Ten years ago, Japanese video game publisher Tecmo had a brilliant money-spinning idea. It decided to take the female characters from its successful fighting game series Dead or Alive and put them into a beach volleyball simulation set on a tropical island. There would be a lot of bikinis and thanks to a then cutting edge graphics engine, a lot of bounce physics. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball sold hundreds of thousands of copies. A new gaming franchise was born.
But now that same franchise is in trouble. Kind of.
It seemed to some that Koei Tecmo’s decision not to release the game in the West was due to fears of a feminist backlash
In November, a community moderator on the Dead or Alive Facebook page was answering questions about the possibility of a western release for Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, the latest title in the series. The staff member informed fans that an official release was unlikely outside of Japan and Asia, and when pushed on the reasoning wrote: “Do you know many issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game industry? We do not want to talk those things here. But certainly we have gone through in last year or two to come to our decision. Thank you.”
Unsurprisingly, the minor revelation was leapt on both by fans of the series and by libertarian cultural critics, who quickly blamed “social justice warriors” for inhibiting freedom of speech (and bikini wear) thanks to their incessant hand-wringing over sexism in the games industry. Internet forums and gaming subreddits enthusiastically linked the “announcement” with Nintendo’s recent decision to change some of the skimpy outfits in Wii U titles Xenoblade Chronicles X and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water for western release. To some, it was a sure sign that authoritarian lefties were imposing their killjoy values on the industry.
But of course, things aren’t quite that simple. For a start, Japanese publishers have always edited explicit video game content for western audiences. Back in 1991, the original version of Final Fantasy IV featured a semi-naked dancer who was fully clothed for the US release, while popular Mega Drive brawlers such as Streets of Rage III and Mystic Defender saw scantily clad female characters dressed more modestly in western versions. This is not a new phenomenon.
It’s also not one guided purely by fears of a moral backlash. There is a historic awareness that western markets aren’t as exposed to the mass of anime and manga that heavily inform gaming content in Japan, and which comfortably embrace many seijin – or adult – subgenres that often seem weird beyond the domestic market. Indeed, when we appraise games like Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball in the west, we tend to do so beyond the context of Japan’s wider otaku culture. “The women in DoA belong in a particular niche – it’s the characters themselves that are popular,” argues sociologist Casey Brienza, who has written extensively on manga and anime. “There’s a huge culture around what are called ‘character goods’ – things like Hello Kitty – which become multiplied across different media, from comics to action figures.
“There are fetishes around physical types, like girls with big breasts, or around particular clothing or personality types, like the girl next door; there’s a fetish around girls who wear glasses (Meganekko), and blue hair became popular after the success of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion ... That’s why these video games are made - they cater to particular fans of very specific tropes. People who write academically about this in Japan focus on the way that [in otaku culture] the symbolic is often reiterated outside of any narrative frame. DoA is a good example of that: unlike, say, the Final Fantasy adventures, there’s no real story, it’s just about the characters – that’s the appeal”.
According to Brienza, this kind of introverted, compartmentalised sexuality has its roots in the vast sociological changes that have taken place in Japan over the last 30 years. “I think it’s about how unequal the country has become, gender-wise,” she says. “Women are still expected to quit their jobs when they get married and become full-time home makers – however, the concept of lifetime employment has broken down and that puts pressure on both men and women; the stereotype of man as sole breadwinner and the woman at home taking care of the kids doesn’t work financially. And because the country is still so rigid, it just means that young people don’t have serious relationships. They can’t make it work.”
The effects of this sociocultural crisis are manifested through pop culture. A popular manga genre for young women, for example, is Yaoi or “boy’s love”, in which young male characters indulge in homosexual relationships. “What’s appealing about it is that there are no women in the story,” says Brienza. “If you want a romantic fantasy, the culture is so rigid that a lot of young women cannot imagine a truly equal heterosexual relationship with a romantic partner.”
