So the modern military shooter has pretty much taken over the world. Call of Duty's recent instalments have certainly proved that, busting sales records over and over and providing millions of gamers with millions of hours of entertainment. The 'hardcore' are getting tired of them, as are some members of the gaming press and, to be fair, saturation point is fast approaching, some say it has already been exceeded.

It is getting increasingly difficult to tell these games apart and for these titles to carve out their own niche in such a crowded market place, but one game from 2009 dared to try something different, to take a risk and tell the story of one of the most brutal battles of the modern era, it was called Six Days in Fallujah and to say it was controversial is a bit of an understatement.

The battle of Fallujah, of which there are two, focuses on the battle for control of the Iraqi city ofFallujahin 2004. I wont go into all the details of the event, but need less to say it was bloody and brutal. Sometime there after, members of the Third Battalion First marines who took part in the conflict asked Atomic games to create a title based on the event. Those marines helped the team at Atomic create training tools for theUSarmy, and asked them to create Six Days, even lending names and likenesses to the title.

The game was announced in April 2009 and immediately caused a stir, and not due to its amazing graphics engine, tight gameplay or gripping story. This controversy was caused by the fact the game was coming just a few years after the actual battle occurred and everyone saw it as an entertainment product. It wasn't.

Atomic games themselves described the game as a 'survival horror but not in the traditional sense', meaning that they wanted to show the horrifying nature of the battle and the tactics the insurgents used and how the Marines reacted to them. This game was trying to portray a real and devastating conflict in a way only video games can, and was ripped apart for it.

The publisher of the game, Konami, became scared of the controversy surrounding the game and pulled its publishing deal with Atomic later on in 2009. This was a mistake. As I have said before, games need to mature, and having a game that tells a real life story, based on something as raw as the Fallujah battles, would have gone a long way to help this cause. Konami became worried that the issues that arose after the games announcement would have too many people boycotting the company and not buying future titles, but I believe this wouldnt have happened.

If they had had the stones to stick to the publishing agreement, and let Atomic release the game they envisioned, sure some people would have boycotted them but not enough to cause a major problem for a publisher as prolific as Konami. After all, this is the company that gives us Metal Gear and other well known titles so while they would have been in the dog house for a while, it wouldnt have caused an issue.

Gamespot's own Tom Mcshea had an issue with the game, stating that it shouldnt feature regenerating health if it wanted to be the 'most accurate and realistic military game ever made'. To be fair, I do agree with this statement, however I also know certain liberties must be taken when creating a game - players need both a win and loose condition, on the whole.

The point is that Six Days explores what it would be like to be in that conflict. Movies do this all the time, The Hurt Locker for example told a story about bomb disposal units inIraqand had no such issues even though those units were operating, and still are, in the country.

Its a double standard, purely because films have been around longer. The interactive nature of Six Days meant everyone saw it as a game first and its actual status as almost a documentary of the battle not worth considering, which is stupid, and if Konami stuck to its guns and released the game, maybe they would have been hailed as the most forward thinking publisher, and a true force in the future of gaming.

Such issues need to be told through games, as well as books, movies and TV shows. The medium is a legitimate way of expressing personal opinion, historical facts, autobiographies and more. It needs to mature and grow and stupid decisions by scared business men hold it back.

Six Days in Fallujah may have been a rubbish game with something interesting to say. The rubbish game isn't the issue, its what it had to say and what it was trying to do. Carving out your own little bit of such a crowded market, especially one as saturated as modern military shooters, is hard to do at the best of times. Six Days would have done this with aplomb and helped move games along. Yes it was a risk, but it is one that more developers and publishers need to take.

Hopefully one day, someone will have the stones to release a title documenting a recent conflict and it will show the world just what gaming can do. We can but hope.

Cover Shot

MODERN COMBAT SHOOTERS WILL NEVER BE "REAL"

I suppose that this would be a continuation of a previous blog post of mine, and I confidently say that I have a very strong fact that backs the above statement: whatever is in video games will never be tangibly real, and this extends to modern combat shooters.

(For those of you who are pedantic, yes, I am aware that whatever that is in a video game is technically real, i.e. they are the results of programming and software design, both of which are undeniably very real. The content and gameplay will never be tangible though - nothing can change this.)

The likes of Greg Goodrich (who is the lead producer for the rebooted Medal of Honor games) do seem to realize this, but their solution to address this is only semantic: they switched from using the phrase that is "realistic" over to "authentic", and focused more on the settings of the game instead of the gameplay (which has many, many designs that would remind a more conscious player that they are playing a video game, and one in a subgenre of shooters that is stagnating in design).

