Review: Avatar

Last weekend I finally got to see Avatar in all its 3D glory. It was... cute. [WARNING: Contains Spoilers]

First and foremost I want to give it full props for the 3D technique (native 3D, rather than contrived in post-production) that will hopefully become the norm in movies to come. The visual depth was absolutely stunning. And the Na'vi were constructed with amazing detail.

But beyond that, I found the movie to be disappointing given the amount of hype surrounding it and the (undeserved, in my opinion) Oscar nod.

The visuals beyond the 3D effects were a bit dull. Virtually every plant and animal seemed to have the exact same waxy ,snake-like texture. The plants also looked overly waxy, and that detracted from the 3D effects, and made the world feel far less real.

The acting was fine. Nothing to write home about, but not bad either. The characters, while cliche were at least believable, and enjoyable to watch..

The story is such a great one. Outsiders journeying to a strange land to get resources to send back home, but uncaring about the native population. This is a new and original story.... oh wait....

I know that there is really no such thing as an original idea anymore, but still, I was half-expecting Neytiri to burst into "Colors of the Wind" at several parts during Jake's lessons.

This was far from the only cliche. It actually got to the point that the movie was bordering on being un-enjoyable due to the level of predictability.

When Neytiri shows Jake the skeleton of the giant bird that has "only been ridden 5 times since the first songs were sung." I knew that at some point Jake would tame one, impress everyone and it would secure his place in the tribe.

Neytiri's fiance was clearly going to die, and gloriously in battle. Can't leave the ex running around, and having him die makes him the sad martyr figure. Of course, first he had to grow to respect and value Jake.

Dr Grace's death was still another exercise in predictability. As soon as I saw what was going on, I knew (1)she was going to die, and, (2) they would go through the same ceremony with Jake, and so he and Neytiri could live happily ever after.

*yawn*

It also didn't help that every one of the characters was an exercise in cliche.

Jake: the down and out warrior, good at heart but willing to do almost anything to get his old life back. That is, up until he meets the hot chick that he falls in love with and shows him how to appreciate life in a new way.

Neytiri: the princess. Strong and vibrant. Loathes our hero at the beginning, but his cute ineptitude wins her over, and she defies all custom to be with him.

Grace: the brain that loves the people they are supposed to destroy. Fights passionately (even if impotently) to save the people, and gives us a character to provide all the technical explanations.

Roid-Rage General: the gruff, older soldier. Has no respect for anything the film defines as "good". Ultimately the bad guy, and goes out fighting the hero, even after his side of the greater battle already lost.

The list goes on. But you get the idea. These characters were utterly unoriginal to the point of even going past "cliche".

The last thing that really bothered me, was when Neytiri reveals to her family and her people that she banged the outsider, they rant and rave for about 10 seconds, but it never really seems to bring about any major conflict. Given that it is implied that who ever Neytiri hooks up with will be the leader of the tribe, it seemed to be a rather blase attitude.

Overall, I'd have to give the movie a B. Worth seeing in theatres (though at this point, it may be hard to find  in theatres) for the jump it has made in terms of technological advancement and a better way to handle 3D movies than the current standard.

But don't buy into the hype. While there was nothing really wrong with the plot or the acting, it wasn't the grand thing that the media turned it into.

Girls and Gaming

This was a post that had been floating around in my head for a few days now, but after reading a post on the same topic over at Blue Ink Alchemy (great blog, go check it out) I had to get this out, because this is a topic that irritates me to no end.

The Blue Ink Alchemist comments on how so many video games are "denigrating" to women due to the fact that  many female characters are often scantily clad. He argues that this overly objectifies and sexualizes women. This culture, he says, mixed with often crass comments from male players is why women don't feel comfortable in the gaming community.

This is a topic I've seen floating around all over the place in gaming forums. And, like I said, it really gets my goat.

I am getting damn tired of being told that I'm being insulted, and the assumption that my self-esteem is somehow caught up in what some pubescent, hormonal boy says about me over the internet. In fact, it is this attitude that I find insulting, not the scantily clad female characters.

I'm comfortable enough with who I am that I don't feel lessened when some child runs his mouth about how "lol, girlz can't play games".

I don't cry home to my mommy. I don't feel lessened as a person. I still feel perfectly comfortable with myself, and I just chuckle at them and then blow them out of  the water.