The equivalent for young men is the “moe” subgenre in anime, manga and games, where the focus is on sweetness and innocence of the protagonist and the protective feelings they engender. It is, according to Brienza, a direct response to the rise of the career woman, who doesn’t necessarily want to marry or have children. “That sort of femininity is threatening because the expectation is that you, as the man, will be the sole breadwinner and if you’re not, you’ve somehow failed,” she says. “In moe, we’re seeing the characters becoming younger and younger, but the attraction is not sexual, it’s sort of like the feeling you get when you see a puppy – that ‘oh my god it’s so cute’ appeal – but for guys. These characters evoke care and cuteness; it’s as though sex itself has become too threatening.”
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
12 things in Fallout 4 they don't tell you – but you really need to know
“We will all go together when we go,” sang the satirist Tom Lehrer of the nuclear arms race. “What a comforting fact that is to know.” But how wrong he was: Bethesda’s Fallout 4 gives us a post-apocalypse jam packed with survivors, mutations, and all sorts of opportunities for the entrepreneurial survivor.
Much of the appeal of a Bethesda game lies in creating your own adventure in the enormous spaces they provide, but Fallout 4’s many depths are poorly served by the tutorials – even central mechanics are explained with cursory text windows, soon forgotten, or sometimes never touched on at all.
Consequently, some of this world’s real magic can only be found by poking around. Here are some tips about where to look, starring our own character – who, entirely coincidentally, bears a passing resemblance to Jeremy Corbyn.
Much of the appeal of a Bethesda game lies in creating your own adventure in the enormous spaces they provide, but Fallout 4’s many depths are poorly served by the tutorials – even central mechanics are explained with cursory text windows, soon forgotten, or sometimes never touched on at all.
Consequently, some of this world’s real magic can only be found by poking around. Here are some tips about where to look, starring our own character – who, entirely coincidentally, bears a passing resemblance to Jeremy Corbyn.
1. Settlements
There’s a lot of fun in Fallout 4’s Settlements, and if you want to unlock them as quickly as possible, follow the Minutemen questline that starts in the game’s early stages. The first time you meet them everything ends up back at Sanctuary, which is a fine starting point – and even better when you find this hidden basement containing three gold bars and other lovely loot.
Two things are badly explained. The first is that you connect up your power supply by opening the workshop menu and looking for the “connect wire” prompt at the bottom of the screen: laugh all you want but this frustrated me for ages. The second is that once you’ve set up crops or trading stations, you need to assign settlers – also done using the workshop menu. Build a fetching bell like this to pull them all together easily.
This is key to supply lines, which I unlocked and then failed to use for about 10 hours. The upgrade description reads like it works automatically, but you have to assign a settler to cover specific routes – again, through the workshop menu once the option’s available. Some of this is lack of explanation, some is just bad interface design.
There’s a lot of fun in Fallout 4’s Settlements, and if you want to unlock them as quickly as possible, follow the Minutemen questline that starts in the game’s early stages. The first time you meet them everything ends up back at Sanctuary, which is a fine starting point – and even better when you find this hidden basement containing three gold bars and other lovely loot.
Two things are badly explained. The first is that you connect up your power supply by opening the workshop menu and looking for the “connect wire” prompt at the bottom of the screen: laugh all you want but this frustrated me for ages. The second is that once you’ve set up crops or trading stations, you need to assign settlers – also done using the workshop menu. Build a fetching bell like this to pull them all together easily.
This is key to supply lines, which I unlocked and then failed to use for about 10 hours. The upgrade description reads like it works automatically, but you have to assign a settler to cover specific routes – again, through the workshop menu once the option’s available. Some of this is lack of explanation, some is just bad interface design.
2. Massive Damage!
The size of your gun matters, but also incredibly important in Fallout 4 is what your enemy’s resistant to. It’s easy to ignore this but simple to check with the early ‘Awareness’ upgrade for your Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting Systems (VATs) – which shows symbols for the damage types alongside a defence value from low to high. Focusing on using the right weapon scores faster kills and saves wasted ammunition: it’s a critical skill.
The size of your gun matters, but also incredibly important in Fallout 4 is what your enemy’s resistant to. It’s easy to ignore this but simple to check with the early ‘Awareness’ upgrade for your Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting Systems (VATs) – which shows symbols for the damage types alongside a defence value from low to high. Focusing on using the right weapon scores faster kills and saves wasted ammunition: it’s a critical skill.
