Tag: article

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Metal Gear Solid 5’s best secret: You can play the campaign as a woman

Metal Gear Solid 5’s best secret: You can play the campaign as a woman

If you are put off by the costumes and lack of protagonist representation in Phantom Pain, but still kind of want to play it for the gameplay/story/etc then Brianna Wu has a method to let you play most of the game as something other than the default protagonist (who I now dub Standard Snake).

The focus of the article is how to play as a woman, but as Brianna points out the same system opens up the option to play as a person of color (of either gender) as well.  It also has minimal spoilers.

We’ve got the guide to how to get Quiet some real clothes as early as possible, which sadly is actually quite late into the game.  Unless you take the more extreme (and extremely awesome) option that one MikeKob did. (h/t: Glitch & nibelung)

This method is so secret not even Hideo Kojima knows about it! Or if he does he doesn’t care enough to share, promote the article or even mention the feature of playing as anyone but Standard Snake.  It seems while someone was very determined to include these options, that someone was not him.

The integration is fairly complete but has some note worthy limitations:

  • You must start playing as Standard Snake.
  • NPCs will still react to you in game and in cutscenes as though you were Standard Snake, using male pronouns and descriptions.
  • In cutscenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of being delivered by a voice actress (or alternative voice actor).
  • Other problems with plot arcs and treatment of female characters remain.

It does have a few extra benefits:

  • In cut scenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of the generic, over the top, alpha male grunting.
  • NPCs will treat your Snake with the same respect and admiration they’d show Standard Snake.

Now for how to get Quiet into some clothes.  The bit lots of people will tell you is possible but won’t explain how or what’s involved, again – spoilers under the cut!

(Edit: Between when I did the majority of this writing and when it got posted there was single tweet by Kojima, it was a retweet of someone thanking him with elaboration afterwards. x )

– wincenworks

There is one fully covering (Gray XOF) and one mostly covering but with ridiculous cleavage (Lone Wolf Sniper) outfit available for Quiet via unlocking in the game.  There are still some issues:

  • Both outfits are only available a long time after first having the option to take Quiet as a Buddy (Mission 15 onward).  (Lone Wolf Sniper outfit is available for completing Mission 40 on Extreme, but the Grey XOF outfit can be unlocked earlier around Mission 30.)
  • Earning Quiet’s confidence will still result in her adopting more and more titilating poses while in the chopper with you.
  • Quiet’s overall plot arc will remain the same (including scenes of heavily sexualized violence against her).
  • NPCs will still react to and describe Quiet as though she was wearing her default “Naked” skin.  The game may also default her back to her Naked skin for some cutscenes.

In order to unlock the Grey XOF outfit you need to watch the cutscene of Quiet’s interrogation where she is tortured – yes we’re at a point where cutscenes are something they have to reward you for watching.  There’s mixed information on how to trigger the cutscene but general consensus seems to be:

Complete Mission 29 (Code Talker appears in the cutscene) and then keep making trips back to Mother Base to trigger all the information about the main plot, do side missions, etc and eventually it will appear. If you prefer to skip it by turning off the tv or monitor+speakers, it’s about seven minutes long.

– wincenworks

Posted on

Metal Gear Solid 5’s best secret: You can play the campaign as a woman

Metal Gear Solid 5’s best secret: You can play the campaign as a woman

If you are put off by the costumes and lack of protagonist representation in Phantom Pain, but still kind of want to play it for the gameplay/story/etc then Brianna Wu has a method to let you play most of the game as something other than the default protagonist (who I now dub Standard Snake).

The focus of the article is how to play as a woman, but as Brianna points out the same system opens up the option to play as a person of color (of either gender) as well.  It also has minimal spoilers.

We’ve got the guide to how to get Quiet some real clothes as early as possible, which sadly is actually quite late into the game.  Unless you take the more extreme (and extremely awesome) option that one MikeKob did. (h/t: Glitch & nibelung)

This method is so secret not even Hideo Kojima knows about it! Or if he does he doesn’t care enough to share, promote the article or even mention the feature of playing as anyone but Standard Snake.  It seems while someone was very determined to include these options, that someone was not him.

