Emotional Elegance in the AAA Space
March 1, 2012 8:41 PM   Subscribe

Mass Effect 3’s gay male love scenes (the game lets the player determine the main character's sexual orientation) have already triggered a battle between YouTubers. (At the time of the main link's posting, it was 1,320 dislikes versus 292 likes. As of now, it's 1,857 dislikes vs. 1,078 likes.) Gamespot hopes that ME3 ushers in a "a more mature form of interactive storytelling."
posted by hermitosis (141 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
We live here. Military sci-fi with teh gay probably will stop being controversial soon.

How about working in some transgender themes?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:43 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


I just wish people were disliking it because it shows Sheppard as a dude, which it totally weird and not right.
posted by Blasdelb at 8:45 PM on March 1, 2012 [36 favorites]


Haven't followed the links, but I'm guessing there's spoilers here?

I mean plot spoilers, not regrettable Internet comments that spoil my enjoyment of this wondrous future world we live in.
posted by dumbland at 8:45 PM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


i lol @ ur dumb face if u play Mass Effect as a male character.
posted by tumid dahlia at 8:50 PM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


I'd dislike that weird blank doll-like thousand yard stare too.

Man even in the future we got to have abs.
posted by The Whelk at 8:52 PM on March 1, 2012 [8 favorites]


Honest question: if you are a trans person, say MTF, and you are playing as a female character in the game and capable of having romantic connections with either gender, in what way are your interests as a trans person not articulated?

I get the idea that trans people are underrepresented in games, but then game characters are rarely as fleshed out (pardon the pun) as other fictional characters anyway, often with little or no back-story, and sexuality is barely an issue in most games. Having a character in a game specifically identify as trans could be really awesome, but in the meantime, what sort of "themes" do you think you'd benefit from, exactly, that ME3's options don't currently (as far as we know) provide?
posted by hermitosis at 8:52 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


That gay scene totally SUCKED.

I mean, it was only getting like 50 FPS or so on my 560 Ti. Totally aliasing too.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:54 PM on March 1, 2012 [6 favorites]


YouTube is a hive of scum and villainy, anyway. I'm still waiting for the answer to a crucial question: will Jack be a romance option for FemShep, and if so, will biotics be involved in the lovin'? I'm thinking a Pull-Slam combo would be ideal.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:56 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Bear in mind that there's serious double-standard bullshit involved -- both Mass Effects 1 & 2 had a gay scene involving women. But now that's it's men, OH NOES
posted by spiderskull at 8:58 PM on March 1, 2012 [21 favorites]


I don't recall any particular scandal when Dragon Age came out two and a half years ago and had fully fleshed-out homosexual romance options. Why is Bioware pushing the media-attention now?

Though there wasn't enough scandal that all four bangable characters in Dragon Age 2 were Hawke-sexual, and did so whether they liked or hated you.
posted by kafziel at 8:58 PM on March 1, 2012


That's a lot of dislikes. I guess people are really upset at this unrealistic portrayal of gay spacemen soldier love.
posted by Hoopo at 8:58 PM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: gay spacemen soldier love.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:03 PM on March 1, 2012 [10 favorites]


I get the idea that trans people are underrepresented in games, but then game characters are rarely as fleshed out (pardon the pun) as other fictional characters anyway, often with little or no back-story, and sexuality is barely an issue in most games. Having a character in a game specifically identify as trans could be really awesome, but in the meantime, what sort of "themes" do you think you'd benefit from, exactly, that ME3's options don't currently (as far as we know) provide?

I don't know precisely and that is a really good question. It's the kind of question I love good sci-fi to tackle.

It's nice that an RPG generally lets you pick the gender you want, but I bounce back and forth based on what kind of story I want to imagine, not how I feel about my own gender. My point is, I want to see the story potential there, not to have any personal interests represented.

A sci-fi or fantasy setting gives you a lot of room to work with those themes since you can wave away with magic or technology any of the difficult aspects of the transition you don't want to examine.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:03 PM on March 1, 2012


I FEEL IN LOVE WITH A STARSHIP TROOPER
posted by The Whelk at 9:04 PM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


Hmm, where's the sociological link... so where porn builds totally unrealistic images of how actual human actors interact in intimate situations, the newest gen of incredibly realistic 3D characters will be teaching a new generation how to interact intimately. But, with abilities that no actual human could ever attain, even with drugs and augmentation.

What could possibly go wrong.
posted by sammyo at 9:05 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


To be fair: roughly 78% of youtubers are angry teen boys struggling with their own sense of sexuality and masculinity, so they are going to react badly to anything gay.
posted by Avenger at 9:07 PM on March 1, 2012 [5 favorites]


It would be nice if the 'morality' system actually allowed you to be evil, but that's probably too complex in terms of plotting and game size.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:07 PM on March 1, 2012


You know that debate Metafilter continually has, about how it potentially cheapens the discourse by allowing people to distill their opinions down into a loud binary "favorite"/"no favorite" on every comment?

The same effect takes place with any similar black-and-white feedback system, and so it's grossly unfair to just count up "likes" vs "dislikes", try to infer some sort of political or social statement from the result, and thereby conclude that YouTube users are a bunch of idiots!

(you have to read the comments if you want to fairly conclude that YouTube users are a bunch of idiots)
posted by roystgnr at 9:10 PM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


As a red blooded straight American male I can't tell you how much I disliked it. I've watched it 5 times now and am still trying to find the words to describe this incredibly dislikable thing. I may be here all evening disliking it again and again and again
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:10 PM on March 1, 2012 [22 favorites]




How about working in some transgender themes?