Perhaps the game-makers can highlight plenty of interviews with identity-obscured consultants to present themselves as being serious in making their modern combat shooters, and I have no reason to doubt this, nor the beliefs of their consultants. I am not one to pour so much scorn readily.

However, I am one to take things at just face value - and the face value of these consultations is that whoever the game-makers' consultants are, their identities are not immediately publicly identifiable, at least until cases such as the American consultants being (somewhat) revealed through events out of the game-makers' control occur.

As long as the identity of whichever consultants that are referred to during the development of the game are not verifiable, the game-makers will never allay suspicions - or rather, conspiracy theories - that these consultants are made up. Consequently, it will never allay presumptions that hyped-up modern combat shooters are not designed with heart and sincerity.

To cut the likes of Greg Goodrich and other modern combat shooter producers some slack, they do appear to believe in their products - this is very important for any product-makers trying to sell their products.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are people like Tom McShea who couldn't take most modern combat shooters at face value: that he has no less than two articles on Medal of Honor strongly suggests that he does not merely stop at considering modern combat shooters as yet more entertainment products that exploit the settings of real-life conflict.

Some of you would like to think that Greg Goodrich has the upper hand in this back-and-forth, but the wiser of us know that neither does. Both are stubborn, and there is no bridge of compromise between them.

Unfortunately, as vehement as he is, Tom McShea has yet to utter that word frequently: "boycott". He has mentioned phrases like "putting money where my mouth is" (which would make him poorly suited to review most modern combat shooters), but he has yet to adopt that word.

(I am aware that uttering that word is a very, very strong suggestion of bias on a part of a journalist - far more than just writing ranting editorials.)

As a side note, the likes of Tom McShea do appear to appreciate modern combat shooters like Spec Ops: The Line that provides darker views on modern conflict fiction. (Yes, I used that word - "fiction". As gritty and nasty as that game's plot development is, it is still fiction.)

Summary of the above: There would be more peace of mind all-around if everyone can accept that modern combat shooters, being a subset of video games, are not "real" and never will be, and don't go beyond thinking this.

THEY HAVE PRICE TAGS

Modern combat shooter titles, with the exception of America's Army, have asking prices. This is a fact, and nothing can change the reality that game-makers generally ask for money in return for playing their games.

Not to mention the collaborative deals that game-makers make with other product-makers.

Of course, without a breakdown of where the proceeds from a unit sale would go to, no one but the game-makers themselves would know whether they are driven by profits or that they are really sincere in making their games for people to play and only want to cover costs, or anything in between.

However, as long as the price tags are there, and the utilization of the proceeds from sales remain opaque to consumers, the suspicions and presumptions of greed will always be there.

Take-away: If game-makers are actually conscious about the complaints, flaming, rants and criticisms about them being driven by greed, they can well address this matter by divulging more details on where each cent from a unit sale would be going to.

(That is not to say that free modern combat shooters are free from bashing of course; America's Army has its share of cold water).

The cynical would say, with a mix of scorn and amusement, that America's Army is the only "sincere" modern combat shooter.

GAMEPLAY LIMITED BY SETTINGS

I will tell you about one of my peeves about modern combat shooters, which also happen to be the main reason that I have not had significant interest in modern combat shooters since Half-Life: Counterstrike.

The biggest obstacle that this subgenre of shooters faces now is the limitations on gameplay brought about by their settings, which concern real-life armed conflict. The need for believable facsimiles of modern combat made the gameplay of these games difficult to discern from each other, and also renders their designs very predictable.

There's ALWAYS at least one Kalashnikov in every modern combat shooter.

There had been attempts to shake up the gameplay, such as the transition from merciless one-way-trip-to-zero health system seen in Counterstrike to the very forgiving regenerative health system in present-day modern combat shooters (neither of which I personally find believable), but game-makers can only do so much before the more observant of critics (and cynics) point out that they are losing "authenticity".

The most sophisticated modern combat shooter game thus far is the latest in the ArmA franchise, which not only has players taking on many roles such as artillery commanders or even marine forces taking underwater routes, and then waging battles across vast battlefields, maneuvering by air, water or good ol' land. However, even such sophistication would hit a wall soon. After all, the requirements of the settings will limit the gameplay to what can be considered believable.

Despite the relative smoothness of this demo of ArmA III, you can expect bugs in Bohemia's products.

I am not certain how this subgenre could ever evolve, though I am sure that sooner or later, even the most ardent modern combat shooter fans would notice that the gameplay in them has not changed by much. It could take a direction similar to that of Spec Ops: The Line, but this is a thematically-oriented game design, and how easy it is to sell is uncertain, not to mention that it could not be woven into competitive multiplayer gameplay, which appears to be the main selling point of the AAA modern combat shooters.

