Hello world!

Posted by admin on October 19th, 2014

This is my blog about video games, I used to blog here if you want to check out my old musings.

I play video games to relax, video games are fun for me, a chance to unwind and enjoy my personal time. I could spend a lot of time playing video games but I have a life and responsibilities and so don’t have as much time as I’d like. When I get distracted from playing video games in my spare time it depresses me a little bit and the current distraction around the gamer gate outrages is definitely a distraction from having fun playing video games.

I’m a man, I would also consider myself a feminist.  I had to go and look up the definition just to make sure but I’m right I am a feminist. If you aren’t sure what the word means then check here.

I’m also a gamer. I know that games aren’t the most important thing in the world and so I don’t take it too seriously. This may just be because I am pretty rubbish at most games but to me that doesn’t matter so long as I am enjoying the experience.

I don’t support gamer gate, I do support full disclosure from the press, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the gaming press or not, full disclosure is a key tenet to what the press provide to the public. I do support more women working in and around video games as far as I am concerned the more people who play and are involved in video games the better it is for me. More people means more different types of development which means more games to play and have fun with. I do also support people’s right to discuss the finer points of video games from different perspectives.

I’ve not played Bayonetta 2 (I didn’t play Bayonetta 1 either) so I can’t comment on that game but let’s roll back many years to the release of the first ever Tomb Raider game on PS1 (Saturn and DOS as well according to Wikipedia). If I remember correctly there was a similar discussion about whether it was sexist or not. The developers obviously pushed the strong female lead but the character design was, let’s just say, very female. I remember playing the game, I would have been 25 at the time and so maybe old enough to understand that this was a game and in no way represented real life either in the way the action played out (killing tigers if I recall) or the way that the main character looked. I do remember feeling slightly embarrassed while playing the game because it’s third person you are basically looking at Lara’s butt for most of the game.

The thing is though it was (still is) an absolutely excellent game. It was very new, quite tricky in places and sometimes a bit flawed but it had everything. Good story, good action and some good brain teasers. When you were playing it you soon forgot about Lara’s figure and became engrossed in the game. Lara is quite a hard character I think but you immediately felt for her in the game and that made the experience that much more engrossing.

I understand that Bayonetta 2 is also an excellent game, I don’t think there is likely to be anyone ‘feeling’ for Bayonetta’s situation and there is the (assumed) obvious appeal of Bayonetta’s rather lascivious poses. For me though, granted I’m 45 now, if it’s not a good game then why would you play it, why would you buy it especially at £40 regardless of the smuttiness of the character(s). This game may appear to appeal to your average hormone ridden male teenager but as it’s from a Japanese company and presumably programmed by Japanese men then you have to give the game some cultural leeway.

All that said I don’t believe that the content of either of the games I have mentioned pushes women away from gaming. I think that what pushes women away from gaming generally is what pushes me away from playing online. The small, outspoken, loud and aggressive group of individuals (all men/boys) that dominate the scene and dominate the internet of all things video gaming. However these are a minority in the gaming world most of us are nice, normal, decent, blokes who love playing video games for the fun of it.

Come and join us, it’s a fun place to be at the moment with so many cool things happening that the pluses massively outweigh the minuses.