The integration is fairly complete but has some note worthy limitations:

  • You must start playing as Standard Snake.
  • NPCs will still react to you in game and in cutscenes as though you were Standard Snake, using male pronouns and descriptions.
  • In cutscenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of being delivered by a voice actress (or alternative voice actor).
  • Other problems with plot arcs and treatment of female characters remain.

It does have a few extra benefits:

  • In cut scenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of the generic, over the top, alpha male grunting.
  • NPCs will treat your Snake with the same respect and admiration they’d show Standard Snake.

Now for how to get Quiet into some clothes.  The bit lots of people will tell you is possible but won’t explain how or what’s involved, again – spoilers under the cut!

(Edit: Between when I did the majority of this writing and when it got posted there was single tweet by Kojima, it was a retweet of someone thanking him with elaboration afterwards. x )

– wincenworks

There is one fully covering (Gray XOF) and one mostly covering but with ridiculous cleavage (Lone Wolf Sniper) outfit available for Quiet via unlocking in the game.  There are still some issues:

  • Both outfits are only available a long time after first having the option to take Quiet as a Buddy (Mission 15 onward).  (Lone Wolf Sniper outfit is available for completing Mission 40 on Extreme, but the Grey XOF outfit can be unlocked earlier around Mission 30.)
  • Earning Quiet’s confidence will still result in her adopting more and more titilating poses while in the chopper with you.
  • Quiet’s overall plot arc will remain the same (including scenes of heavily sexualized violence against her).
  • NPCs will still react to and describe Quiet as though she was wearing her default “Naked” skin.  The game may also default her back to her Naked skin for some cutscenes.

In order to unlock the Grey XOF outfit you need to watch the cutscene of Quiet’s interrogation where she is tortured – yes we’re at a point where cutscenes are something they have to reward you for watching.  There’s mixed information on how to trigger the cutscene but general consensus seems to be:

Complete Mission 29 (Code Talker appears in the cutscene) and then keep making trips back to Mother Base to trigger all the information about the main plot, do side missions, etc and eventually it will appear. If you prefer to skip it by turning off the tv or monitor+speakers, it’s about seven minutes long.

– wincenworks

Posted on

But MMA/Wrestlers….

It seems a popular trend in trying to defend terrible costume designs with random pictures of female wrestlers or MMA fighters.  Usually accompanied by some sort of rant about how anyone who questions the perfection of these costumes is the sexist one!

Yes, there are many sexualized costumes in women’s sports. It’s not because the costumes are flawless. Rather it is a sign that female athletes often suffer under the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy too.

At the end of the day, justifying sexist double standards in the media by pointing to more sexist double standards in the media only showcases how wide spread the problem is.

More under the cut.

– wincenworks

Showmanship vs Sportsmanship

It’s a public secret that WWE isn’t exactly about competing to see who has the greatest combat skills.  WWE and those like it are about over the top stunts, fast paced drama and general entertainment.

If we accept that climbing up on a giant prop so that you can taunt your opponent, call for the crowd to cheer and then drop down with a body slam is not serious fighting behaviour, we should be able to accept they are not wearing serious costumes either.

For reference, compare any rebuttal outfit to what Saori Yoshida wore when she took Gold at the 2012 Olympics.

image

Rules of Engagement

Unsurprisingly in heavily regulated sports that have to adhere to regulations from sponsors, insurance and law enforcement – they have a lot of rules about what you can and can’t do to each other.

Even in more liberal fighting sports such as MMA or Ultimate Fighting, the opponents are not actually trying to kill or permanently injure each other – they’re trying to force a submission through allowed techniques.  Certainly you can’t bring claw weapons, throw fireballs, use grappling hooks or rip their head off at the end of the round.

Weight Classes

This is usually more an objection when we talk about body types or lack of muscle, but there’s always no shortage of people rushing to post images of conventionally attractive young women who are professional fighters – thus insisting that all warrior women should conform to these standards.

This overlooks a rather critical aspect of the above rules of engagement – that in order to keep competitions within the many rules fair, fighters are sorted into weight classes.  Professional fighters need superb discipline and go to great lengths to balance performance vs weight – because they need to in order to be allowed to fight in their weight class.