In fact, far more than a negative reaction, I get quite the opposite.

An example from my WoW days is when I was running Botanica with a pick-up-group. I was well ahead on the meters. I was listening on vent, but I wasn't talking (so my fellow players had no idea I was really a girl). My ISP (Qwest at the time) failed, and I was disconnecting every couple minutes. One of the times I was logging back in, I get on Ventrilo in time to hear "This guy is really good, he just needs better internet." I speak for the first time in vent to apologize for my constant disconnects, and they all went quiet for a minute. Then I hear "Holy fuck you're a girl?!?!?" This then led to many compliments, comments on how nice it was to find a girl could play as well as I could, and general chit-chat about how I got into gaming.

Back when I was the top DPS in the #4 guild on my WoW server, I remember when we got a loud-mouthed teenage boy in the guild, and he was going off on Ventrilo about how girls couldn't play and that he could never be out-dpsed by a girl. One of the officers responded to him with "Why don't you say that after Ely (my hunter's nickname) grinds you into the dirt?" The boy laughed that there was no way I could beat him. Let's just say after that night's raid he never claimed to be better than a girl again.

I have dozens more stories. And I know many women who do game, and have gotten pretty much the same level of respect. Those acts of disrespect can usually be boiled down to John Gabriel's Internet Fuckwad Theory.

But, of course, there are women who have to focus on the fact that their avatars are "hot" and scantily clad and feel it is somehow necessary to protest this. They cry that it is demeaning to women. They shake their fists and rant and rave.

This makes no sense to me. What's wrong with looking good while you kick ass?

I loved my mage's clothes (or rather lack thereof) with quest rewards from Hellfire Peninsula:

Stop telling me that I shouldn't enjoy playing or interacting with sexy characters just because their sexiness is somehow a threat to my self-image.

As far as it being damaging to young girls that they should look sexy all the time and that's a key element to aspire to, I call bull. Video games at least show these women, more often than not, kicking some serious ass.

Try looking at the magazines that sit at every grocery store's checkout lane. Cosmo and other magazines show scantily clad models, with headlines on "how to give your man a blow job he'll die for". Turn on the television. Check out Girls Next Door which glorifies living as a concubine to an 80-something boat captain and having no higher aspirations than that lifestyle. (Insert Joel McHale's Hugh Heffner impression here)

Just look at Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian whom have shown that you'll get your own TV show if you let a guy tape you having sex with him and put it on the internet. Go to any clothing store, and these days most of the girls clothes are styles that my mother wouldn't have let me wear when I was in high school, let alone first grade.

Our current society tells women to aspire to a certain level of beauty, then to give up her body to any man that wants it and learn how to make him happy in bed.

Video games tell women that just because they're tough and capable, doesn't mean they have to denounce their femininity and pride in their sexuality.

Which is the better message?

And as for there being this male-domination in the game industry, and that women in the industry are just buying into some kind of misogynistic culture, I just don't see it. At this years Interactive Achievement Awards, many of the winning teams had women. And I repeat, what is wrong with a sexy avatar? How is it misogynistic to embrace our sexuality rather than condemning it as an apparent weakness? Most girls that I have talked to who don't like video games just simply have no interest in them. Video games are just more of a guy thing.

I've never known many guys that get all dreamy-eyed when they see a horse. Does that mean that men are being cut out of the loop by some female conspiracy? No. It is a simple lack of interest.

Men and women are wired differently. We like different things. And you know what? That's ok!!

To those denouncing video games as oppressors of women, here's a thought. Why don't you stop reinforcing the idea that women must be so uncomfortable with their own bodies that they should feel threatened by a woman on a video game. Stop telling your daughters that they should feel oppressed because some pixels on the screen are (apparently, according to your logic) clearly so much more attractive than them. Stop telling your daughters that they should completely deny their sexuality.

I fully think that women need to stop playing the victim here. Stop getting up in arms because women in video games are hot and sexy, and not ashamed of their bodies. You just reinforce the idea that women should feel ashamed of their bodies.

