September 2010 - glamgeekgirl.net

I. Played. Dragon. Age. 2. (in September 2010!)

As I announced in “Glamgeekgirl hits GameCityVienna“, which reflects my first impressions, I went back to the event this Sunday, with Laura and her boyfriend Markus (http://www.konzeptionist.at), who was taking pictures. (Which was awesome because I could focus on the games – yay! Many thanks!) By the way, this post is pretty much spoiler-free!

I tried skateboarding on the Wii… and totally got pwned! Markus commented that the controls weren’t intuitive at all – yes, everything he says – it had NOTHING AT ALL to do with me!

At least the avatar chick doesn't mind crashing into walls!

Then Laura and I tried Raving Rabbits, but didn’t have a clue what to do….

Don't what I'm doing, but it seems to be good fun!

We also played some things on PlayStation Move, but if I were to pick a motion-controlled system, I’d stick with the Wii. (Side Note: I was very eager to try out Kinect, but you were filmed if you played and had to fill out a form accepting to be filmed and whatnot, so I declined.)

There were separate areas for 18+ gamers for both PlayStation and XBOX 360. They did NOT list the presented games outside the area, which struck me as pretty stupid. I got to show ID, by the way – YAY! 😉 There was a loooooooooong line in front of the PS area, which had Kung Fu Rider, RUSE, Killzone 3 etc. I was dissappointed with my own experiences with them, and didn’t see other gamers who seemed to have exceptional amounts of fun either.

2010-09-26_15-33-18_691_Vienna — Laura playing Kung Fu Rider on PlayStation Move, and that's Markus next to her (which means that I took this photo!)

Not a photo from GameCity, but I have to show you that game, the premise is just too funny:

kungfurider — Kung Fu Rider (image borrowed from Kotaku.com)

Nobody was waiting in front of the XBOX 18+ area – what kind of feeling does that give you? I wasn’t expecting anything really. We went in, and saw three row of XBOXes set up, I think 2 per game. Most were occupied, so I walked down the middle row… there was one free spot, and guess who is looking at me from the screen? HAWKE! He-Hawke actually, well hello Mister!

Being the console noob that I am, I didn’t know how to restart the game, so I just picked up where someone had left off. In the middle of a dialog – well yeah, if you don’t like dialogs, BioWare isn’t for you! Sadly, the volume was down and it was too noisy around me, so I can’t tell how he sounds – but I could see the lips move, and thus assume that they TALK! Hawkie-Talkie, yeah!

Hawkie-Talkie — Available at your local tech store March 2011

I then had a nice talk about choice with a lovely elderly lady… The dialog wheel now shows the tone of the options (although I haven’t figured them all out, but I think: there’s a red clenched fist for defiant/violent/evil ones and a white twig-thing for the good ones. The third was a blue drama mask with, a more neutral expression).

Here I’m in the middle of a fight with a party that’s already wounded due to whoever started to play before me. Anyway, I kick ass – and that’s saying something about XBOX controls being intuitive!!!

The Hurlocker - Not directed by Kathryn Bigelow

The demo was soon over, and the game restarted itself (thanks, very noob-friendly). Same as Laura, I picked a Warrior She-Hawke out of the available Warriors or Rogues of both sexes – the Mages were, much to my disappointment, locked.

Now a close-up of She-Hawke and Bethany. In the beginning of the demo, you’re fleeing your home, and Beth isn’t the only of your kin you’ll be talking to.

In the meantime, I was fighting waves of Hurlocks with AWESOME moves, like a multiple-enemy sweep of my two-handed blade, and then finally…. look, an Ogre!

Hello, Shrek! What are you doing here? Did Fiona kick you out?

And here’s a Dragon crashing my party! (How many dozens of meanings does “party” have, anyway?)

You weren't invited, Dragon! But I can see how you got past Security...

Unfortunately, I don’t have screenies of the guys who tell Hawke’s story in the future/present. It was implemented well though, and based on my first impressions, I think it could work out after all!

I had lots of fun playing Dragon Age 2 on the XBOX 360. The combat is very responsive and immersive, throwing you right into the action (not in a bad way, unless you want to hit Pause and plan ahead constantly), and the special moves are great – that circular sweep bloodily pwned several Hurlocks at a time! The graphics are awesome and the characters look really cool. FemHawke could really be the next FemShep (perhaps that’s exactly what they’re aiming for? Would you be so nice, BioWare people, to drop by this blog and tell me?). The dialog wheel indicator seems a good update, as I sometimes wasn’t sure what my Warden was getting at in DA:O. If you liked the Intro art in DA:O, you will love what you see in that demo – I never understood why BioWare didn’t use that style more in the first installment, but I’m hoping for the best!

Granted, it's not the most telling image, but you know what style I'm talking about!

I can’t say much about the plot, as for starters, I don’t want to spoil what I experienced, and secondly, I also, stupidly, didn’t pay enough attention. It was too loud to listen, and to bothersome to read all the text while I could just randomly try the dialog and combat systems instead. Thinking back now, I should have stayed and played this much, much longer. But I thought I was missing something else… something that never came!