Unsurprisingly, height is also and advantage so in many of lighter weight classes the contestants tend to be of slim build and a few invariably fall within the conventional beauty standards.

Sponsorship

The lighter weight classes are particularly important, because for any combat sport event to get big tournaments with professional fighters, promotions, photo shoots, etc they need sponsors.  The bigger the sponsors, the bigger the events.  WWE’s sponsors include Disney and Mattel.  And this is where the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy comes in.

Companies sponsor events and fighters in order to boost their image and promote themselves.  That means the marketing department gets involved and so does the flawed mentality that sex sells – this effects both the events and the individual fighters.

Now before we continue – I need to stress here that the problem is not the women who benefit from these opportunities and/or enjoy these aspects of the sport.  The problem is that the circumstances create additional barriers for women who do not fit or feel comfortable within the constraints.

Journalists and brodudes alike constantly try to justify this focusing on sound bytes or photos of successful female athletes who seem to be okay with it – that’s not fair to the women who dropped out because of these issues or the women who succeed.

The upper limit for the absolute heaviest weight class for women that receives sponsorship for national and international events is 66 kgs or 145 lbs. For men, it’s 120kgs or 265 lbs AND occasionally they experiment with super heavyweight – a division with no upper weight limit at all.  

To put this in perspective: Fighter/actress Gina Carano was a champion fighter in the heaviest divisions of Mixed Martial Arts.  She tended to weight 140 – 143 pounds during her fight career and once had to publicly strip naked to make her weigh in. This is her with regular sized, just plain actor, Ewan McGregor in Haywire:

image

This is her generously allowing The Rock to lean on her while he takes a nap:

image

On top of that, if you want to be a professional fighter you’re going to need a very rigorous training schedule, be able to travel, take time off to heal up after fights, etc.  So it’s in your best interests to attract sponsors who will pay you to do all of that.

The downside is, marketing guys will tend to want you to pose for their promotions and fight wearing items of clothing that they pick for you to wear during promo shoots.  It also means that marketing guys additional funding options such as interviews, cover shoots, etc tend to want to focus more on “isn’t she sexy!?” rather than “isn’t she a badass!?” 

This isn’t just a problem in fighting sports

Back in 2012, weight lifter Sarah Robles lived poverty nearly missed out on going to Olympics because she had no corporate sponsors. Beach Volleyball is regularly controversial because of it’s double standard where women wear bikinis and the men wear shorts and shirts.

There’s a definite trend that if the female athletes for a sport don’t look conventionally sexy while competing it will struggle for coverage and sponsors. The Australian Women’s Olympic Basketball team, who won Silver in 2000, 2004 and 2008, got less sponsorship in 2012 than the Australian Men’s Olympic Basketball Team who have never brought back a medal.

So long as society remains comfortable with this idea that women aren’t worth giving attention to unless they’re sexy, there’s never going to be any shortage of examples like this.  That doesn’t make any one example okay.

– wincenworks

Posted on

But MMA/Wrestlers….

It seems a popular trend in trying to defend terrible costume designs with random pictures of female wrestlers or MMA fighters.  Usually accompanied by some sort of rant about how anyone who questions the perfection of these costumes is the sexist one!

Yes, there are many sexualized costumes in women’s sports. It’s not because the costumes are flawless. Rather it is a sign that female athletes often suffer under the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy too.

At the end of the day, justifying sexist double standards in the media by pointing to more sexist double standards in the media only showcases how wide spread the problem is.

More under the cut.

– wincenworks

Showmanship vs Sportsmanship

It’s a public secret that WWE isn’t exactly about competing to see who has the greatest combat skills.  WWE and those like it are about over the top stunts, fast paced drama and general entertainment.

If we accept that climbing up on a giant prop so that you can taunt your opponent, call for the crowd to cheer and then drop down with a body slam is not serious fighting behaviour, we should be able to accept they are not wearing serious costumes either.

For reference, compare any rebuttal outfit to what Saori Yoshida wore when she took Gold at the 2012 Olympics.

image

Rules of Engagement

Unsurprisingly in heavily regulated sports that have to adhere to regulations from sponsors, insurance and law enforcement – they have a lot of rules about what you can and can’t do to each other.

