Tag: video games

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In it’s “golden age”, the pen and paper Vampire: The Masquerade was distinct from Dungeon and Dragons (and copycats) due to its heavy focus on social and other non-combat solutions.  The game of course had combat, but much like in the original Bloodlines game it was generally fairly clumsy and heavy focus on it was generally heavy focus on making it as short and decisive as possible.

This made it notably popular with people who were sick of dealing with people who’d taken to expressing their toxic masculinity through superior knowledge of statistic math – and that included a lot of women.

I say all this so you’ll see that it makes perfect sense that they’d incorporate a Battle Royale variant of the upcoming Bloodlines game, and naturally show that this was going to apparently involve running around in lingerie and a leather jacket with a reverse grip on two swords in over the top action scenes.

Even more logical that in this modern fantasy game, where they could use countless items of real world gear as inspiration they apparently decided to go with this bizarre mix up gear that looks like it was randomly selected by an AI with a list of “cool” items.

This is truly the apex of Creepy Marketing Guy’s influence.

– wincenworks

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Good news everyone, dudes in the fandom agree that Morathi’s bingo breaking design needs some revision.  

Bad news everyone, dudes in the fandom specifically want her hands and bare feet to be cleaned up.

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There’s already a mod for that, but for some reason it also cleans up her make-up (which, like the darkness on her digits, is supposed to be an expression of her internal corruption).

Not to make it look like she’s not wearing any makeup but rather to make her look like she’s wearing a different, more low profile style of make-up that is frequently undetectable to my fellow straight dudes. 

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Something to think about the next time you see people claiming that it’s people who propose that diversity in representation is “pandering”.

– wincenworks

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Return to Soul Calibur: Cassandra, Part  2

Soul Calibur IV/V: The Worst One

I don’t know why I do this to myself, but I decided to tackle the worst out of Cassandra’s outfits. The design started kind of silly at first, with me giving her a butt armor plating pretty much immediately. If she’s going to have a bunch of butt attacks, she might as well pack a real punch with those cheeks.

But as I was trying to figure out how to redo her entire upper half, which I hated all of, I ended up looking up some traditional Greek clothing for inspiration. Even though this is a while after Cass left home, I still wanted to include something that tied her back there. As I was explaining during a stream, SC has all these varied characters from all over the world, all with their own motivations, and yet their designs (especially in the later games) are so focused on the fan-service that any actual storytelling is lost.

In the end, I maintained the color scheme, and even the overall shape spread, with the legs being the biggest shapes (although reversed), and the small shapes breaking up the larger shape of the jacket. I guess the only shape I really broke up were in the arms, because I hate her stupid gloves lol.

I got rid of all of her pink ribbons because they just seem out-of-place no matter how you look at it. Guess they were tying the pink of the shield into her outfit, but they were too stupid. Rest in Pieces, ribbons.

This design would probably suit an earlier game, but whatevs. Overall, it’s pretty passable, if I do say so myself.

-Icy

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Return to Soul Calibur: Cassandra, Part  1

Soul Calibur’s Cassandra, much like her Greek mythology namesake, is cursed. But instead of no-one believing her accurate prophecies, no-one ever gives her adequate costume!
And, as per usual in the franchise, designs basically only get worse over time. So we agreed to do a double-Cassandra stream and fix two different outfits of hers. 

Soul Calibur 6: Orange-white minidress 

While this is her latest iteration, I wouldn’t call the SC6 Cassandra dress the worst by a long shot. Still plenty shitty, though! See its bingo here.

It is rather surprising that after years of her main color scheme being blue and pink with white details, latest game changed it to orange and white with blue detail. The new, complimentary, colors look nice together. I don’t think the palette change was necessary, but unlike many designs we comment on, this one’s artists have their basic color theory in check. 

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Obviously, first thing to change was the boob window. I decided to color in that whole part white (not orange) and connect it with her collar, to give the remaining orange part a vest-like look. Moved its hem a bit higher, too, so that it stops implying low cut cleavage. Some subtler, but still annoyingly sexualized parts, like sideboobs and the belt on her chest, also had to go.
I usually don’t mind bare shoulders, but this design looked better with some poofy sleeves, in lieu of our stream redesign staple, the poofy pants.

I decided to extend the front and back flap on her dress, and to add two side flaps under the tassets, as an additional splash of color and some padding. And while I appreciate how comfortable her shoes looked, I turned them into longer boots that look much better with this cut of costume. 

Rather than a massive overhaul, it was the kind of redesign that consists of many small changes that add up. And I’m quite happy with the whole thing. Hope you enjoy it!