So, in conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed GameCity, but there are several points worth improving… yet they all FADE (haha, Dragon Age pun!) away after playing the DA2 demo. March 2011, I am looking forward to you very, very, very much! This could be EPIC! And, hey Mom, if by any chance you read this… I want an XBOX for Christmas!* 😉

Glamgeekgirl hits GameCityVienna

First things first: Game City takes place this weekend, September 24 – 26 in Vienna’s (amazing, see photo below) Town Hall. All the info can be found at http://www.game-city.at. [Editor’s note: Sorry for the quality of some of the pics, that was my cell phone!] This is my report from Friday and I’m going back tomorrow, Sunday, with my awesome reporter-speaker-marketer friend Laura. 😉

It took me a while to figure out what was where, and how to get to it… and I wasn’t the only one. Gladly, there were Info Points and booklets to help out with that.

Of course, sometimes I had to stop and admire the architecture. Quite a contrast to the modern consoles and stuff, but I like! Let’s take this view in the courtyard as an example:

gamecity_4 — I've seen shabbier royal castles in some games!

So, I finally found my way to the upper floor, into this hall:

Oh and by the way, bound by my claim to always put the “glam” and “girl” into the “geek”, here’s the t-shirt I wore, along with a miniskirt: 🙂

Of course, it wasn’t really a fashion event! I’ve seen way too many gamer stereotypes established, affirmed, reconfirmed, updated and run over by a Buick! 🙁 And most of the girls I saw were just tagging along with their boyfriends – at least that’s the impression I got. Helloooo Vienna, where are your gamer girls?

What was lovely though, is how easily the hordes of kiddies got into the games, no matter if it’s Kinect, Move, or whatever else. I, on the other hand, being just one person, and a complete console newbie, was a little too timid to fight for a spot-to-give-it-a-shot. I’m also not used to people watching me as I play… (Which is truly idiotic, I’ve been a gamer for 18 years, I don’t really think I would embarass myself… but I can’t help it. Maybe Laura can.)

Maybe we’ll take pics with this guy, too. And as the weather tomorrow should be considerably worse than Friday, I’m sure his costume is not a torture, but comfy bliss:

Looking forward to returning tomorrow. Planning on trying more stuff, taking more pics, and having much more fun!

This Girlgamer’s Heart Needs an Injury Kit

Sigh. Yes, I’m heartbroken. It’s the Year of the Maker 2010, and us girlgamers still face the same clichés as ever. Besides, us GAMERS, guys and gals alike, should not be the ones to prolong the stereotype of “immature, silly gamers” who can only get close to the opposite sex in virtual worlds.

Two recent infuriating examples on which I have commented are:

“Five bloody new video games for guys” on CNN, where Mr. Steinberg seems to think that only guys like violent games. So if I like those games, I must be pretty confused about my own gender to pick the nick “glamgeekGIRL”, eh?

Now get this quote from his article:

“Here are five testosterone-drenched games that rub us the right way. Try not to drool as you shoo the wife out the door or tuck the kids in to sleep and race back to whipping up on the bad guys all in your man cave.”

Excuse me? You can’t be serious! If his testosterone-drenched ramblings rub you the wrong way, please click the above link and give him a piece of your opinion! (Sometimes I can’t see my comment below the article, sometimes I can, don’t know why. I posted as glamgeekgirl and threatened to beat him with a frying pan, alluding to his “shoo your wife” remark. And the original credit for me making any kind of “frying pan remark” should go to my HS arts teacher, who was a really funny guy…)

The other article that bugged me yesterday was “The top five leading men in this console generation“:

For one thing, there doesn’t seem to be a list for the Top Leading Ladies – which is a problem in itself, because there still aren’t that many great heroines.

Secondly, MaleShep from the Mass Effect universe takes the #1 spot, for, among other reasons, his ability to “bang Tali like a snare drum” and “bone her silly” until she considers him a god!

Yes, both Shepards can have sex with some of the NPCs. But thanks to BioWare’s writing skills, the romances are done in a very respectful and charming way – quite unlike some in The Witcher or Alpha Protocol (the latter of which I haven’t played, but I read the great article “Women aren’t Vending Machines“; it even has a valid, critical point about the romances in ME that hadn’t ocurred to me before). I haven’t played either gender of Shepard as a pure renegade, so I don’t know how the romances play out then, but I can’t wrap my brains around Shepard using sex to influence his or her crewmates. (Please comment, with spoiler warning, if you know more. I’m curious!)

So we’re talking actual game content with a “sexist wishful thinking” interpretation on that gamer’s part. And for protesting against the sexism in the post, I was called a gamer-basher (thanks Damon for backing me up! [I’d link to you if I knew where!]). I then replied with this comment (excerpt): “I know it’s fun to explore your moral options especially in RPGs – being the nice guy/gal, or the arse, or something in between. But the bad behavior shouldn’t resonate in our real lives, like it has here. I wish you could leave those fantasies of “a girl considering you a god for banging her” behind when you exit the game. With that attitude, it may not happen in reality, y’know?”

I usually tell people outside the fandom that games are an exciting medium that is adult and mature, and gamers are great, funny people. Yet sometimes, like right now, I grow so tired of defending my beloved game community, because we’re proving our critics right! We’re hurting our own cause of being taken seriously!

[Funny sidenote on gripe #2: The post’s author misspelled “crewmates”, so it read “former cremates compare him to a god”, which instantly made me picture a game revolving around “Shepard the Mortician”. After all, as Davidsfunstuff pointed out later on Twitter, you CAN incinerate your enemies… 🙂 ]