Double Agent

Well well well, another weekend gone, and no "kill Drew!" letters received. I may have made the right decision after all. Fancy that. :)

Today's letters column is going to try (keyword: try) to wrap up the big Steven Gohan-spawned debate about sexism, equal rights, and the depiction of women in gaming and elsewhere. I'm sure there are other aspects that I'm forgetting about right now. Whew. Whatta mess. Drew cackled evilly as he handed off the Agenting reins to me once more, and it didn't take long for me to discover where his glee came from.

In other news, due to popular response, you might notice that I've canned Subversive Influence after a whopping one, count 'em, one update. Why? Because it's redundant and unpopular. Most of what I was going to attempt with SI will be duly covered by Features. By god, we've got an archive listing for Editorial Features, so I might as well use 'em. Thanks for those that gave support for SI, it was much appreciated. But the readers spoke out, and they said "this sucks", and I listened. I'll do better for you.

A man of impeccable taste

So now that the GIA is covering adventure games, can I ask--what exactly isthe console standard for an "adventure game"? When I think "adventuregame," I think of the hallowed PC genre that encompasses such classics asMonkey Island, Sam 'n' Max, King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Indiana Jones andthe Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, The Pandora Directive, Grim Fandango...

I was surprised that you indicated it would be a bit of a stretch to callSam 'n' Max an adventure game. By my standards, the Resident Evil gamesseem more like action games with inventories, from what I've seen, not thatthat's bad or anything.

Also, are there any adventure games of the kind I mentioned before indevelopment for consoles? I know there have been games in the past that fitsnugly into that genre: King's Quest 5 on the NES, Shadowgate/DejaVu/Uninvited, Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, etc. Is Shadowgate 64going to follow in that glorious tradition?

Anyway, keep up the nice work on the site.

--Shih Tzu


Man, we just find a way to slip out of the "what is an RPG" debate, and you throw us this one. Sheesh. Well, basically, any game that the developer says is an Adventure game, is. Sure, it means that we cover some pretty dumb games on occasion, but we wanted to expand our range, and it'd look more ridiculous than usual to do it scattershot.

Like you say, Adventure games are a dodgy proposition. Truth be told, I too think of old Sierra games when I ponder the Adventure genre. But time rolls on, and Tomb Raider has redefined the genre, so we go with the flow. My loose definition of an Adventure title is a title with an evolving plotline, variable use of items to solve obstacles in gameplay, often including character interaction, but without the capability to dramatically improve one's gameplay characteristics permanently.

All of you will now rip said definition to shreds.

Adventure games in the Sierra style are few and far between, these days. I believe that Shadowgate 64 will be somewhat along those lines. Also, the original Deception, for PSX, isn't quite the same thing, but offers similar, and excellent, gameplay that you might appreciate. But sadly, the days of Princess Tomato (and god bless you for remembering that game) seem to be dwindling away. Very sad.

My favorite Gohan letter

Dear Mister Agent,

How dare those evil people pick on my son! You don't know what family you're dealing with, yelling at Gohan, calling him sexist and evil! I'll take ya all on!

KAMEHAME HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

- Goku


Anyone that's totally confused by this, go find a Dragonball Z-related website, read the basic intro, and all will be made clear.

Different but equal

Howdy, Allan. I know you're tired of this topic, but to hell with that...here's my opinion.

Kay, there's no doubt in my mind, women and men are different people. I am a man, not a woman. This doesn't make me any more or less qualified, but I'm sure as hell not a woman. They're different as day and night, just look at the way the body is put together.

Now, just 'cause men are different from women doesn't mean one of the genders can or can't do something as well as the next. Does it make that much of a difference whether or not the main character is a female? I think the gender of the character should be decided by the plot...if a guy character is in love with another character, I think that other character should be a girl. What if she is given large breasts? This is fantasy, people!

I think, as a man, I'm offended by this sexist crap that Mr. Gohan put up. I don't play a game based upon whether or not there's a good lookin' girl, and I never will. It shouldn't make a difference. To think that a guy said that women should only be healers is...it's so frickin' stupid, I can't come up with words to describe it. You shouldn't be a guy, Mr. Gohan! Go be a dog...'er a chimpanzee or something. Maybe yer doctor can fix you up with a good plastic surgeon.

Well, 'nuf said, can't think of what I was thinking of earlier, so I'll quit the bantering. One quick thing, though, Mr Gohan: come find me some time. You'll leave with three shoes, two on your feet, and one in your ass.

Ryan

I'm not too convinced that men and women are "night and day", as I find there are some basic qualities we all share as human beings. Then again, that's splitting hairs, and your point stands: men and women are different. Different and equal. Anyone that's disagreeing with us at this point can kindly climb back into the time warp, thanks.

Basically, I agree with you. Character is many things, and automatically shutting a character into one role or another due to sex restricts creativity, and promotes negative stereotypes. A female character can have large breasts, but it shouldn't be the only important trait the character has.