Yes. Men are going to rip on women for being female. In our world of high scores, epic gears and unlockable achievements, there will always be ways for people to show that they are somehow better than you. The reason why gender is such an issue (not just in video games, but across the board) is because women have allowed it to be. If being called out as a woman in a video game netted the chauvinistic male no reaction, he'd move on to find something else to belittle you for (you WoW GearScore perhaps). But at least gender would no longer be an issue. But it is up to women as a whole to stop rising to the bait.

Thanks for trying to save me from my (according to these so-called activists) fragile self-esteem that surely must be threatened by the 0s and 1s that coalesce on my screen.

But this princess can save herself. And I can do it in stilettos. Let's see Master Chief or Gordan Freeman do that.

Hardecore vs Casual: The Bloody War

Over the last couple of years, the "casual gamer" has been making its voice heard in the industry. The gaming community seems to now be completely polarized into 2 camps: the Hardcore and the Casual. And these two camps do not get along.

Many people have asked why. Why can't the hardcore get along with the casuals? Why do casuals get flamed so often on gaming websites?

I think the first problem is that people have different ideas of what the word "gamer" means.

Over the last couple of decades, gamers have proudly created their own culture. The head of the UCCS Game Design and Development program, Dr Chamillard, told a story of spending an entire night during his college days playing one arcade game (I forget which) until his finger was bleeding.

His students then chuckled, nodding their heads in an understanding fashion.


For many of us, this falls into the definition of a true gamer. Someone for whom the gaming experience becomes something more. It's a matter of pride. We stay up late to get in just one more level. We follow our favorite developers and their current projects. We comment on where we think our favorite games are going. We are emotionally invested, on some level. We have a bond with our fellow gamers.

It has been almost like a secret society. But, our secret is out. Over the last few years, gaming has branched out. It reaches out to the non-gamer. The casual. The people that don't want to spend more than a few minutes a day on the game of their choice.

iPods, smartphones, Facebook etc have all started introducing games specifically designed to attract people that don't know what FPS, RPG, RTS etc stand for. They have little idea of the vastness of the rabbit hole they have tumbled down.

The most notable major game to succumb to the casuals is Blizzard's World of Warcraft. These casuals come in, and are astounded when their critiques and comments aren't accepted with open minds.

Some of it, admittedly, is the elitism that runs rampant in our virtual world of high scores and epeens. But not all of it.

Most of us feel we earned the title of "Gamer". We played multiple games. We took an interest in the design. We joined the aforementioned secret society as it were. To see someone who's only gaming experience is a flash-based game using that sacrosanct title is annoying, even to the best of us.

But it runs deeper than that. Casuals speak of abuse and derogation at the hands of the hardcore. But it's a two way street. The hardcores are called basement-dwellers, assumed to have no life or relationships. We get mocked for defending our games. This certainly does nothing for the case of the casual.

The worst, and most rampant in our society of information-at-a-click where Wikipedia makes you feel like an expert, is the "know-it-all" attitude so many people take on.

The next few examples are going to come from World of Warcraft, as I feel that it has some of the best examples of what casuals, or at least a certain breed of casuals, can do to a game. A true representation that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

WoW has become a phenomenon. It has taken what was a very niche market and exploded it to the most popular MMO in the world. With a staggering 11 million subscribers, they have done a great deal bringing casuals into the realm of gaming.

This has many pros. I've seen families play together, providing a bond between parents and siblings through shared experience. More gamers means a more universal acceptance of the gamer culture. Admitting you play video games no longer contains the connotation that you are a "complete nerd".

But not all change is necessarily good. Particularly in the WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, change seems to be coming at the cost of quality. Casual gamers, rather than tailoring their own experience around their play-time limitations, are demanding more and more that the game conform around their needs. And the sense of entitlement in many of these requests is absolutely astounding.

These players in particular are a sub-group of the casuals, and whom the "good" casuals get lumped in with. These players are what I call "The Lazy Whiners."

It is these players that the hardcore are truly raging against, and why, I believe, the good casuals are merely casualties in the crossfire.

I've seen players complaining that raids are too long and should be able to be fully completed in a single 3-4 hour sitting, without requiring a huge learning curve on new content. This causes an unbelievable (and I feel justified) outrage amongst the hardcore. Raids have always been meant to be the truly epic. The biggest battles and most dangerous foes. They were always meant to be what was reserved for the people that had the time and dedication to apply themselves.

