One of the characters I liked most last year was Max from Life is Strange. Not because she was "brave, strong and in general a badass" but because she felt plausibly real in her own game world. Granted, it was a game where you could control her choices and "force" the traits of her personality you liked to be present more often than what would happen if the game didn't allow for that. In any case, it's probably one of the best cases of how to write a character in game (though, like any other game ever, it still had flaws of course).
The argument for more complete characters does not imply that it's something that must happen for every single game on the market. No one really cares all that much if in the next "Worms" game your own worms are good characters. You really just want to have them send Banana Bombs and Super Sheep into each other in the funniest and most enjoyable way possible! ;)
However for the games which feature a heavier story orientation (think Uncharted, TLOU, the rebooted Tomb Raider, etc, etc) a good story MUST be coupled with more complete characters. While one can argue the gameplay would be fun with or without a proper story, one can't deny the impact of it would be greatly diminuished without something for you to follow/care about. Imagine playing "TLOU" without much story context and just with a black screen fade between levels. Sure, we could still probably enjoy bricking the hell out of runners, clickers, fireflies and so forth but it wouldn't really feel as tense and you wouldn't know why you were doing so nor why you had this random teenaged partner following you around.
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TL; DR:
The argument had little to do with "feminism" as it has to do with a push for better and more real characters in games (when the game calls for it, of course). This is something we as gamers should embrace, not shun.
Still very much Hype for this, but I'm gonna wait for the full thing to be released. Glad to hear its doing things right from the start, even if there is room for improvement.
Don't really get why people get mad when women try to be involved with gaming or tech in general.
Look around you. Women are and forever will be a part of your life. In fact, women outnumber men in most developed countries. Trying to actively exclude them from anything is incredibly pointless and nonsensical. Treating them like 2nd class citizens in specific areas of expertise will accomplish literally nothing in the long run. The gaming market is already diverse, the market already demands that old and new franchises adapt to it's reality. Women and people of colour becoming more and more prominent in gaming (both on the developer and consumer side of things) is just it's natural evolution. And it's not just in gaming either.
Just go play some Rocket League, grow up and let your frustrations go.
Huh... Interesting. Very interesting. Was not expecting such a postive review to be honest. Will have to pick this up it seems. Glad to hear that they got back on track.
@alexarayc Would you say that, by direct contrast with Unity, this is a more polished experience? Outside the very blatant bugs, the technical and gameplay issues Unity had (which I hope are indeed a thing of the past), its story felt very scattered by the very design of the game; too many side quests, too many collectibles and resources (weapons/armour/etc) to buy from the moment you started playing as Arno with no reason or explanation. That in turn made me feel very uninterested in the world presented to us, as it felt very much unfocused to use all of them properly.
That said the "black box missions" were pretty neat! So more of those would be a big plus for me!
True. The game was really brilliant when it simply let us explore and pick a path with all of it's consequences (as a reward or punishment).
And yes, that bathroom moment was quite nice! Such a simple trick, but the game did a good job of trying to hide away the answer. Moments like that are what made the game really fun for me, outside of it's characters and story.
I have to say that I agree with the score for this particular episode. I just finished it myself, not an hour ago.
The very start made it seem like we were in for a great finale! Alas, after the first initial sequence things got a bit "predictable" for my personal taste. Not only that, it made several resolutions in the many alternate realities feel quite uneventful. The impact was taken away from them.
Now the 2nd half (or final 40 minutes) were quite fun! Strange, entertaining and a wonderful exploration of Max's character! They even managed, intentionally or not, to fit in a good life lesson in the very closing moments (though I'm yet to pick the "other choice" and see how that unfolds).
All in all, it's a 6 delivered in it's entirety by the final moments of the episode. Completely agree on the score. That said I still had a blast with it, and I'd rate the whole saga a solid 7 or even 8.
Hopefully we'll get more from Max Caulfield! She turned out to be a great character and the game turned out to be great fun too! Well done DONTNOD!
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