Alternatively, there had been game-makers that are trying to move into near-future combat settings, which offer more flexibility in gameplay designs, though the aforementioned criticisms of loss of "authencity" remain and perhaps more so, as such games would not be modern-combat shooters anymore; they already have sci-fi elements, as some of the technology shown in them have yet to go beyond prototype or even conceptual stage, or are actually extrapolations of existing near-future technology.

The Warhound being one of the latter.

Another alternative is that they adopt sandbox-like gameplay, not unlike what is being done for the Far Cry franchise. However, a modern combat shooter would start to lose its identity too. In fact, it would be difficult for anyone to consider that the Far Cry games are modern combat shooters, other than similarities like the presence of firearms and other fundamentals of what makes a shooter.

Take a hard look at this and say - without flinching, cringing or any other expression of doubt and disbelief - that this is a modern combat shooter.

In other words: Modern combat shooters are more than likely doomed to stagnation in gameplay designs because of their need to adhere to their settings.

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That's what I would write for this blog post. The matters mentioned above may seem obvious to some of you, but any down-to-earth reminders about modern combat shooters should do you some good.

Also, do keep this in mind: If you like modern combat shooters and don't mind paying to play them, then don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you don't like modern combat shooters and despise them, you may want to keep your despise to just these games and not extend it to people who like them; it's their money and time - not yours.

Allegations of corruption and bias of video game reviewers and even entire websites have been around for nearly as long as reviews themselves. Be it due to post-purchase rationalisation or blatant fanboyism, the notion that lukewarm receptions of highly anticipated games are driven by grudges and money rather than valid complaints about the games themselves has always been attractive to many disappointed gamers. That these accusations are often unfounded or downright irrational is of lesser concern. More recently, this 'corruption card' has been played as a means of damage control for not only negative, but also positive reviews. Particularly high scores on games they do not like are enough reason for the more cynical gamers out there to accuse the responsible reviewer of being bribed by the publisher. In almost all cases, this is an infantile knee-jerk reaction to the seemingly inconceivable revelation that other systems may also have good games.

"It is painfully naive to think that publishers are handing out unmarked dollar bills to reviewers."

Still, it does not take much empathy to understand this sentiment. When you are young and can afford only one system, it is tempting to try and justify your choice by trivialising the merits of other systems. Even more importantly, some of the doubts about the integrity of video game journalists are not completely unfounded. Taking into account the inflated review model, as well as numerous anecdotes of reviewers being pressured into giving out high scores, there are indications - some stronger than others - that there is something peculiar about video game journalism. More explicitly put, it would take a great deal of optimism to take a closer look at what is going on in the video game branch as a whole today, and conclude that all parties are in perfect balance with each other. But to think that this imbalance is the mere result of publishers handing out unmarked dollar bills to reviewers, is painfully naive. The truth about this problem is, sadly, even more grim, for we, the gamers, are as much a part of this process as are the publishers and journalists.



Anyone with a basic understanding of how our current economy works will grasp the concept of supply and demand. When a certain product or service is required by a substantial group of people, this demand is likely to be met by a company or institution. As such, it is not terribly far-fetched to conclude that, to a large extent, gamers get what they ask for. This not only applies to video games themselves, but also to video game coverage. When we, through clicks or comments, indicate that we want excessively positive, score-focused reviews, that is exactly what many of the major gaming outlets will supply us with. And both the current state of video game reviews and the behaviour of gamers suggest that this is exactly what most of us want.

Even with the most highly acclaimed titles, there will always be a handful of reviewers that are less enthusiastic and judge the game more harshly. What is always fascinating about these reviews, albeit in a slightly twisted sense, is that their writers are often subject to criticism (and mind that I use this term loosely here) from angry fans. Defiant opinions nearly always cause a backlash, with a portion of the gamers even ousting suspicions of a conspiracy, convinced as they are that the relatively mediocre reception is just there to generate hits from ticked off gamers who want to behold the heresy with their own eyes.

"It is no surprise that people who do not walk in line are frowned upon."

Although the possibility that some reviewers defy the norm mainly to be edgy and different cannot be excluded entirely, it is rather bizarre to think that only reviewers willing to ride the hype train are entitled to voicing their opinion. But in a community that is dictated by rampant Metacritic fetishism and a focus on cold numbers over meaningful content, it is no surprise that individuals who do not walk in line are frowned upon. Consequently, it should come as even less of a shock that video game outlets respond to this sentiment by rating games on a 7-10 scale and supplying reviews that are largely void of thoughts that do more than just scratch the surface.