Regarding this: Persona 4 is an interesting, if incredibly frustrating, case, because it got about 80% of the way there before turning around and screaming in the other direction. Pretty much, there's a character, Naoto, that uses male pronouns, dresses male, and has a male persona in the dream-world that's supposed to show people's true selves or whatnot, though there's a reveal about halfway through their story arc that they've got boobs. There's a reaction, but not a large one, and I believe they changed the pronouns change after or that anyone treated Naoto differently.

All good, right? Or somewhat good? Well, except if you decide to romance Naoto, they reveal that the whole pretending to be male thing is false, and she's finally glad to be the woman she really is. So, you know, frustrating.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:26 PM on March 1, 2012 [10 favorites]




Military sci-fi with teh gay probably will stop being controversial soon.

That makes the assumption that being gay in America will soon be no big deal. I find this, tragically, hard to believe. I feel confident that the 2016 presidential election will feature five or six G.O.P. candidates all of whom promise to remove this gay marriage scourge that's been recently forced upon the good upstanding Christians. There is still a lot of latent fear of homosexuality in the world and as long as politicians can hinge their careers on it, it will also make for good satire.
posted by deathpanels at 9:26 PM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


Don't be silly, deathpanels, next thing you are gonna be telling us conservatives will be claiming Democrats want to kill our parents.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:30 PM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


Persona 4 also had a gay street thug character, Kanji, that comes to grips with his sexuality as part of his character arc. It's, um, not very subtle. Per the description:

His Shadow is a mostly nude version of himself surrounded in a bed of roses while holding two Mars symbols.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:38 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


I am extremely torn: Do I continue my ManShep story for some sweet gay space love, or start anew with the FemShep all the cool kids use? Decisions, decisions...
posted by yellowbinder at 9:39 PM on March 1, 2012


Re: Persona 4's Kanji, doesn't he never actually declare himself gay, even after dating ManNaoto and his good times in the Steamy Bathhouse? I remember them sliding the rug away, disappointingly.
posted by yellowbinder at 9:41 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Can... Can...

Can it be Garrus?
posted by Slackermagee at 9:41 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


I don't recall any particular scandal when Dragon Age came out two and a half years ago and had fully fleshed-out homosexual romance options.

At one point, there was a rather in-depth discussion on the subject by the moderators of this very site.

But in general, this isn't breaking much new ground. Dragon Age, New Vegas, and Skyrim all have walked that path before.
posted by radwolf76 at 9:42 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Slackermagee, that is probably not a good idea
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:46 PM on March 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


Yellowbinder: You know, I think they made it so he never says "I am totes gay" in the game (and, sadly, he's not a romance option). On the other hand, this. I suppose you can make the case that he can be bisexual, but I'm having a hard time imagining a reading of that scene that doesn't involve Kanji being at least somewhat attracted to men, and feeling conflicted over it.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:46 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


There was also somewhat of a backlash when people figured out that one of the characters, Anders, might not only be an option in Dragon Age 2, but could also be the one to initiate.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:49 PM on March 1, 2012


The Man of Twists and Turns: "Simple advice from a trained medical professional!"

"I'll take my chances."

Why would you take your chances? Because... Garrus! You just have to keep the epi-pen handy. Or five.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:49 PM on March 1, 2012


I just want to have romances with Garrus. All the romances. All the Garruseses.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:50 PM on March 1, 2012 [6 favorites]


More seriously deathpanels, sci-fi has always had an ability to dodge controversy by shrouding it in metaphor or imaginary technology or just the simple understanding that it is a genre of speculation...not necessarily endorsement, on potential futures.

So, when I say gay military sci-fi won't be controversial I don't mean anti-gay bigots are really going to come around, I just mean it will be a boring and well tread topic for the genre.

Plato's Stepchildren loses some of the punch over the years.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:51 PM on March 1, 2012


CynicalKnight: "Metafilter: gay spacemen soldier love."

Wasn't that the name of a David Bowie album?
posted by schmod at 9:53 PM on March 1, 2012 [6 favorites]


Apparently this has been going around: Poison: Trans character in Final Fight?
posted by hermitosis at 9:53 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


OnTheLastCastle : Just one more reason why FemShep > MaleShep.
posted by Grimgrin at 9:54 PM on March 1, 2012


For sure, P4 is not subtle in that regard at least. Not to denigrate the game in the least, it's one of my favourites, and I can honestly say playing it made me a better, more empathetic person. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. And I just got a Teddie tattoo to help me kick the world's ass! (photo is on facebook but I can see it logged out, might not work for some?)
posted by yellowbinder at 9:57 PM on March 1, 2012


I don't buy much DLC, but I'd absolutely pay for Mordin's advice pamphlet on human-turian relations.
posted by asperity at 10:06 PM on March 1, 2012 [5 favorites]


Anyway, the first sci-fi books I read where there were transgender themes were the Mag Force 7 novels. In retrospect they are really just a Star Wars homage from Margaret Weis, an author most famous for Dragonlance novels, but the story made an impression on me.

Darlene Mohini - formerly Dalin Rowan, Xris's fellow Fed. After the botched investigation on TISor 13, in which Xris became a cyborg, Rowan realized that he was under the eyes of the Hung. He faked his own death and changed his gender, becoming Major Darlene Mohini of the Royal Navy, a signal-intelligence and electronic countermeasures officer on a distant star base.