3. Hide!
At the top of the bad-explanation list goes the utility of the basic crouch. When you crouch an icon reading [hidden] will appear, indicating your character’s entered stealth mode – and Bethesda’s enemy AI is idiotic, so it’s much easier to hide in plain sight than you’d think. On top of this, if you’re spotted, crouch behind cover and your character will actually take cover – and can lean out at the edges to aim.
At the top of the bad-explanation list goes the utility of the basic crouch. When you crouch an icon reading [hidden] will appear, indicating your character’s entered stealth mode – and Bethesda’s enemy AI is idiotic, so it’s much easier to hide in plain sight than you’d think. On top of this, if you’re spotted, crouch behind cover and your character will actually take cover – and can lean out at the edges to aim.
4. The Lone-ish Wanderer
One of the biggest problems with Fallout 4 is the limited weight of items your character can carry. There are various workarounds for this (try cooking meat from the cow-like creatures, Brahmin) but by far the best is a trick built into the Lone Wanderer perk. This increases the damage your character can take and the maximum they can carry – as long as you don’t have a companion.
But! Right now, Dogmeat doesn’t count: you can take Lone Wanderer and toddle off with man’s best friend – both keeping the various perk bonuses intact and having a companion to store stuff with. If you’re just going out loot-hunting, there’s no more efficient setup. However, this is almost definitely a bug and is likely to be patched soon.
One of the biggest problems with Fallout 4 is the limited weight of items your character can carry. There are various workarounds for this (try cooking meat from the cow-like creatures, Brahmin) but by far the best is a trick built into the Lone Wanderer perk. This increases the damage your character can take and the maximum they can carry – as long as you don’t have a companion.
But! Right now, Dogmeat doesn’t count: you can take Lone Wanderer and toddle off with man’s best friend – both keeping the various perk bonuses intact and having a companion to store stuff with. If you’re just going out loot-hunting, there’s no more efficient setup. However, this is almost definitely a bug and is likely to be patched soon.
5. Here Boy
Fairly simple tip, but I wish I’d known this sooner. You can easily lose track of Dogmeat and, unlike other companions, he doesn’t come running to the bell. Always make sure to send Dogmeat to your main settlement and build a dog house for him – then whenever you need to find him, that’s where he’ll be. Makes sense I suppose.
Fairly simple tip, but I wish I’d known this sooner. You can easily lose track of Dogmeat and, unlike other companions, he doesn’t come running to the bell. Always make sure to send Dogmeat to your main settlement and build a dog house for him – then whenever you need to find him, that’s where he’ll be. Makes sense I suppose.
6. Magic Jaws
One final tip for this most noble of animals. On leaving Vault 111 at the start of the game you may have been taunted by the Cryolater, an insanely good gun held behind unbreakable glass with a master lock. To get inside, you will need to become an excellent lockpicker – meaning many hours of play stand between you and the weapon.
No such rules apply to our four-legged friend, however. You meet Dogmeat shortly after leaving Vault 111 and, if you return, can bag the Cryolater. First get Dogmeat to stand in its vicinity, then instruct him to search for items, making sure you’ve cleared everything else lootable. Et voila, the gun warps from the case to this magnificent beast’s jaws – and if you trade items, he’s even stored the ammo too. Good boy!
One final tip for this most noble of animals. On leaving Vault 111 at the start of the game you may have been taunted by the Cryolater, an insanely good gun held behind unbreakable glass with a master lock. To get inside, you will need to become an excellent lockpicker – meaning many hours of play stand between you and the weapon.
No such rules apply to our four-legged friend, however. You meet Dogmeat shortly after leaving Vault 111 and, if you return, can bag the Cryolater. First get Dogmeat to stand in its vicinity, then instruct him to search for items, making sure you’ve cleared everything else lootable. Et voila, the gun warps from the case to this magnificent beast’s jaws – and if you trade items, he’s even stored the ammo too. Good boy!
7. Mod smart
The Gun Nut perk is an essential early pickup, because with this (and later ammo-specific perks like Science!) you can turn a standard base weapon into something like the above. But a key, unexplained thing with weapon modifications is to strip the good ones from guns you don’t want – by replacing them with a lower-tier mod. If you just scrap or sell weapons, the mods go too, but if you strip them you can acquire and use mods you can’t yet create yourself.