~Ozzie

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satan-general-irl submitted:

LET MOM CHARACTERS BE ATTRACTIVE & BADASS WITHOUT BEING OVERLY SEXUALIZED-

Sindel has such an interesting concept?? But then they tried to make her like… god, I can’t. I did this in like 20 minutes on my phone. No cruelty intended, but if you can’t design a scary older woman to where she’s hot without wearing a leather monokini, you’re not doing it right.

I emphasized the royalty motif with the jewelry & corset (so her impossibly tiny waist makes some semblance of sense). Hope you guys like it.

Emphasis mine, cause I agree 100%. For 20 minutes on your PHONE, trying to work around that disaster, this is such a huge improvement, it’s kind of embarrassing for the original. I wonder what other designs were on the drawing board before they picked this one. At least she seems to have abs in the original…. but damn, was this the worst way to show them? The answer is yes. Check out our bingo of the original “outfit” here.

The way I see it, this is one of those designs where you have to just scrap everything, except for that shrug thing maybe, to redo. I don’t think the corset is a great look (or great for fighting), but honestly, I wouldn’t be able to come up with any ideas in 20 minutes, as anyone who has watched our livestreams will confirm. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I think this is a good example of just how easy it is to not give your character an ugly double-sided-tape-requiring swimsuit made out of that puffy coat material. But this was Mortal Kombat 9, where clothes went to die.

-Icy

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bikiniarmorbattledamage:

krixwell:

dare-to-dm:

feministgamingmatters:

I am really struggling to write academically about this trend of developers making up bad excuses for not including women because what I really want to say is that it sucks and it’s adding insult to injury and could you please just be honest and say you don’t wanna.

Oh yeah, I’m sick of it too.  And it feels like it just keeps happening and it’s insulting to our intelligence.  Like

Ubisoft: We can’t have a female protagonist because they’re too hard to animate!

Logical Retort: What about all those female characters you already animated?

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What they should have admitted: We didn’t want to make a woman protagonist.  

~~~~~

Konami: Quiet can’t wear clothes because she’s infected by a parasite that makes her breathe through her skin and she’d suffocate!

Logical Retort: Well then how come that other guy with the same parasite was covered head to toe?

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What they should have admitted: We wanted her to be eye candy.

~~~~~

Bungie: Cortana is rendered without any clothes because it gives her a psychological advantage over her opponents!

Logical Retort: Then how come the “male” AIs are rendered with clothing?

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What they should have admitted: We wanted her to be eye candy.

~~~~~

Nintendo: Link can’t be a woman because no one would relate to them!

Logical Retort: 48% of gamers would probably love to see a character like them.  And much of the other 52% may appreciate the novelty.

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What they should have admitted: We really like making the exact same concept over and over.

Stop.  Your BS excuses are honestly almost more insulting than the truth.

@bikiniarmorbattledamage

First let us begin with a summary of many of the reblogs by individuals who have very predictable responses.

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The basic arguments being spewed up are the usual suspects:

Basically all variants on the “I am threatened by examination of my hobby and would prefer we maintain a world where I am unfairly celebrated than move toward one where I am expected to recognize other people as human.”

Really there’s only two reasons we keep getting this trash:

  1. Developers who want to make out their personal fantasies and expect everyone to praise them unconditionally for it
  2. Creepy Marketing Guy convinces the stakeholders to follow an old myth that sounds appealing but, in reality, doesn’t work.

Obviously, neither of these is really a good explanation so instead of the honest truth we get the a worrying state on ongoing denial of both the problem and the consequences.

– wincenworks

More on rhetoric on BABD | BABD’s Rhetoric Bingo

I figured this would be an appropriate throwback, in the light of Ubisoft, one of developers mentioned, being exposed last month for their massive sexual misconduct claims, and then, on top of that, evidence of absolutely shamelessly toxic, cishet white male-centric development philosophy at their studios, despite  bragging about having diverse teams working on games. 

When not insisting that “sex sells”, Creepy Markerting Guy and his Creepy Executive buddies, are literally on record saying that “women (as protagonists) do not sell”. And pushing back against their development teams fighting for even slightest bit of inclusivity in their games. 

We’ve been saying for years, one way or another, that there’s a direct connection between toxic white masculinity and the refusal in entertainment industry, including games, to acknowledge women as more than eye candy and that people other than white straight cis men deserve to have their stories told. 
We’re not surprised by the disturbing revelations – there were similar ones before. Moreover, the product itself reflects the toxic environment it was made in, if you know where to look. 

~Ozzie