The story also pointed out that the character was always transgender, this wasn't just a way to hide out. I recall a passage where another character, Raoul de Beausoleil, pointed out that on his planet Darlene would never have left childhood without the condition being discovered and treated. I never even conceived of the idea of a transgender child at the time, but these days every other month you hear stories about kids like Bobby Montoya. I owe a lot of my open mindedness on this topic to a silly sci-fi book.

Tracy Hickman also had an amazing and not well enough known book about AIDS and homosexuality called The Immortals that had an impact on how I saw the world.

Now that I think of it, The Rose of the Prophet series by Weis and Hickman hits transgender issues as well. There is a character called Mathew who is a wizard. He has a feminine appearance and in the land he ends up stranded in only women use magic. He ends up being treated as the wife of another man in order to save his life.

These kinds of things can really change the way young men think, and video games have to be more potent than books, so the more that is out there the better.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:09 PM on March 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


Gay/Straight/Left/Right/Clockwise/CounterClockwise/in a bucket by the door...this just feels like Space Harlequin Romance, or maybe Mr. Space-Darcy comes courting.
posted by Chekhovian at 10:11 PM on March 1, 2012


I'm guessing the gay female love scenes would have an approval rating of something closer to 99.5%
posted by ShutterBun at 10:15 PM on March 1, 2012


Oh god, I would kill for a Gay Space Darcy plot line, think of the dialogue options!
posted by The Whelk at 10:17 PM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


While it's true that we don't get to pick our gender, religion, or sexual preference in the real world...

OK, this (the third link) is just a badly written article.
posted by gurple at 10:17 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


I miss giant robot and space fighter games? Remember how that was all they ever made in the 90's, because polygons are way easy to animate?

I would love to play a new TIE fighter game that gave you the option of hot TIE Bomber/X-Wing love, or maybe some kind of TIE Interceptor/Y-Wing/Y-Wing threesome...
posted by Chekhovian at 10:19 PM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


Seriously. I have not yet found any good Gay-Regencies-in-Spaaaace, in videogame form or otherwise.
posted by asperity at 10:20 PM on March 1, 2012


i lol @ ur dumb face if u play Mass Effect as a male character.

The male Shep has high resolution textures for the default character. FemShep doesn't. I just can't get past the low resolution, it's just too glaring when I'm running high resolution mods for all the other characters, so I have to play with default male Shepard.

Plus Liara just doesn't do it for me. TEAM ASHLEY.
posted by Justinian at 10:21 PM on March 1, 2012


He has an income from several spice mines and is said to unmatched in the VR games and his tail is most charming.
posted by The Whelk at 10:21 PM on March 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


TEAM ASHLEY.

Oh come on now. Kaidan may be boring, but at least he's not racist.
posted by asperity at 10:25 PM on March 1, 2012


(Though the true test of that will probably be when he finds out I'm banging Garrus.)
posted by asperity at 10:27 PM on March 1, 2012


(Though the true test of that will probably be when he finds out I'm banging Garrus.)

I never bothered to look into it, but there was always this thing about the way Kaidan would turn to greet you on the ship. I was absolutely convinced that there would have been a romance option just based on that silent, hulking bro-nod that went on between them.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:46 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


By the simple expedient of naming the supposedly female Shepard James (he has breasts and a typically feminine register voice but is comfortable being thought of as male) back in ME1, I've been playing as a trans, gay male character for two games now. I seem to recall it making the romantic dialogue with Kaidan in the original unintentionally hilarious, and I've always pictured poor clueless Garrus complimenting the women on the ship on their fine penises because James has contributed to a shaky understanding of human anatomy.

Having said that, once James's saga is over this'll be the first time I bother to play through a whole ME game as Official Man Shep to see the dude lovin'.
posted by emmtee at 11:12 PM on March 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


asperity: "Oh come on now. Kaidan may be boring, but at least he's not racist."

Who? Keedan? Kaidon? I'm afraid I don't remember ever saving the galaxy with someone by that name.

Come, Ashley: heroism awaits!
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 11:14 PM on March 1, 2012


I just saw a screenshot where pretty much 'I like dudes!' was at the top of the dialogue wheel and 'I like ladies!' was at the bottom. Like, being gay is more Paragon than mean pushing-people-out-of-windows Renegadey hererosexuality. I hope it actually gives points and players have to go with the gay option for those max-Paragon playthroughs.
posted by emmtee at 11:23 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Man, re-watched the "medical advice" video to catch the bit at the end I ROFL'd through the first time.

Now I want to do a days work in the lab with mimosas and mood music. Dammit.
posted by Slackermagee at 11:36 PM on March 1, 2012


No love for Urdnot Wrex? You people are so closed minded.
posted by calamari kid at 11:38 PM on March 1, 2012


(Though the true test of that will probably be when he finds out I'm banging Garrus.)

Oh Garrus.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 11:41 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


I once romanced Tali just hoping for a renegade RECOIL IN HORROR option when she opens her suit. Alas. I mean, they did give you options to basically tell Morrigan things like "You're a total bitch" so I thought they might? But no.
posted by Justinian at 11:50 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Rose of the Prophet series by Weis and Hickman

What the hell, metafilter? I read those about the time they came out, and haven't thought much of them since. Just YESTERDAY, it was sunny and I pulled my hood over my head to shield my face from the sun, which reminded me a passage from one of those books. Okay, also, what the hell brain, but that's some serendipity right there.
posted by flaterik at 11:57 PM on March 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


You can remember a passage from those books? I, too, read them when they came out and I can't even tell you the titles or the names of any of the characters.
posted by Justinian at 12:06 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


How about Darksword flaterik? Remember Simkin? How about Deathgate? Jesus, why exactly are these authors only remembered for Dragonlance when they had so much more awesome and thought provoking stuff?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:16 AM on March 2, 2012