Even in more liberal fighting sports such as MMA or Ultimate Fighting, the opponents are not actually trying to kill or permanently injure each other – they’re trying to force a submission through allowed techniques.  Certainly you can’t bring claw weapons, throw fireballs, use grappling hooks or rip their head off at the end of the round.

Weight Classes

This is usually more an objection when we talk about body types or lack of muscle, but there’s always no shortage of people rushing to post images of conventionally attractive young women who are professional fighters – thus insisting that all warrior women should conform to these standards.

This overlooks a rather critical aspect of the above rules of engagement – that in order to keep competitions within the many rules fair, fighters are sorted into weight classes.  Professional fighters need superb discipline and go to great lengths to balance performance vs weight – because they need to in order to be allowed to fight in their weight class.

Unsurprisingly, height is also and advantage so in many of lighter weight classes the contestants tend to be of slim build and a few invariably fall within the conventional beauty standards.

Sponsorship

The lighter weight classes are particularly important, because for any combat sport event to get big tournaments with professional fighters, promotions, photo shoots, etc they need sponsors.  The bigger the sponsors, the bigger the events.  WWE’s sponsors include Disney and Mattel.  And this is where the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy comes in.

Companies sponsor events and fighters in order to boost their image and promote themselves.  That means the marketing department gets involved and so does the flawed mentality that sex sells – this effects both the events and the individual fighters.

Now before we continue – I need to stress here that the problem is not the women who benefit from these opportunities and/or enjoy these aspects of the sport.  The problem is that the circumstances create additional barriers for women who do not fit or feel comfortable within the constraints.

Journalists and brodudes alike constantly try to justify this focusing on sound bytes or photos of successful female athletes who seem to be okay with it – that’s not fair to the women who dropped out because of these issues or the women who succeed.

The upper limit for the absolute heaviest weight class for women that receives sponsorship for national and international events is 66 kgs or 145 lbs. For men, it’s 120kgs or 265 lbs AND occasionally they experiment with super heavyweight – a division with no upper weight limit at all.  

To put this in perspective: Fighter/actress Gina Carano was a champion fighter in the heaviest divisions of Mixed Martial Arts.  She tended to weight 140 – 143 pounds during her fight career and once had to publicly strip naked to make her weigh in. This is her with regular sized, just plain actor, Ewan McGregor in Haywire:

image

This is her generously allowing The Rock to lean on her while he takes a nap:

image

On top of that, if you want to be a professional fighter you’re going to need a very rigorous training schedule, be able to travel, take time off to heal up after fights, etc.  So it’s in your best interests to attract sponsors who will pay you to do all of that.

The downside is, marketing guys will tend to want you to pose for their promotions and fight wearing items of clothing that they pick for you to wear during promo shoots.  It also means that marketing guys additional funding options such as interviews, cover shoots, etc tend to want to focus more on “isn’t she sexy!?” rather than “isn’t she a badass!?” 

This isn’t just a problem in fighting sports

Back in 2012, weight lifter Sarah Robles lived poverty nearly missed out on going to Olympics because she had no corporate sponsors. Beach Volleyball is regularly controversial because of it’s double standard where women wear bikinis and the men wear shorts and shirts.

There’s a definite trend that if the female athletes for a sport don’t look conventionally sexy while competing it will struggle for coverage and sponsors. The Australian Women’s Olympic Basketball team, who won Silver in 2000, 2004 and 2008, got less sponsorship in 2012 than the Australian Men’s Olympic Basketball Team who have never brought back a medal.

So long as society remains comfortable with this idea that women aren’t worth giving attention to unless they’re sexy, there’s never going to be any shortage of examples like this.  That doesn’t make any one example okay.

– wincenworks

Posted on

How Dragon Age’s costume designs are influenced by cosplayers

How Dragon Age’s costume designs are influenced by cosplayers

While the article focuses on the cell phones, I was personally impressed by the concept art also being interested in which parts where comfortable and what challenges costumes presented.

Creating designs based off needs and functionality can do a lot to build immersion and tell stories via the visuals.

It’s also particularly timely given how many people seem to assume that the existence of cosplayers means a costume is perfect and hence above criticism – clearly at some of the people who design the costumes believe there’s always room for improvement.

