comes from does not matter, it needs to stop.

Years of mistreatment has meant that girls have had to stick together and become more secluded to keep gaming hassle free. We now have a divide; hostility has now formed in both camps. Women have learnt to keep a distance and males have seen this as rejection. So the way forward is difficult, in a virtual space full of anonymity what can we do about making things better?

Well the best answer is for both sides to just get on with it. If you find a decent human being in your game and they happen to be of a different gender, dont make a huge deal of it. Just be nice, like you would to any other gamer out there. We can all coincide without special treatment or abuse. The middle ground is where success lies.

This of course is only half of the battle; there is that old chestnut, the portrayal of women in games. This is for me the biggest problem, forever the damsel in distress, the distant hero with a bad past, the abused, the helpless; it seems that whenever there is a girl in a videogame she has a problem, a problem a male must fix.

This is one of the biggest problems throughout the gaming world. There never seems to be a strong female character. Of course there are some examples, but the common trend is to make you rescue or fix the female characters around you to make everything better. One of the few games to get this notion of a strong female character right is Lollipop Chainsaw; even through the poorly chosen camera angles and lacking amount of clothes one thing remains. Juliette is a strong woman.

Of course the most recent example of controversy surrounding the portrayal of women in games comes courtesy of the upcoming reboot of Tomb Raider. The details have been discussed at length but it did cause me to ask an important question. In 2012 why do we find ourselves still having this conversation?

Why hasnt this been eradicated? It seems completely crazy to think that women are still getting a hard time in gaming. Gaming has evolved so much from what it once was. We have characters that can show emotions, we have the capability to create games that are only restricted by what our minds can conceive. So why cant we take the step and start treating everybody equally?

Regardless of how we do it, it needs to be done. But Id like to end on a better note than this, so Im going to highlight someone for whom I have the utmost respect for.

Most know for whom I speak of when I say one of, if not the best female FPS player out there. Kelly Kelley (MrsViolence) is a brilliant example of how great this industry could be if we forget for one moment about gender and let our pastimes bring us all together.

She is an amazing gamer and a strong woman, and that is exactly what this industry needs more of. Ive recently been watching her livestream on twitch.tv and it is fair to say that the comments made on the video couldnt be more misogynistic. The mods, who are also girl gamers, on the channel are permanently in action yet this doesnt discourage either them or MrsV.

I encourage everyone to check out the channel, http://www.twitch.tv/MrsViolence if you dont think there is a problem in the way females are viewed in gaming it will certainly change your perception. It will also show you that great gamers are out there, and they arent all men. Neither do they have to be.

The negative stereotypes about girl gamers

''Girl gamers are not skillful gamers''

I've met girl gamers who are very skillful gamers to the extent they've beaten and earned platinum trophies for some of the hardest games that have been released this generation such as Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.Both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are action RPGs and require good timing,concentration,use of strategy and the fact I've seen numerous female gamers beat or even earn platinum trophies for these games proves there's some very skilled female gamers.I've met many male gamers who cannot beat Demon's Souls or Dark Souls,let alone earn their platinum trophies.

There's a JRPG named ''Resonance of Fate'' (Japanese name is End of Eternity)and it's regarded as quite a difficult JRPG but I've met female gamers who've beaten this game and have also earned it's platinum trophy.On the otherhand,I've met male gamers who can't beat Resonance of Fate.

A counterarguement I've heard is male gamers win more gaming tournaments than female gamers do but this does not prove girl gamers are not skillful gamers because a gamer doesn't need to be elite to be skillful.

''Girls are only casual gamers who play games on their NDS or phone''

There's many female users on Gamespot who play games on PS3 and Xbox360 and they play games that require a lot of time and/or skill to beat.These are games such as the Mass Effect games,Skyrim,Final Fantasy games or even something as challenging as Demon's Souls or Dark Souls.Many female gamers like to play games competitively online.I've met many female gamers who like to play Halo games,Call of Duty games and Uncharted 2 online in competitive modes.

A Korean woman who's an expert in Warcraft 3 did commentary for a WarCraft 3 tournament final and her expertise meant she could give good information about what was happening during the match,as well as about the strategies the players were using and it made the match more exciting.A person cannot become a WarCraft 3 expert unless they play and analyse many WarCraft 3 matches.

The importance of girl gamers

In Australia,recent studies show 47% of gamers are female.This means more game sales,more jobs.

Many JRPG fans are female(possibly because JRPGs often have love stories,female characters)and as a JRPG fan I appreciate the existance of many female JRPG fans because it means I can share experiences/feelings about the JRPGs I've played.On the otherhand,most western male gamers I've met don't like JRPGs and being a male sometimes I feel left out when I hear males talking about Call of Duty or Halo.I've met many female gamers who like JRPGs and it gives me a chance to have gamer conversations.If girl gamers didn't exist,it would probably mean a lot less JRPG sales and a higher possibility of Japanese developers not releasing certain JRPGs in the west because certain JRPGs don't sell well in the west.