I loved Deathgate! That I even remember some character names and plot from. But, Justinian, I couldn't tell you the names of the characters or any part of the plot from Rose except for a bit where someone tells the main character to pull his hood up or the sun will burn him. My brain is weird.
posted by flaterik at 12:37 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


I loved the Idle Thumbs theory that all Bioware sex scenes are so cringe-inducingly awful because the animators have had to work with just a single mo-cap session of two programmers awkwardly pretending to have sex with each other and no one in the Bioware office was willing to try it again.
posted by straight at 12:38 AM on March 2, 2012 [13 favorites]


Oh emmtee! The romance of James & Garrus was the first thing I thought when I saw this thread.
posted by Panjandrum at 12:42 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Am I the only one to be disappointed that the gay male love interest isn't this guy?
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 12:57 AM on March 2, 2012


Shepard?

Wrex!
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:38 AM on March 2, 2012


flaterik: "I loved Deathgate! That I even remember some character names and plot from."

The only one I can remember is Zifnab...
posted by the_artificer at 1:42 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Why does it Say the video is private and I can't heck it out? I'm using an iPad.
posted by The ____ of Justice at 2:26 AM on March 2, 2012


I don't recall any particular scandal when Dragon Age came out two and a half years ago and had fully fleshed-out homosexual romance options. Why is Bioware pushing the media-attention now?

Per Artw's link, the same-sex romance options for Hawke kind of did lead to a backlash - one which was largely unseen, because it happened on the BioWare social network and fairly islands-in-the-net sites. But when the writer generally seen as responsible for the male-male romance storylines in DA2 was set up on Reddit, she was subjected to waves of sustained harassment.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:25 AM on March 2, 2012


Regarding this: Persona 4 is an interesting, if incredibly frustrating, case, because it got about 80% of the way there before turning around and screaming in the other direction.

I was going to bring up this exact same thing! Persona 4 really bugged me, because it's like it started out as a really progressive game (gay playable character, trans playable character, yay!) but then someone got scared that there might be a negative backlash or something, and tacked these totally weird "explanations" onto Kanji and Naoto about how they're "not really gay/trans; I mean, kind of, but like, not really." Totally weird.

As far as other games handling GLBT stuff relatively well, I really liked Seto's first kiss in Fragile. It's completely awkward, just like first kisses really are (and I've never seen a videogame kiss that wasn't awkward, unfortunately, but Fragile works with that instead of against it) and maybe a little more because Seto clearly isn't gay. But in his reminisces, Grownup Seto still cherishes that moment as his first kiss, and acknowledges Crow's sexuality in a positive way. Actually, I appreciate the subtlety and layers of meaning there--Crow has a number of "secrets" for Seto to keep, but the way the scene is framed makes it impossible not to know what the writer's talking about if you're a grown up whose hobby is reading into things. If you're a kid with lots of growing up still to do, you might not notice the underlying meaning until you're older. I love stuff like that, and nevereverever see it in videogame writing.

Fragile is such a sad and surprisingly literary game. A little tweaking and it would have been perfect.
posted by byanyothername at 5:12 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Honest question: if you are a trans person, say MTF, and you are playing as a female character in the game and capable of having romantic connections with either gender, in what way are your interests as a trans person not articulated?

I think that's fair, to a point.

Bio-females disguised as men in order to go off to war is an old trope, but all it takes to turn that into something representing trans* people is for, in the character's point of view, it to not be a disguise but an identity. Perhaps a part-time identity, perhaps full time.

When a bio-male is disguised as a woman, it is always, ALWAYS played for comedy -- usually crudely and in a way that makes men look like buffoons while also mocking women, and implying that that's what all MTF trans people are like.
posted by Foosnark at 5:35 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Just a heads up, there are major spoilers for ME3 being strewn about everywhere these days. There's assholes posting comments in unrelated threads on gaming sites. There was a fucking comment thread on a Youtube video for one of the soundtrack songs that basically spoils the endgame. And even the front page of the Bioware Social Network (which is a pit of voles anyway) is filled with spoilers. If you want to remain pristine for ME3, you might want to spend the next four days embracing Luddism.
posted by kmz at 5:51 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


When a bio-male is disguised as a woman, it is always, ALWAYS played for comedy -- usually crudely and in a way that makes men look like buffoons while also mocking women, and implying that that's what all MTF trans people are like.

Yeah, speaking of which, considering everything that Bioware does right, I was really disappointed in the trans prostitute elf gag in Dragon Age.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:09 AM on March 2, 2012


When a bio-male is disguised as a woman, it is always, ALWAYS played for comedy...

Is it Ghostbusters II Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 6:32 AM on March 2, 2012


Not a huge fan of the Mass Effect games, but love that this is an option, but also hate that in SWtOR you are very limited to your romance options. Although i heard that they are changing it, but me being near the end of the story it feels too late, especially for that character. I can get not being able to romance the robot, but shouldn't be too hard to do same sex romance if they can do the other ones. :P

When a bio-male is disguised as a woman, it is always, ALWAYS played for comedy -- usually crudely and in a way that makes men look like buffoons while also mocking women, and implying that that's what all MTF trans people are like.

I hate this so much.
posted by usagizero at 6:33 AM on March 2, 2012


Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman?