The Whiners, when they have this pointed out to them, simply reply "Then it's time for change. Unlike you, I have a life and I can't raid on a more standard schedule because of x, y and z. Why is it fair that I pay for a game when I cannot play all the content?"

I think the better question is "Why did you buy a game for which you are unable to fulfill the requirements for endgame?" WoW has achievements, lesser dungeons, and even a handful of smaller raids for the casual player that can only log on one or two days a week for a relatively short amount time.

This is the only hobby I see this attitude becoming prevalent. I don't see people saying "It's not fair I can't play on the varsity football team just because I can't show up for practice." Again, when this is pointed out, these self-titled gamers say "But that's real life. This is just a video game."

Just. A video game.

When told that the current setup is how the game is supposed to be played, the whiner replies "Well that's how it used to be, but the game belongs to casuals now. We should get whatever we want."

 I have even seen no shortage of posts made to openly mock the hardcore after a change made to suit the whiners is made.

Now we start to hit the crux of the problem: casuals see their games, all games even, as being temporary pasttimes that should fit into their box of what is "fun" and "easy". But let's put in a few more examples to see if we can establish a pattern.

Throughout Lich King, but especially in the weeks leading up to patch 3.3.3, there was a flood of threads on the suggestion forums asking for Frozen Orbs to be "greed only" because other players were rolling Need on them, and they apparently didn't have a right to. The argument usually went something like this:

Whiner:     "People are rolling need on the orbs. No one has any reason to hit need on the orb. They are stealing it! Please change it so it is greed roll only."
Gamer:     "People have plenty of reasons to roll need. Professions, crafting, or even just cause. Big deal. Why can't you just hit the need button yourself?"
Whiner:     "Because needing on orbs is morally wrong [I kid you not, this argument was used often] and it is Blizzard's job to make sure that I have an enjoyable time playing their game."
Gamer:     "It takes only a second to inform your group that you are rolling need on the orb. It takes minimal effort."
Whiner:     "I don't care. It's not my problem. It's Blizzard's."

Here we see the lack of accountability that is evident in our lawsuit-happy society. "It's everyone else's job to make sure I'm happy. I should never have to expend effort to make sure my needs are met."

This attitude perpetuates itself further through WoW in other areas. "I raid with people I don't know who set the loot system to master looter, then take all the items. This is Blizzard's problem. I should not have to expend effort finding trustworthy raid leaders, or in finding a guild that meets my scheduling needs."

"Why do I have to raid to get top-end gear? I don't need it [as in raiders need top gear to progress further within the instance] but why am I being denied it?"

The list goes on ad infinitum. "Why should I accept that certain aspects of the game are unavailable to me just because I only play an hour or two a week?"

When told that these things are available if you're willing to work for them, the response is "Just because you don't have a life doesn't mean I don't. It's just a game. Games aren't supposed to require effort. They're supposed to easy and just for fun."

Now we start to hit the key issues. These Lazy Whiners, hiding under the casual tag, call themselves gamers. They claim loudly that their opinions are just as good as anyone else's. Then, they turn around and undermine the medium at every turn. They reach out and demand that all games they have an interest, but not the time, to play dumb down their mechanics and gameplay to suit them. Not all changes are bad. I like that raiding has become more accessible (if a little too watered down in some areas) and the hardcore are given a variety of hardmodes and heroic difficulty to satisfy their urges. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

And just as the casuals seem to lump all the hardcore players under the heading of "40-yr old virgins with no life living in their parents' basement", the hardcores are just as quick to lump all casual players in with the Lazy Whiners.

Overall, I have found that hardcores have nothing against casual players, if that player "knows their place" as it were. By this, I mean the casual understands that they may or may not be able to experience all the content out there, and accepts that this is a limitation of their own schedule, rather than some conspiracy on the part of the developer to exclude them.

When a casual posts asking "These are my limitations in playing, this is what I would like to experience. Any suggestions on how to make it work?" they are typically met with responses that point them to places where they can find what they want (looking for guilds whose schedule fits their time constraints, how to find effective pick up groups etc).