And lastly, I'll just say that I'd love to see a same-sex couple in an RPG. A beautiful, heroic, maybe even slightly tragic romance between a women and a woman, or a man and a man. For sheer originality and audacity, I'd buy five copies of that game.

The Agents

Heya Allan,

If you are the Double Agent, is Drew Cosner a Single Agent, a Free Agent, a Cleaning Agent, or what?

~Shawners

Heh. I say he's the Cleaning Agent. He comes in on weekends, and mops up after I've pissed all over the nice tile floor. And sometimes, like this weekend, he manages to make a mess all his own, that I'm scrubbing away at during my coffee breaks.

... man, did I ever stretch that metaphor.

Strong women

Since Mr Gohan's opinions have thoroughly been trashed already, I'dsimply like to point something out: non-healer female RPG charactershave existed at least as long as most console RPGs. The Dragon Warriorseries is a prime example. For instance, the female character in DW IIpractices what would more likely be "black" magic. In DW III, one hasthe option of creating female characters for any class (including thehero). In DW IV, there are several "strong" female characters. Granted,8-bit games didn't allow for noticeably scantily-clad women, the femalewarrior in DW III could be considered scantily-clad--gasp!--you can seeher legs! and ARMS!

As for FF6 having strong female characters? They're cool. Are theythe first? Hell, no.

Poo on you, Mr Gohan.

Theophrastus, the Zoma-lover

I'm sure we can all pick a favourite female character from RPGs, but my favourite has got to be Alys, from the original Phantasy Star. Why? Because she wasn't a big deal. This was an early RPG, so she displayed about as much personality as a dry sponge, but she was the main character of the game. No fanfare, no big deal, no attention paid. You were simply playing a game whose main character happened to be a woman. I always respected that. The simplicity of it.

Copping out

Here's my take on the problem with women being portrayed out of proportion for certain bodily areas, or for women being portrayed as the general stereotypical woman that goes running to the big macho man when she gets frightened by "the bad man".

Well, maybe that's ok. I know, you sexist people out there are going to freak out, but hear me out for a moment. This is a FANTASY world, it is meant to be different from reality, for all we know, in their social dynamics that is ok. I mean, maybe in that world women have been raised to think of men as the stronger gender, just as women were earlier in our history.Sure, it's not good to put that type of idea into little children's heads, but if they look at society in the real world even a little they'll realize that society and games are different.

Oh, and one more thing, as I said, most of the games with these "incorrect" perceptions of women are in the FANTASY genre. So, some people say that Tifa wouldn't be able to fight with her huge breasts, but, for all you know in that fantasy world huge breasts may be common, and by their standards Tifa's breasts may be perfectly normal. Maybe weapons designed for females in that world work AROUND their breasts. Ever think of that?

So, in closing, i'd like to say that people should just relax, and not get so paranoid about "influencing the youth of america". If young boys start to think of girls as sex objects it's probably because of their environment at home, not a video game. Oh, and if you're really so angry about women being portrayed this way maybe you shoud think about getting into the game industry and changing it. I'm sure if a female was drawn with correct proportions, and the graphics were pretty good, that it would be used in a game. Maybe if somebody developed a storyline centered around a strong female character (like Tomb Raider, but maybe without the misproportione upper body), then people would accept it. The problem is that people keep complaining and not doing anything about what they complain about. Maybe you should become a game designer, programmer, or artist, and attempt to bring change to the industry.

Sincerely

GameGuru4

That is such a sad cop-out. Thanks for the suggestion, but hey, not all of us are interested in becoming game developers for a living. In the meantime, we are consumers, and it's perfectly within our rights to find what we're being offered objectionable, and to ask for changes. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and while game developers aren't obligated to bow to our demands, it hurts nothing to make our opinions known. It's part of the whole consumer-producer relationship.

As for the bits about females being different in the fantasy genre, that's so bizarre, I'm at a loss to respond to it. Maybe in the fantasy world, massive breasts are common? Maybe in the fantasy world, women take being inferior and weak with a smile? What kind of sick, pathetic fantasy is this? Don't we get enough of that sort of sexist bullshit in real life? All these games are portraying the objectification of women in a positive light, and while it's certainly a pervasive idea (it's all over pop culture and media), it doesn't mean we should condone it. And we certainly shouldn't be making excuses for ass-backwards attitudes that we're trying to throw out.

Is it futile to ask for equality in media, when we can't accomplish as much in real life? I don't know. Maybe it is. But my fantasies don't include misogyny. My fantasies don't include women who are automatically grafted into ready-made roles as healers and sex symbols. And I'll be damned if I'm going to shut up and let what are, to me, fundamentally wrong ideals be made the norm in what I see and play.


Closing comments

Golly, can you spot the liberal?

As longtime readers well know, I'm an argumentative bastard, and while I'll back down on almost any issue, equality's a hot topic with me. Tread carefully, kiddies.

Anyhow, always feel free to write about anything else, too. I'd like to try and wrap up the sexism debate before Wednesday, but my hands are tied unless I receive letters about anything else.

- Allan Milligan

 
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