That particular comic makes me so angry, because it's really, really clear that Gaiman thinks he's being super progressive in his treatment of the trans and lesbian characters. But really the trans character is just there as a prop for the straight woman to show how caring and accepting she is, with a little bit of "lol she doesn't pass" thrown in. The whole fakey-emotional get-choked-up thing at the end, that's so manipulative and just meant to provide an emotional crescendo to the Tragic Life of A Trans Woman narrative. And the lesbian characters...don't get me started. I suppose it's to Gaiman's credit that he doesn't, like, make them totally sexy nymphets or something, but jesus, the guy must know some actual queer women.

I mean, for pete's sake, I remember reading a truly tacky, trashy series of Andrew Vachss detective novels when I was a teen in the late eighties....and those books had a WAY better depiction of a trans woman character than A Game of You, because at least she was loved and valued and her gender presentation was never played for laughs (that I remember, anyway). So it's not just that Gaiman was writing in, like, 1992.
posted by Frowner at 6:44 AM on March 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


Personally, I just want there to be an easter egg where you can be a latent appliance fetishist and bed one of the Geth, but that's because I believe that Frank Zappa references are awesome, while romance, as depicted in game in every video game ever, is such weak sauce that I assume any sort of sexuality in that universe is on par with choosing a shirt color and that the species reproduces by fission.

And then there are video game romances that actually put me off real world sexuality and try to reproduce by fission.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 6:52 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


I was going to bring up this exact same thing! Persona 4 really bugged me, because it's like it started out as a really progressive game (gay playable character, trans playable character, yay!) but then someone got scared that there might be a negative backlash or something, and tacked these totally weird "explanations" onto Kanji and Naoto about how they're "not really gay/trans; I mean, kind of, but like, not really." Totally weird.

Yeah, I noticed this too, I can't remember exactly where, but it was pretty jarring when Kanji all of a sudden called backsies on being gay. It had to have been an external decision placed on the game's writers. As such, I think the best thing to do is to treat it as not canon. In the real Persona 4, Kanji is still a badass, but totally not het.
posted by NathanBoy at 7:51 AM on March 2, 2012


Frowner: Thank you. I just re-read that arc for the first time since I was 19 and, well, I've become rather more critical of queer narratives in the intervening years. Yeesh.
posted by Zozo at 8:16 AM on March 2, 2012


I loved the Idle Thumbs theory that all Bioware sex scenes are so cringe-inducingly awful because the animators have had to work with just a single mo-cap session of two programmers awkwardly pretending to have sex with each other and no one in the Bioware office was willing to try it again.

A bit off-topic, but damn, after reading this, now I need to go and finish listening to the Idle Thumbs backlog. And donate to their Kickstarter. It's so rare to see somebody own up to that, especially in the video games arena.
posted by kmz at 8:21 AM on March 2, 2012


Oh god, will teh gamers get over teh gays already. It's embarrassing.

Anything that makes it more ironic for them to shout "fag" into their headsets is all right by me. Bring on the gayest of the gay sex, please.
posted by clvrmnky at 8:28 AM on March 2, 2012


Oh god, will teh gamers get over teh gays already. It's embarrassing.

Will nobody think of the bros?
posted by mhoye at 8:39 AM on March 2, 2012


Hard to give actual commentary now that the vid is private. :/
posted by Anima Mundi at 8:44 AM on March 2, 2012


Will nobody think of the bros?

They are thinking of the bros.
posted by kmz at 8:47 AM on March 2, 2012


Frowner: And the lesbian characters...don't get me started. I suppose it's to Gaiman's credit that he doesn't, like, make them totally sexy nymphets or something, but jesus, the guy must know some actual queer women.

There's an early Hellblazer story by Gaiman and Dave McKean, "Hold Me", that's mostly really great--it's about the ghost of a homeless man that freezes to death--that's marred by a subplot about a lesbian who tries to seduce John Constantine because she wants a blond baby. I like Gaiman and his work a lot, but that bit always bothered me.

So it's not just that Gaiman was writing in, like, 1992.

Well, even otherwise-enlightened people don't all gain the same amount of awareness at the same time. (And, of course, Andrew Vachss has his own baggage, to put it mildly.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:06 AM on March 2, 2012


Ew, equal representation in media!
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:13 AM on March 2, 2012


To be fair: roughly 78% of youtubers are angry teen boys

Ignite claims YouTube users were 52% female in 2011.

And this source (using quantcast?) claims that 42% of YouTube users are over 35.

Regardless of what you may think of its commenters, the YouTube user base is fairly reflective of the Internet at large, imo.

This video - Gay Shepard 1 & 2 - gets 10:1 like:dislikes.

*huge shrug*
posted by mrgrimm at 10:03 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman?

That particular comic makes me so angry...


Duly noted, but at least he didn't play it for laughs.

By and large there are things that comics don't do well given the nature of the medium. Of course there are things that every medium doesn't do well given the nature of the medium.

This is why, in Skyrim, it's so impressive that when the Jarl tells Irileth to dispatch some troops and tells you to follow him, if you follow her instead, she goes down and gives a rousing speech to a bunch of guards and sends them on their way. They actually paid a voice actress money and devoted space on a DVD to lines that the vast vast majority of the people would never hear. (I certainly wouldn't have if someone on MeFight club hadn't mentioned it.)

The problem is, this extra minute of dialog impressed me, but I all it required was passive observation. When the rubber meets the road of "choose your own romantic interlude", I think it's going to break, in the same way that it's hard to make anything that happens in a comic book not feel like killing off a red shirt in Star Trek.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:26 AM on March 2, 2012


furiousxgeorge: We live here. Military sci-fi with teh gay probably will stop being controversial soon.