But unfortunately, I don't see a real peace between the two breeds of gamers until a number of things change: (1) The casual gamers need to grasp that they are not really "the future" of gaming. They will certainly impact the industry greatly, but they should not expect every game they enjoy to conform to their scheduling limitations.
(2) Both sides need to accept that most of them are in the happy middle ground of people who enjoy a game. Both sides are quick to get up in arms against the other. But not all casuals are morons who want every game dumbed down to their level, and not all hardcores are elitists that believe your input is only valid if you have "uberleet skillz".
(3) Gaming houses such as Blizzard need to stop caving so steeply in favor of the casuals. Doing so is alienating their loyal fanbase whose input is what brought the game to greatness. There can be separate areas of fun for both sides, and the house needs to take a stand and say "Sorry, but if you don't have the time, you're just going to have to miss out on this one. But here are some more casual-oriented things for you to do."
(4) Our culture needs to abandon the self-entitled, lack of personal responsibility, and demand for instant gratification requiring no effort that has become a plague upon our entire culture, not just gaming.

There are more of course. But these four would surely be a giant step in the right direction for relative peace within the growing gaming community.

Zynga: A Plague Upon Our [Game] Houses

This year, Facebook social game "developer" Zynga was included in The Escapist's March Madness rounds of voting. Zynga made it all the way to the Final Four, beating out more established and influential game houses such as Infinity Ward and Rockstar North. And even in the Final Four, gave Valve a run for their money.

This sparked outrage of epic proportions across the Escapist forums. While I tried to avoid the mindless flaming, even I was floored by the "validation" Zynga has managed to accrue for itself. Many people commented wondering where the hate was coming from, and for myself, it stemmed from many places.

First, Zynga is a plagiarist. They settled with the makers of Mob Wars when they copied it for Mafia Wars. Farmville (especially the original release) was a flat out copy-paste of the game FarmTown with their own sprites. Many of their other games, particularly games like Vampire Wars, Fashion Wars etc are simply copy-pastes of Mafia Wars, but with different themes. I can accept copies of classics such as Bouncing Balls, Tetris, etc.

If the so-called "social gaming" (though personally I don't see what's "social" about spamming your feed with linksfor random people you only friend-ed to grow your army) genre had to be admitted, the creators of Castle Age offer a much better game. It has story, characters,  weapons and armor, and a much better development than anything I've seen from Zynga.

Second, should "social-gaming" developers be accepted as "real" developers, and should they be given the same kind of recognition as those that have have been a great influence in the industry. Some argued that Zynga was doing a positive thing by exposing a new audience to video games.

But, giving people with only a passing knowledge of a bastardized sub-genre of games the confidence to call themselves "gamers" is not a positive thing. You get a large influx of people who have no idea what they are talking about trying to bring about changes to make games accessible.

These changes are not always good. Look at Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Since the release of their more "casual-friendly" xpac, Wrath of the Lich King, the quality of the game has fallen to cater to players who can't be bothered to be proactive in controlling who they play with and flood the Suggestion Forum with a ridiculous amount of threads demanding that Blizzard step up and protect them from these "big, bad, mean" players. When told there are tools in-game to change their experience, they throw a hissy fit saying they shouldn't have to exert any effort because a game shouldn't require any effort.

A few posters on Escapist, including myself, used the current teen sensation Twilight to try to illustrate the point, from both sides of the fence. My viewpoint is that our culture is quickly disintegrating to the point where the cheap and tawdry is praised far more than the artistic and meaningful.

Twilight is praised, and its readers come to accept it as a high bar in the literary world, rather than for the drivel it is. Some argued that getting into Twilight may cause them to branch out into the great authors of the genre (Rice, King, etc). But in my experience, for every single one of those readers, there are a hundred more like this irate fan who send the message to corporate side of the artistic community that this is the standard that they should give deals to and hype the most.

Future writers dumb down their own writings in hopes of getting meeting the market's demands and get there works published. New generations are introduced to more drivel  and tripe, and the downward spiral continues.

The whole point of this is that we need to stop giving validation to any tripe just because it hides under the misnomer of "casual" and therefore if we don't accept it with open arms, we're just elitist pricks who can't stand change.

Not all change is good. So why do we continue to accept all change as if it were?

At least the anti-Zynga movement picked up enough momentum to finally put them out of this competition. A competition they never belonged in. I can only hope that they damage they have caused the game industry will remain at a real minimum.

Unfortunately, I don't believe this blight shall be ended so easily.