Dramatic as it may sound, there should be no doubt that video game reviews are currently in a deplorable state. This is the result of there being several misconceptions about what a review entails. Reviewing a game does not mean listing the main features and commenting on them briefly. Nor does it convey systematically throwing around overused superlatives supported by circular reasoning. Yet a large chunk of the professional reviews out there can be captured in either category - sometimes even both. When reviewers praise the enemy AI in an action game, they frequently limit the supporting argument to 'they can flank you'. Even more often are graphics lauded for their technical qualities without any mention of how they contribute concretely to the overall experience. The music fits the action on the screen perfectly, we are told time and again. But the details of this claim are omitted almost as often.

"In absence of objectivity, it is diversity of opinion that must guarantee a balanced offering of information."

Too many reviews are essentially just a culmination of clichés systematically implemented into flaccid, descriptive accounts of the games' main features, resulting in articles more reminiscent of marketing blurbs than actual reviews. Let us not forget, though, that this is what we ask for ourselves. Every time we boast about a Metacritic average; every time we shoot down a review based on its score, we are tacitly endorsing a uniformity of opinions. If we wish to still pretend that reviews serve to inform us, such behaviour is utterly counter-productive. Because, contrary to popular belief, reviews are still subjective. They are - ideally - argumentatively grounded in technical information and correct observations, but still subjective. And in the subsequent absence of objectivity, it is diversity of opinion that must guarantee a balanced offering of information. This raises the question whether gamers turn to reviews to be informed, or to feel good about the game they just purchased.

Despite the strong tone, this article does not intend to insult or patronise gamers. Our behaviour is perfectly understandable when one considers how brilliant video game marketing is in the modern era. While many of us are still inclined to think of marketing as seeing an advert for a product on TV and going to the store to buy it, it embodies so much more. The way hype is built for a game, the way release dates turn into events of their own, and even our very perception of a certain game or series: they are all influenced by the manipulation of marketeers. Manipulation may seem like a scary term, but in this context, it means little more than effecting the way we feel about a certain game, usually by taking existing sentiments and making them stronger. Activision capitalises upon the image of Call of Duty as a social phenomenon, just like Namco Bandai spared no expense to promote Dark Souls' notorious difficulty. And Mario games certainly did not turn into 'fun for the whole family' by themselves.



The flip-side of such ubiquitous marketing buzz is that it is very easy to be drawn into the hype to a point where you swear by the product long before you actually get your hands on it. Assassin's Creed's live-action trailers, for instance, are traditionally very successful at getting people excited for the next instalment, even though they have virtually nothing to do with the game itself. It is this sentimental involvement that explains why gamers tend to include titles in their 'best games' lists long before they are actually released: they are so convinced that the game they have been anticipating for so long will be good, that it is going to take nothing less than radical disappointment for this opinion to be revised at any point.

As long as a long-awaited game receives positive reviews, everybody is happy. The reviewer is happy, because he has played a good game and now gets to tell people about it. The publisher is happy, because it knows better than anyone that bad scores can spell disaster for the performance of products that took years to finish. The gamers are happy, because for so long had they been anticipating this game and, if the score is anything to go by, it appears to have lived up to each and every of their expectations.

"We must be prepared to start judging reviews based on the validity of the content rather than the desirability of the score."

But then steps in a reviewer who criticises said game thoroughly, providing deep, analytical thoughts supported by excellent argumentation. The fans are furious, because the impertinent writer tried to burst their bubble by telling them the game may not be as good as they had hoped. And if it lowers the Metacritic average enough, what do they have left to boast about? The publisher is furious, because it was nice enough to supply the rogue reviewer with a free copy, only to be repaid with a score that is sure to scare off some potential buyers. Lastly, the reviewer is unhappy, because he now has to face the fury of the gaming community.

If we want to ensure the integrity and quality of video game journalism, we must, as gamers, be prepared to start judging reviews based on the validity of the content rather than the desirability of the score. It is true that the 'reviewed' (i.e. the industry) have an abnormal amount of control over the 'reviewers' (i.e. the media) in the video game branch. However, as gamers, we can certainly do our part by ensuring that some balance remains in this chaotic industry. This we do exactly by showing that we appreciate thoughtful, critical content, rather than patting ourselves on the backs in a microcosm void of worthwhile information. If we wish for video game journalism ever to be taken seriously, we need to start taking ourselves seriously and find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Or we can pretend nothing is wrong and choose to forever live in the Hype Matrix.