The gay Marine kissing his boyfriend still has some negative responses being mentioned in the news, but many news reports only covered the positive, which is awesome to see. Slowly but surely, progress is being made.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:03 AM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


YouTube as a whole is reflective of society as a whole, if you mean people who watch videos (almost everyone).

People who _vote_ or _comment_ on YouTube are probably skewed in all sorts of ways, given that they account for a very very small % of all users. You have to be logged in, you have to care, etc. Commenting is probably the smallest group because of how toxic the back-and-forth can get sometimes. Liking or disliking is a easy action but the vast majority of people never even do that.

(aside from initial viewcount-stuck-at-300 effects, notice that on most video it's a few % of views at most)

This video isn't even up any more... (well, it's been marked private)
posted by wildcrdj at 12:14 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


I think it's true of most fandoms that the online discussion appears to become dominated by people with an axe to grind who just can't shut up about some little thing they find to be unsatisfying.

It probably doesn't help that Bioware has been repeatedly stung by leaks and broken embargoes from a games "journalism" that will take any draft or rumor as an opportunity to editorialize on the state of gaming. The complainers seem to come from across the spectrum, as I've seen people threaten to boycott and cancel orders over things such as:

* Ashley's hairstyle
* Ashley's uniform
* Liara's character-heavy DLC
* the Vermire Survivor dialogues (and lack of DLC)
* Redhead femshep
* the addition of multiplayer
* Vega's neck
* Release-day DLC

I'm a "wait a month to see if it's good" person myself, which means I'll probably get it sometime before summer.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:47 PM on March 2, 2012


Redhead femshep

Well, that had more to do (assuming we're thinking of the same thing) with the really stupid way that Bioware went about picking the default FemShep for ME3 by voting, not including the default FemShep from the first two games as an option. (I like the default ME1-2 FemShep better than the male-model-based DudeShep because not only does she remind me visually of several women that I've known in real life, but also she's a good match for Jennifer Hale's voice acting.) I'm glad that, when you customize FemShep in the demo, the customizable model is the old default, rather than the pouty-lipped new default.

Vega's neck

As Joker would say when being chased by Collectors through the Normandy, "What the shit!?"
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:33 PM on March 2, 2012


I'm slightly exaggerating on some of this. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Beefy myself.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:48 PM on March 2, 2012


So it's not just that Gaiman was writing in, like, 1992.

Has Gaiman got any better at actual characters (gay, trans or otherwise) since then? I have plenty of affection for his world-building, but having read Sandman and American Gods, it doesn't much seem like Gaiman deals in anything but archetypes and stereotypes, no matter how much fun he has with them.
posted by howfar at 3:45 PM on March 2, 2012


From the Forbes article Artw linked above:


"Evil President Bartlett is, sadly, not a potential boyfriend for either gender of Commander.
"



=(
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 9:13 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


That's not a bad point at all Phalene. I remember that as one of the more believable and tender interactions in the book, brief as it was. But exactly what Gaiman excels at is broad brushwork that suggests greater depth. When it comes to finer detail, he is highly competent at locations and settings, and I think rather mediocre at character. I say this as a critical admirer.
posted by howfar at 9:18 PM on March 2, 2012


By the simple expedient of naming the supposedly female Shepard James (he has breasts and a typically feminine register voice but is comfortable being thought of as male) back in ME1, I've been playing as a trans, gay male character for two games now.

Similarly, while I didn't try it myself -- I liked my base FemShep too much -- I remember thinking that Bioware had managed to slip in a story hook for a Trans Shep at the beginning of ME2. I won't go into details for fear of spoilers, but you get the opportunity to completely change your appearance, thanks to some future surgery, so you could easily have played as one sex in ME1, then another in ME2, and it would have fit the plot just fine.
posted by Amanojaku at 12:29 PM on March 3, 2012


a serious, plot relevant love interest being a somewhat dumpy looking woman

Don't give Rockstar too much credit. Every character in the GTA4 engine is dumpy looking.
posted by straight at 2:30 PM on March 3, 2012


Your Amazon.com order of "Mass Effect 3 Collector's ..." has shipped!

yeeesssss
posted by Justinian at 4:23 PM on March 5, 2012




10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Mass Effect

8. The game's developers spend a lot of time looking at Mass Effect fan-art on Deviant Art
posted by homunculus at 5:50 PM on March 5, 2012


Jumping back a subject, didn't Babylon 5 broach the issue in military scifi with the whole Ivanova/Winters implication?
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:41 PM on March 5, 2012


Nah, there have been lesbians in milSF for a long time. It's male homosexuality which usually becomes an issue and which ME3 is addressing.
posted by Justinian at 7:34 PM on March 5, 2012


didn't Babylon 5 broach the issue in military scifi with the whole Ivanova/Winters implication

And how...talk about lipstick lesbians wearing silk nighties...but they didn't really bother to comment on the homosexuality part of it, it was just more "Ivanova fails at love again...she'll definitely die alone..."
posted by Chekhovian at 9:39 AM on March 6, 2012


I slept with you the other night
You didn't call you didn't write
I think you did it just for spite!
posted by radwolf76 at 1:07 PM on March 6, 2012


I have bought flowers and a limited edition set of Tennyson for my Ashley. Why oh why will you not let me give them to her, Mass Effect 3? Where are they? I have no inventory. Are they imaginary? Are they e-flowers and e-books? Who can say?
posted by Justinian at 10:27 PM on March 6, 2012


I have bought flowers and a limited edition set of Tennyson for my Ashley.

"Mass Effect turned into a Japanese dating sim so gradually I didn't even notice."
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 12:14 AM on March 7, 2012 [2 favorites]


"Mass Effect turned into a Japanese dating sim so gradually I didn't even notice."