– wincenworks

Posted on

How Dragon Age’s costume designs are influenced by cosplayers

How Dragon Age’s costume designs are influenced by cosplayers

While the article focuses on the cell phones, I was personally impressed by the concept art also being interested in which parts where comfortable and what challenges costumes presented.

Creating designs based off needs and functionality can do a lot to build immersion and tell stories via the visuals.

It’s also particularly timely given how many people seem to assume that the existence of cosplayers means a costume is perfect and hence above criticism – clearly at some of the people who design the costumes believe there’s always room for improvement.

– wincenworks

Posted on

Well, I’ve been looking into all the official information on why Quiet has that ridiculous outfit.  It’s been a wild ride. I can confidently say that I am not ashamed and have not changed my stance.  The bingo above applies only to official information – with elaboration in the cut below.

For those not familiar with the Metal Gear series – I highly recommend this educational video.

For those already typing up a response to tell me I’m a terrible person, here’s a few quick preemptive responses for the people who will tell me I can’t judge the game without providing notarized proof of having played 400 hours of each game in the series but won’t bother to search the tags of this blog:

– wincenworks

Warnings: Due to this involving information delivered in the game, the following contains spoilers.  Due to the nature of the game the following and the sources linked to will contain references and imagery relating to torture, rape, graphic violent, mutilation and (hopefully fictional) political rhetoric.

Men are sexualized too!

Kojima actually managed to take this a step further than usual by justifying his requesting a “sexy” design for Quiet claims that not only can we argue the guys are sexualized too, but so are the military equipment.  Yes, tanks are sexualized too… apparently. (source – article)

This is particularly ridiculous since as the recent femfreq​ video pointed out – MGS games have a history of recognizing just one kind of person as “sexy” to the viewer – often to ridiculous extents:

image

She CHOSE to dress like that!

If the player chooses to take Quiet captive, it is advised that even though she somehow has no problem with being tortured and kept on display in a cage – she responds violently to anyone who tries to put clothes on her.

image

More information on why in the next two points. (Source – video)

Her strength comes from her uncovered skin…

image

During the same section, it is discussed that Quiet eats (via photosynthesis), breathes and drinks through her skin – so she could suffocate if she wore clothes. (No explanation is given for her latex glove, fishnets or why her bikini is so ridiculous).

image

Later you do see Quiet struggling to breathe while wearing long sleeves and long pants, but she and is able to access all the air she needs to do a wuxia-esque grindhouse revenge killing sequence when her pants are removed and her shirt is ripped open. (The scenario is at least as terrible as you’re imagining, actually probably worse)

image

Also, anyone with a basic understanding of clothing or science knows that there’s a wide variety of fabrics that “breathe” and hence wouldn’t get in the way of her skin getting access to air.  Certainly not any more than say a shower or rain would. Speaking of…

It’s just fantasy/scifi! Magic/science protects her!

You were probably thinking it sounds pretty weird that Quiet uses her skin for everything we have specialist organs for, and you’d be right!  Quiet is first introduced as a normal human (and spectacularly incompetent) assassin who is sent to kill Snake but ends up on fire instead.  She is then given “parasite therapy” where some sort of insect microbe things transform her body in a way that conveniently preserves her sexiness and forces her to show it off.

image

This makes so little sense that basically nobody can agree if it’s scifi or supernatural – it just works because they say so.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering – yes there are men in the game who’ve been “enhanced” with parasite therapy – this is what they look like:

image

Sources: (video – content warning: sexual violence and graphic violence)

Girls are SUPPOSED to look sexy.

According to Kojima, part of this design idea was he spent a lot of time thinking about how characters might be effected by early life, fashion, etc.  Yes, apparently he thinks this is how Russian women her age in the 80s would have been thinking of dressing.

Another early reasons given by Kojima himself to explain that sexy costume is that he wanted to encourage cosplay of the character.  He also admitted that the character might not be cosplayable – so female cosplayers are supposed to automatically gravitate towards the most over sexualized costumes even if they’re not possible.