"Equo ne credite"

Written by Draugen for System Wars Magazine

This generation there have been a lot of shady business practices sneaking into gaming. We have things like Online Passes, Day One DLC, Season Passes for DLC that hasn't even been announced yet, and Pay2Win schemes ruining game balance. All of these things, though, I can understand and even accept from a business perspective. The Pay2Win is an awful way to design a game, but if there is a market for it then go for it. The others are just ways to try to stay in business in a field without much margin for error. Over the past couple of weeks, though, two games have done something I just don't agree on, on any level. Medal of Honor: Warfighter, and Assassin's Creed 3, both shipped incomplete. Both games featured numerous game breaking bugs in the code on the disk. The majority of these bugs (though not all) were fixed with a day one patch. Now I find this to be a disgusting thing for a company to do. As a designer and the founder of a game company, I would be utterly ashamed to release a game that was so broken on so many levels. It just is a terrible way to do business.

Now I understand the reasoning behind it. Ubisoft and EA each spent tens of millions of dollars marketing these games, so delaying the release date would be financially devastating in that way, and it might also move the games out of the all important Holiday season. The quarterly profits of either of these companies would plummet without the release of these games. But I just have to wonder, are the results of one quarter more important than the reputation of a major franchise? Especially in Medal of Honor's case, it is hard to imagine the franchise rebounding from this game anytime soon. EA had an uphill battle already convincing gamers that Medal of Honor was as worthy a game as Battlefield. Even if the game had been great it still wouldn't have done remotely as well as Battlefield 3. But if the game had shipped without bugs, and if the game itself had just been given more time to fully explore Danger Close's vision, then EA would have earned itself its share of fans. And those core players might have convinced their friends to get Medal of Honor 3 instead of Black Ops 3 in two years. And if that process repeated a couple more times you could easily see Medal of Honor selling 10+ million units in four or five years. Now that chance is gone. Rebounding from this game will be all but impossible. Medal of Honor has failed. So, yea, EA will probably sell a couple million copies of this Medal of Honor, but the chance for franchise growth has been substantially limited by releasing a game that wasn't ready.

Assassin's Creed 3 is in a better spot. That is partially because the core game is simply better than Medal of Honor would ever have been, and partially because the previous entries in the series were much better received than recent Medal of Honor games. Still, AC3 was supposed to be the next big jump in the series, akin to AC2. And while it is supposed to be a pretty great game, the presence of numerous bugs definitely hurts the experience. And those without the day one patch might experience some pretty serious bugs.

And that brings me to maybe the major point of this blog. Is it okay to assume that everyone who wants to play AC or MoH have both an Internet connection and a harddrive to store these patches on? On PS3 this is probably a pretty safe assumption. All models contain harddrives and built in Wi-Fi. But for the 360 the same isn't true. Pre-Slim models have no built in Wi-Fi and a fair number had no built in hard drive. Those that did had a very small harddrive that might be pretty full at this point. So I think it is fair to say that for many 360 owners, playing AC3 or MoH will be a significantly gimped experience. These people will not be able to play the game that the developers intended. They will be stuck playing a buggy and partially broken mess. That just isn't fair. It isn't right that a portion of paying customers will not get the finished version of the game, although neither game is technically "finished" even with the patches. That just isn't right and no business argument will make that right. If I as a company manager fail to finish my game on time then I should be the one to suffer for it, not the gamers who buy my game. That is called taking responsibility for your failures as a developer.

I've been there. In fact I'm there right now. Things don't go as planned. Just recently my company launched a Kickstarter for our game Broken. The Kickstarter was unsuccessful for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was that we didn't launch the Kickstarter on the day we had advertised for weeks in advance. Why? We were releasing a demo of the game day and date with the Kickstarter. Now part of the problem was that we had some issues with Kickstarter that delayed the release no matter what, but the other part was that our demo simply wasn't up to our quality standards. There was a major game breaking bug in the game that I simply would not let appear in the demo. We literally were working on this bug until mere minutes before the Kickstarter launched. This delay, among numerous other reasons, caused us significant financial hardship, but none of us were willing to release a broken product to gamers, even just in demo form.

Now I don't have any shareholders to answer to when my game doesn't ship on time. But that shouldn't change anything. Developers should finish a game and then ship it, not the other way around. It is a matter of artistic and corporate integrity and it should not be sacrificed for anything, including financial gain.

What do you guys think? Is it important for a developer to finish a game before they ship it? Do you mind downloading day one patches? Are you ever going to give Medal of Honor another chance? What do you think the next game will be to follow in this disturbing trend?

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.