Above is a screenshot from Final Fantasy X.It's a game that's loved by many male and female gamers.

The way women are portayed in video games

In many Japanese games,especially anime-inspired ones,female characters tend to act bubbly,goofy and a bit ditzy.Personally I don't mind this as it brightens up the mood and many males like women with bubbly,cute personalities.

Women in video games are often large-breasted with slim figures.Some people say it makes women like like sex objects but I think it's no different to how male athletes pose for photos of themselves when they're not wearing much clothes and women like to perv on those males.

The character above is Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series.Dead or Alive games are as famous for their busty beauties as they are for their gameplay and beautiful visuals.

I think Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII is a female character who can inspire people(especially women)because after her parents died she took care of her younger sister and looks out for her younger sister whilst being in the military.Lightning is beautiful without being unrealisitcally voluptuous like many other female video games are and she is a powerful fighter who plays a large role in trying to save the world.

Above is Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII.She is a tough,woman-warrior character,a potential saviour of the world and is beautiful and has a more realistic shaped body.

One of the main characters from Final Fantasy X named Yuna learned to become strong and brave when she was trying to save the world and when she wanted to protect her friends.She was willing to sacrifise her life to save the world and was willing to marry somebody she doesn't love because she believed it was for the good of the people in her world.Characters don't come any stronger(mentally)and braver than her and guess what? She's a woman character.

Above is a picture of Yuna from Final Fantasy X

Misogyny

Misogyny should not be part of the community and should be discouraged because it encourages negative stereotypes and negative stereotypes are harmful to society because stereotypes divide the community and tolerating stereotypes such as ''woman should not play games'' will encourage people to be prejudice and ignorant.

Recently I've been going through the Greenlight games on Steam. For those who missed the memo, Steam is crowd sourcing its approval process for indie games. Now we the people get to vote on what games end up on Steam. Is this a dream come true for gamers? Maybe, but it also clearly displays just how many mediocre or even bad games people work on. I hate to bash other developers but someone has to say it. The games on Greenlight rarely show any creativity or originality and often are downright boring looking and many are just ridiculously ugly. Having looked through well over 100 games only a couple really captured my attention. There seems to be some belief among indie game developers that by giving your game a pixel art style and writing a chiptunes soundtrack you suddenly have a good game. This simply isn't true. For one thing, like any form of art, pixel art isn't inherently good. There is good pixel art and bad pixel art. The same goes with chiptunes. For me, a game needs more than a pretty art style to be compelling. So even the games that do look good and sound nice don't really do anything for me. How many platformers, puzzle platformers, and action platformers using this retro style do we need? There are so many and so many excellent ones that there just isn't any reason for more. It is sad to see gamers bash major companies for lacking creativity when all of these indie developers are making clones of games made 20 years ago. There are a couple other genres that seem common on Greenlight. Really bad looking first person shooters are one. My advice: The genre is super saturated so your indie shooter that looks and plays just like any other shooter isn't going to cut it. Then we have the isometric RPG. Again, there are a ton of masterful isometric RPGs on the market both real time and turn based. I get that the genre may have died down in recent years, but making clones of 15 year old games just doesn't cut it with me. I get people have fond memories of all of these old games but why simply copy these old games? All Greenlight has proven to me is that the average indie game developer has no creative new ideas. They just want to recreate the games they played as kids. It just saddens me. It is even more sad for those games on Greenlight games that actually do something interesting. Seeing those games buried under a torrent of crappy retro inspired games is just plain sad.

So what about you guys? Are you as tired of Retro style games as I am? Do you have any favorites from the games on Greenlight?

So, I have been playing tons of Resident Evil 6 -- tons. I had a dream last night with Ada Wong in it. I have Resident Evil on the brain.

Anyhoo, it occurred to me as I was finishing up Ada's campaign that the reason I love this series so much -- in spite of its many zigs and zags, both gameplay-wise and quality-wise -- is because, well, it's a soap opera. It started out that way pretty much and it's the only real constant with this series.

Most of you are probably too young to remember, but General Hospital back in the late 70s had a lot of similar tropes and craziness -- stuff so over-the-top, it blasted that show to the top of the daytime-drama charts for a good long while. Luke & Laura eventually found themselves wrapped up in some of the most unbelievable circumstances, and the folks behind the scenes were the question never truly answered and the reason you kept watching the show.

Resident Evil has become like that over the years, and though the gameplay has changed drastically from game to game, the underlying theme remains the same: "Who done it. why are they doing it, and please, please don't ever tell me!"

Resident Evil 6 was a disappointing game for me in many ways, and yet I'm still chugging away at it. That isn't to say that the story and characters are the only thing keeping me coming back. The game has design problems galore, but it's still very much my kinda game. That being said, the universe Capcom have created will keep me coming back with each new iteration, though they stumbled pretty hard with this one. I just love the experience of waiting to see what's going to unfold and never truly being given an answer. In some weird way, it's the exact kind of satisfaction I want out of a Resident Evil game. And though Capcom may have fallen short in terms of pacing and gameplay, they still managed to keep me rapt.