I don't care what you say, I finally was able to give Ashley the Tennyson poems. ♥♥♥
posted by Justinian at 7:42 PM on March 7, 2012


"Mass Effect turned into a Japanese dating sim so gradually I didn't even notice."

Dear lord, that is exactly the point that has stuck in my craw during these last several Mass Effect threads.
posted by Chekhovian at 12:39 AM on March 8, 2012


Honestly, I don't get that complaint. Gaming henchman loyalty, including the possibility of doing so by seducing your henchmen has been a staple Bioware mechanic since the BG days. "Oh no! I'm in a romance subplot that was buried deep in optional dialog trees! My poor tender eyes!"

(Critics of Bioware writing seem to be weirdly fond of The Witcher, which had an entire mini-game based on collecting cheesecake art through seduction achievements. )
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:56 AM on March 8, 2012


Oh god, the Witcher "sex cards". Eww.
posted by Justinian at 11:35 AM on March 8, 2012


Hmm. Just was chatting with the barista at a coffeeshop and he starts telling me a bout a freind of his who was nervous because he's done his first videogame score and he hoped it had come out alright, even though he'd done film work before that had nominated for Oscars. So of course I've got to ask more about that, and it turns out the friend was Clint Mansell and the game was Mass Effect 3.
posted by Artw at 12:51 PM on March 8, 2012 [1 favorite]


If Mansell wrote the music for the final Earth/Reaper scene in the demo, then I have to say that it was much better than alright. In fact, that theme is perhaps the only video game soundtrack piece to give me musical shivers, which puts it in the same league as Beethoven, Glass, and Pärt.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:36 PM on March 8, 2012


I may have to play the game now, I'm sort of a Mansell completist.
posted by Artw at 1:39 PM on March 8, 2012


Of course, to me it sounded like the rest of the demo recycled themes from the first two games. But here it is without animation or spoilers.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:45 PM on March 8, 2012


Very Mansell. You should check out his Moon score.
posted by Artw at 1:53 PM on March 8, 2012


And his score for the Fountain.
posted by Chekhovian at 2:10 PM on March 8, 2012


I do wish Moon hadn't ended on the lame note that it did. Source code was the same way.
posted by Chekhovian at 2:11 PM on March 8, 2012


/shrug

Loved both of them, TBH.

Source Code especially since if you stop and think about it there's some deeply creepy implications to what he's doing there SPOILER mindwiping some poor sod to take his body, not to mention that if it DOES spin up a new universe each time he has a go on it then all the failed tries are basically mass murder.
posted by Artw at 2:15 PM on March 8, 2012


if you stop and think about it

That's core problem with both films...
If you were the Army and you had the technology to create a matrix like virtual interface into someone's mind, well that actually has many other startling implications that the movie totally ignored.

And Moon, c'mon...if you're an evil corporation that secretly develops the ability to clone people and download complete minds into the new clones...you could find much better ways to use that technology than to keep cloning some schmuck whose only skill is generally not going too crazy on the Moon.

Both films had incredible what if questions, but neither film put any thought into the "second order effects", that would honestly probably have more impact than the main points considered. Its sort of like old Sci Fi novels that would assume some incredibly technology then use it for the most parochial things.
posted by Chekhovian at 2:28 PM on March 8, 2012


That being said, I did enjoy the first 80% of each film. Then they crashed and burned on landing...Sunshine was the same way.
posted by Chekhovian at 2:29 PM on March 8, 2012


Sunshine doesn't really go astray, it explosively detonates.
posted by Artw at 2:32 PM on March 8, 2012 [1 favorite]


IMNSHO, good science fiction gives you alternate reality. Great science fiction gives you questions. Source Code (way off topic) not only wrapped up all of the questions, it did so in a way that undermined one of the central moral conflicts of the story. I can't help but compare it to The Man in the High Castle that leaves the characters hanging with the realization that something is wrong with reality.

I've rarely seen the tacked-on happy-ending epilogue done in a way that doesn't feel like a big "fuck you" to the heroic or tragic attempts by the characters to salvage what dignity they can from a terrible situation. Groundhog Day might be the exception.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 3:35 PM on March 8, 2012


But back on topic, it's all fun and games until you die. And even then, you're probably in the next act of a Bioware game.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 3:44 PM on March 8, 2012


What's Behind the Puzzling Vendetta Against BioWare and Mass Effect 3? gives a much fuller story of what's happening here. The author, who originally echoed that the reviews were based on homophobia, sketches out other common complaints that he's discovered upon listening and reading the actual complaints. While certainly there is a segment of homophobic, bigoted gamers, the bulk of the criticisms have little to do with the gay relationships added in the game.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:15 AM on March 9, 2012


I'm not going to post any of several certain viral images that have been floating around, but suffice to say there have been several controversies about the endings of the game, the graphical quality of several segments, and Bioware using art from the internet as their own.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:17 AM on March 9, 2012


I don't buy the DLC argument either, at least not in this case given that Zaeed, the day-one DLC for ME2, was clearly rushed into a fast and cheap production process after the rest of the game content was in the can. If Zaeed had been included in the main game, people would have complained about an unfinished crew member with only one mission, little shipboard conversation, and no integration with the other characters and story.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:51 AM on March 9, 2012


Okay, sometimes tricky to bring up here, but Penny Arcade's 4th Panel (video) about their comic strip on Mass Effect 3s "gay sex" was pretty good.
posted by ODiV at 8:32 AM on March 9, 2012


I'm so confused. Two threads in my recent activity have veered way off topic to discuss Source Code at the exact same time.
posted by straight at 9:23 AM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm not going to post any of several certain viral images that have been floating around

I will.