That’s the best way of marketing to men…

Kojima also stated that the heavily sexualized design was there to promote figurine sales.  I’m not sure if he’s aware there’s really no shortage of heavily sexualized figurines or that some people may find this one a little awkward to have around the house… just like he was surprised to learn that Metal Gear Solid has a large female fanbase.

It fits her fighting style!

Kojima stated that his core concept for this one was a “naked sniper” – as opposed to the previously just boob flaunting female snipers…. and the fully dressed male snipers (who also use photosynthesis)

image

When not sniping though, Quiet simply uses her super powers to dodge bullets, throw people like dolls and leap spectacularly into the air.

image

The protagonist on the other hand is limited to more realistic close Close Quarter Combat techniques.

She’s indestructible, she doesn’t need any protection!

Right when the character was first released, Kojima himself confirmed he understood that it would be ridiculous for someone to be dressed like that in the desert and that he wanted the player to wonder why.  The reason of course, as covered above: Quiet eating breathing and drinking through her skin somehow makes her immune to the hazards of exposure.

(Never mind that baking in the Sun would mean she’d need to be guzzling water constantly for all the carbohydrates she’s producing.  That’s a minor detail)

She’s so badass that she needs no armor!

When Quiet is first introduced she is wearing BDUs, has no super powers and fails in her assassination mission.  Upon gaining her super powers, she suddenly dresses in… that, and becomes incredibly effective against… everyone in every way.

Great story makes up for those ridiculous designs!

image

Kojima started with a bold, assertive stance.  Later he would state that he understood why people have concerns but they just wait and experience the game it will explain everything.  Complete with reassurances!

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(Source: video)

(ht: petrichor-rains for reminding me The End used photosynthesis too)

Posted on

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

ornamentedbeing:

Topless dueling?

I know it’s a long text but it’s worth the read!

“The most intriguing duel fought between women, and the sole one that featured exposed breasts, took place in August 1892 in Verduz, the capitol of Liechtenstein, between Princess Pauline Metternich and the Countess Kielmannsegg. It has gone down in history as the first “emancipated duel” because all parties involved, including the principals and their seconds were female… Before the proceedings began, the baroness pointed out that many insignificant injuries in duels often became septic due to strips of clothing being driven into the wound by the point of a sword. To counter this danger she prudently suggested that both parties should fight stripped of any garments above the waist. Certainly, Baroness Lubinska was ahead of her time, taking an even more radical take on the (at the time) widely dismissed theories of British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1870 revolutionized surgical procedures with the introduction of antiseptic. 

With the precautions Baroness Lubinska recommended, the topless women duelists were less likely to suffer from an infection; indeed, it was a smart idea to fight semiclad. Given the practicality of the baroness’ suggestion and the “emancipated” nature of the duel, it was agreed that the women would disrobe—after all, there would be no men present to ogle them. For the women, the decision to unbutton the tops of their dresses was not sexual; it was simply a way of preventing a duel of first blood from becoming a duel to the death.

… 

It is humorous that most recounts of this historic event fail to mention two important things: the winner of the duel (Princess Metternich) and the reason why the women came to arms in the first place—they disagreed over the floral arrangements for an upcoming musical exhibition.”

^ best part of the entire article. 

Emphasis mine.

BABD blog usually advocates for covering female warriors as a protective measure, but here’s a proof that taking everything off is not a bad idea either.

Anything, be it full plate armor or full frontal nudity, makes more sense than chafing, pinching, improbably skin-tight METAL BIKINI (or anything of that sort). 

I got reminded of this thanks to reader Kanonite, whose comment brought up a helpful quote from TV Tropes page on Full Frontal Assault trope:

Oddly enough there was a good REASON to fight in the nude… Before modern medicine, a majority of deaths from combat were caused by cuts and stab wounds getting infected. Often this was because the weapon forced a scrap of clothing into the wound, where it would fester… If you aren’t wearing any clothing, this can’t happen!

This week’s throwback, one of my favorite and most informative reblogs on BABD: historical evidence that fighting topless against melee weapons is a much better and (relatively speaking) safer idea than insisting on “modest” wear that’s there basically to just cover the nipples.

Can we have our historically accurate bare-chested barbarian ladies already, please?

~Ozzie