Tag: control

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Best and Worst of 2019

So a new year is upon us, it’s a good time to reflect on our best and worst of the past year.  There’s always plenty of good stuff in our positive examples, and sexy male armor, tags of course.

The Best of 2019

Pretty good year for video games and other media in that more studios seem to be trending towards creating more equitable attire for characters to varying degrees.  Even Games Workshop has released some new Sisters of Battle that look like formidable warriors (as opposed to well…), and have promised more. There are a few stand outs:

Captain Marvel by Marvel Entertainment

This movie was a great start to the year and addition to the dialogue regarding the Marvel movies.  Representation of women and same-gender relationships were great discussions sparked by it, and it smashed a box office record in the process.

Control by Remedy Entertainment

Weird, compelling and a whole lot of destructive fun – the adventures for Jesse Faden warrant almost infinite exploration and interpretation – all without needing to engage in exploitation of women.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood by Arkane Studios & Machine Games

The iconic game of killing Nazis provided as with the new and exciting opportunity let the players co-operate as a pair sisters killing Nazis for themselves.

Apex Legends by Respawn Entertainment

Battle Royales are a big market right now, and it’s nice to see one that embraces diverse characters and provides the female characters with interesting roles and equipment (that is also practical looking)

And because I’m not too proud to admit to schadenfreude: 

Sex Sells – Confirmed invalid, again

Amongst others we took great delight in that the attempts to use sex to sell by EM83R completely fall over, along with the release of the Kill la Kill video game going pretty much unnoticed.

The Worst of 2019

For simplicity I’ve limited this to major media and not the various groups of the worst people supporting the worst celebrities – because those people don’t need  our platform and never change.

Mortal Kombat fanbase highlights general toxicity in gamer culture

So, Mortal Kombat 11 came out and it’s… well it’s a Mortal Kombat game, but a few changes to default designs and made a few female characters have less conventionally sexy outfits… and well, capital G gamers did not take it well:

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(And of course, Final Fantasy had a small riot due to a portion of the cis male fan base having no idea of how boobs or bra sizes work)

League of Legends studio, Riot Games, confirmed as misogynistic cesspit

Throughout the year various details came out about the studio being a horrendous to female staff – to the point where a judge ruled they have to pay ten million dollars compensation to female employees.  It’s good that they received some compensation, but it shows how the video game industry still has a long way and how if a studio’s products look like it doesn’t care about women… it probably doesn’t.

Media and platform capitulation to Nazis

If you’re wondering why you hadn’t seen more on Wolfenstein: Youngblood or Control, it’s because pretty much the vast majority of platforms such as Steam and rating services such as MetaCritic still want to take a hands-off approach to their communities because they just don’t care.  Of course, there’s also the issue of how Kelly Marie Tran was all but written out of Rise of the Skywalker.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Well the game is out now and while it was celebrated for its nostalgic qualities, it sadly also carried along all the nostalgic ideas on how female character’s costumes should just be generically sexy without anything thought on… anything else at all… not even whether the clothes can even exist.

Of course, the comic industry remains a trash fire… for many years running now.

– wincenworks

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So, Control has rightfully been nominated for and received many great awards.

The game has many, many great things going for it including being of the best pieces of New Weird (with the proper implications).

But I personally think we should be talking about how Jesse Faden’s wardrobe is utterly amazing not just within the themes of the game, but just in each outfit tells a story and is perfectly designed for its stated purpose.

Every one of them is a distinct outfit which maintains the dignity and practicality of the protagonist, they are consistent with her personality and circumstances.  None of them sexual her, even when specifically depowering her to create the feelings of helplessness and vulnerability.

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A lot of that can be boiled down to two factors:

  1. Commitment to creating an entire world and complete story that will be compelling to the audience and a foundation for further expansion
  2. Hiring women into positions of creative influence and letting them take the lead in conversations that are relevant to women *

This is fantastic costume design, and I cannot recommend this game enough.  It’s currently available on PlayStation, X-Box and the Epic Games Store.  It will become available on Steam in August next year.

– wincenworks

* For those rushing to type a response about creative freedom etc, I can assure you that this game is very much still a Sam Lake story (perhaps the most Sam Lake story every) and he considers it to be one moreso than Quantum Break.  The enemy of creative freedom isn’t diversity and inclusion, its risk adverse executives who believe in simplistic but comforting myths.

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So it seems Remedy (creators of Max Payne, Alan Wake and Quantum Break) have decided to branch out, rather than making a game about a man who can’t stop narrating about his surreal life they’re going to make Control, a game about a woman who can’t stop narrating about her surreal life…

What’s really ground breaking about this though is that it shows exactly how easy it is for developers to make a female character who can run and gun without sexifying up her design.  They’ve even refrained from using her pants to produce gratuitous butt shots in the promos!

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And it’s a definite improvement on the last role the voice actress played in a Remedy game… because tactical clothes do not fit like that:

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It turns out this stuff was easy all along, all you have to do is think of your female character as a person… who knew…!?

– wincenworks

(Yes her hair is sub optimal but in a game where you have surreal telekinetic powers, I will take annoying but expressive hairstyle over “if no boob, how woman” tops any day – at least the former is expressive of character and can make for dramatic framing/composition)