8. Personalisation
Renaming your favourite guns can be done at any weapons bench, and allows you to further inhabit that roleplaying experience. On another note, if you want to give your power armour a natty flame look then head straight east from Vault 111 to the Robotics Disposal Ground, where there are a few nice surprises.
9. Colour co-ordination
Notice my Pip-Boy’s attractive white hue? From the game’s pause menu – not the Pip-Boy menu – choose “Display” and you can alter the colour of both the game’s heads-up display and the Pip-Boy interface. One of the best things about this is that the Pip-Boy’s built-in torch reflects your choice – and using white light makes it, to my eyes, much more useful in dark areas.
The Gun Nut perk is an essential early pickup, because with this (and later ammo-specific perks like Science!) you can turn a standard base weapon into something like the above. But a key, unexplained thing with weapon modifications is to strip the good ones from guns you don’t want – by replacing them with a lower-tier mod. If you just scrap or sell weapons, the mods go too, but if you strip them you can acquire and use mods you can’t yet create yourself.
8. Personalisation
Renaming your favourite guns can be done at any weapons bench, and allows you to further inhabit that roleplaying experience. On another note, if you want to give your power armour a natty flame look then head straight east from Vault 111 to the Robotics Disposal Ground, where there are a few nice surprises.
9. Colour co-ordination
Notice my Pip-Boy’s attractive white hue? From the game’s pause menu – not the Pip-Boy menu – choose “Display” and you can alter the colour of both the game’s heads-up display and the Pip-Boy interface. One of the best things about this is that the Pip-Boy’s built-in torch reflects your choice – and using white light makes it, to my eyes, much more useful in dark areas.
10. Hangover fuel
All the crafting elements of Fallout 4 can be a pain, but cooking provides all sorts of useful side-effects to replace expensive drugs and medications. Comrade Corbyn is fond, in particular, of drinking some vodka before a big fight – which means he’s always on the verge of alcoholism. But cook up a Radscorpion omelette and bingo, addiction cured, and we can start on the whiskey. Head to the radioactive desert that sprawls across the south-east of the map to get more ingredients than you can handle.
11. You can go back … if you want
Fallout 4’s world is huge but, if you want to re-visit a cleared location with everything re-spawned – from enemies to random loot – the same 30-day rule applies as did in Skyrim. Sit on a piece of furniture anywhere and you can ‘Wait’ for a set time to trigger this respawn manually, the only downside being you have to wait in 24 hour blocks. I’m not saying this is fun or even practical. But if you want to rinse an especially rich building again or replay an especially good fight, this is how.
12. Turn it off then on again
One of Fallout 4’s more serious issues is that you can sometimes end up in a situation like this – where the game has spawned a brahmin inside the house that’s trying to get outside and blocking my only exit. Most glitches aren’t nearly as bad but, if this happens, the classic IT solution applies: just saving and reloading respawns everything and should get your wasteland domination back on track.
All the crafting elements of Fallout 4 can be a pain, but cooking provides all sorts of useful side-effects to replace expensive drugs and medications. Comrade Corbyn is fond, in particular, of drinking some vodka before a big fight – which means he’s always on the verge of alcoholism. But cook up a Radscorpion omelette and bingo, addiction cured, and we can start on the whiskey. Head to the radioactive desert that sprawls across the south-east of the map to get more ingredients than you can handle.
11. You can go back … if you want
Fallout 4’s world is huge but, if you want to re-visit a cleared location with everything re-spawned – from enemies to random loot – the same 30-day rule applies as did in Skyrim. Sit on a piece of furniture anywhere and you can ‘Wait’ for a set time to trigger this respawn manually, the only downside being you have to wait in 24 hour blocks. I’m not saying this is fun or even practical. But if you want to rinse an especially rich building again or replay an especially good fight, this is how.
12. Turn it off then on again
One of Fallout 4’s more serious issues is that you can sometimes end up in a situation like this – where the game has spawned a brahmin inside the house that’s trying to get outside and blocking my only exit. Most glitches aren’t nearly as bad but, if this happens, the classic IT solution applies: just saving and reloading respawns everything and should get your wasteland domination back on track.
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