Yes, you see Tali's face. In a still shot. It's a photoshop of a getty images stock photo. And it's a really bad photoshop, too. The plot spoilers you can click on, but yes, they're awful.

Dragon Age 1 had multiple homosexual relationships. So did Mass Effects 1 and 2. They didn't get the ire from the gaming community that Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 did, because they were better games. Better written, more coherent, better NPCs. The focus has been on David Gaider and Jennifer Brandes Hepler because their response to "Your writing is objectively awful for the following reasons" has consistently been "You're just sexist/homophobic/heteronormative". It's dismissing legitimate complaints about awful nonsense plots by clinging to imagined prejudice.
posted by kafziel at 10:12 AM on March 9, 2012 [3 favorites]


Yes, you see Tali's face.

Talk about nightmare fuel...her eyes...sweet jesus. Hello uncanny valley.
posted by Chekhovian at 9:38 PM on March 9, 2012


The eyes are bad, but that hand. Fuck. Fuck.

Like I said, it's a really really really bad photoshop.
posted by kafziel at 11:19 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


Just started. I can't remember what we were talking about here, but I've noticed 2 things:

1. The fact that they re-used the "male" mocap model for FemShep is WAY more obvious than I anticipated. Sometimes it works well, giving her a "badass" appearance, but other times she walks around like a puffed grouse.

2. FemShep's got some serious back. This is not a complaint. (see previous posts by me in this thread)
posted by ShutterBun at 10:59 PM on March 11, 2012


I did.

Ditto.

SORTA SPOILERS SORTA SPOILERS SORTA SPOILERS BUT NOT REALLY


I'm rather surprised they went the Deus Ex route of "press one of these three buttons to pick your ending!" where your previous choices mean very little considering what a poor reaction there was to that bit of the otherwise very well received Deus Ex HR. I suppose it was too late in ME3s development cycle to change it. But now Bioware is seeing the same thing: lots of praise for 98% of the game, lots of criticism of the last 2%. Except magnified since people have been invested in ME's storyline for years while Deus Ex was a single game with much less emotional investment.

memo to developers: if your ending is of the form "press one of these three buttons", you're doing something wrong.
posted by Justinian at 3:02 PM on March 12, 2012


The FANRAGE is reaching biblical proportions over at the Bioware forums. The anger is strong in them.
posted by Justinian at 10:46 PM on March 12, 2012


I came across this description of the plot:
Its like Deus ex and Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover fanfic written by Stephanie Meyer and directed by Uwe Boll

Heh.
posted by Chekhovian at 10:50 PM on March 12, 2012


There is a huge conspiracy theory crowd which postulates that the end(ings) we see in ME3 are not the "real" endings and we're being set up. Their evidence is about 1/3 convincing and 2/3 numerologist-level wishful thinking.

Unfortunately there is a simple explanation for the 1/3 convincing part of their arguments; the writers of the ending screwed the pooch. But I hope not, I hope it is all a reaper trick.
posted by Justinian at 11:03 PM on March 12, 2012


the end(ings) we see in ME3 are not the "real" endings

Directors cut DLC?
posted by Chekhovian at 12:02 AM on March 13, 2012


A bunch of people are waiting for a "surprise announcement" that the real endings will be in a free DLC announced to coincide with the release of ME3 in Japan, the operating theory being that Bioware kept the real endings in the chamber until the game was out everywhere on the planet to avoid spoiling the ending.

It's kind of like people sitting around waiting for the Rapture which surely must come very soon. Save us, Bioware! We your humble servants implore!
posted by Justinian at 12:21 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


So you can play ME3 in "Action mode" or something where all the interaction stuff just happens as cutscenes in between levels or something right? I would consider playing it that way, the conversation Role Playing parts just sound tiresome to me (I played about 30 minutes of ME1 before being bored to death of the dialog trees in which I had absolutely not investment).

Question then: evaluated as a pure shooter, how is the game? In terms of good controls, interesting weapons/enemies, mechanics, etc? I had some impression that the in game AI was damn good. Also, playing that way, would you miss much of the essential fighting stuff (totally don't care about who is banging whom...)?
posted by Chekhovian at 1:16 AM on March 13, 2012


The fact that they re-used the "male" mocap model for FemShep is WAY more obvious than I anticipated. Sometimes it works well, giving her a "badass" appearance, but other times she walks around like a puffed grouse.

Yeah, it has odd moments. All in all I liked that her animations were very tomboy/dungiveafuck in style because that was my conception of my character, but she did look a bit silly hustling around the ship in her civvies or bowlegging her way down stairs in the odd cutscene.

What I found really sort of odd was the new little-black-dress-ish casual outfit. On the one hand I like the idea that they were including a little more range in presentation there, if you really wanted to fem up your femshep now and then, but between the mocap thing (tromping around like a grizzly bear just looks totally ridiculous in that ensemble) and the whole saving-the-galaxy thing, it's just pretty darned jarring. I made one circuit of the Normandy in that outfit and decided that Shep was going through a sort of second-life crisis and trying to be a different person and was so deeply embarrassed by the overheard snickers as she leather-skirted her way around the Crew Quarters and CIC that she vowed never to go out like that in public again.

Though she did put it on for Liara, because Liara was her boo, even if she didn't have anything nice to say to most other folks. ONLY LIARA UNDERSTANDS HER.
posted by cortex at 9:51 AM on March 17, 2012 [3 favorites]


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