Sony Stellar Blade (Korean Bayonetta/NieR:Automata | PS5 | 26 April 2024) - reviews from OpenCritic and Digital Foundry posted

[best3444]

15 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Not my sort of game. The writing is all over the wall. 

 

It's got strong NieR: Automata vibes which was one of my favorite games last gen. The demo was good enough for me to bite on this. 

[best3444]

"Stellar Blade stands toe-to-toe with some of the best games of the character action genre. This package offers a satisfying combat system with plenty of progression, beautiful visuals, and one of the best soundtracks in years".

 

[stepee]

This actually sounds like it came together a bit better than I thought! Happy to hear performance/IQ seems good in the final product. Gonna watch that DF video later and get hype.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

15 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I'm not sure what a "serious game" is.  Most games I play are mostly fantastical -- robotic dinosaurs, paranormal evets, futuristic aliens, romanticised history, unrealistic tech and over-the-top violence. 

If you go back 10, years and look at the characters in most video games that were attempting to have realistic graphics.  Most of the characters were made to look young and objectively attractive.

Mass Effect -- Every single woman and alien woman had a thin waist, big hips and armour that contoured around their breasts.  And facially, they were modelled to have traditional female beauty.  Male characters were all buff with square jaws.  That was the norm in virtually all video games of the era.

Flash forward to 2023/2024.  Something like Horizon: Forbidden West -- most of the characters are either overweight or beanpole thin.  No muscular dudes (except maybe the chief of the Tenakh).  No women with the exaggerated hourglass figure.

Same thing with commercials.  10-years ago, most commercials were filled with objectively attractive people -- remember how people used to say "sex sells".  Today, not so much.

We could debate whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but let's not pretend it hasn't happened.

I think it has been slowly going that way for a while. It also seems to coincide with the gender divide among gamers closing. We are not quite at 50/50, but we are getting closer and closer. There’s also more and more women working in game design and game development. 
 

I can’t imagine trying to make characters “sexy” will ever go away. But I can’t help but feel the idea of having to make a character look like an object to lust after as a way to pander to a certain demographic is not as necessary as it once was. At least not in the US. 
 

Maybe age has something to do with it too. That being the older you get less you need an exaggeratedly proportioned woman to see somebody attractive. I just saw a statistic that only 24% of gamers are under 18. I don’t know about you, but I have a much more broad level of attraction to the female body than I did at 14. It’s possible the average age of gamers in South Korea is much younger (as an average) than here in the US so targeting the gaze of the 14-21 year old boys makes more sense still. 

[Phaseknox]

9 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

I don't know what to tell you. I played through Control. She looks like a lower resolution Courtney Hope.

 

 

Again, what are you even on about?

She was only one of many examples that I gave, and I admittedly probably shouldn’t have used her as an example because she does look pretty close to her real life actress who is attractive IMO.

 

9 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

I need you to understand that you're bothered that real life athletes aren't attractive enough for you. We aren't talking about make believe characters invented for a videogame, but like real people that exist in meat space.

The golfers that you can play as in the PGA Tour 2K games ARE make believe characters invented for a video game and not real life golfers. The only sports game that I play is golf, and you’re able to select or create fictional characters in them like in many RPGs.

 

9 hours ago, legend said:

Holy crap man, that video *is not* proof! That is a person speculating, speculation that goes directly against the actual facts. This is conspiracy level nonsense. The developers have already come out and said it's the same model and that same model publicly stated that she *quit* because of the backlash She's not a make believe person.

Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 looks almost exactly like that Insomniac employee that worked on the game, it has to be more than a mere coincidence because Mary Jane didn’t look like that in the first Spider-Man game. She was prettier, and looked more like the real life model that she was modeled from. With that said, I wasn’t aware that the real life model received backlash. It’s not her fault that Insomniac altered her look in the game.

 

9 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

Saying backlash is being too nice here. It was targeted harassment and phones calls toxic stalkers. Like these are real people being targeted by these rage grifters looking to make a quick buck.

I wasn’t aware of this, the harassment clearly wasn’t deserved or justified in any conceivable way. What does the real life model have to do with how Insomniac decided to make Mary Jane look in the game? 

 

8 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Why cherry pick? Have Asian developed games never had a less attractive looking female character? And I posted plenty of western devs in there.

It’s not cherry picking, the discussion is about western game devs doing it while Asian game devs don’t. I can’t think of a single Asian developed game that has what I consider to be an unattractive female protagonist in it, and I play a lot of Asian developed games. You did give some examples of attractive female characters in western developed games, and so did I. I never claimed that all western developed games feature unattractive female characters, because they clearly don’t.

 

8 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I think rather than "These studios are intentionally making less attractive characters" maybe it's a lot of different factors. Maybe they don't have the talent. Maybe they don't have the technology, and maybe they don't have the time to get it right. You mention a sports game but they can't even get the guys right half of the time and they gotta churn these things out. As for everyone else, like I said it's probably just a technology limitation among other things. For example in those Hellblade 2 videos they show that they certainly have the means to make the game and characters look amazing now and they showed the tech they had when they made the first one and there is a vast difference.

You could be right, I’m not ruling it out. What you said definitely does seem to be the case in some instances, but I do still feel like it’s intentional at times as well. I just can’t look at a female character like the one in the Fable reboot for example and think otherwise.

 

7 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

no surprise PhaseKnox's regressive gender values spring up yet again with no self awareness that he's spouting soft sexism with poor, seemingly non-sexist arguments. Frankly the fact this is all going over their head isn't surprising.

I don’t have regressive gender values, and I’m not sexist. Quite the opposite actually, because sexists refuse to play as female characters in games regardless of what they look like. I just happened to develop what I consider to be a mental condition where I primarily desire to play as female characters in games now as opposed to male ones, and I think that part of it is due to me playing as so many male characters over the years. I got tired of playing as them all the time, and I was also starting to find them less appealing as main characters as well. I tend to prefer the attitudes, personalities and voice actors of female characters. As for what they look like, I just like the characters that I play as in games in general to be what I consider appealing, attractive and cool looking regardless of their gender.

[legend]

3 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 looks almost exactly like that Insomniac employee that worked on the game, it has to be more than a mere coincidence because Mary Jane didn’t look like that in the first Spider-Man game. She was prettier, and looked more like the real life model that she was modeled from. With that said, I wasn’t aware that the real life model received backlash. It’s not her fault that Insomniac altered her look in the game.

 

Looking like the character is not proof.

1. Writers don't direct the art, nor create the character models.

2. There is a credited model for  the actual character, who is so much the actual model, she got toxic attacks for it.

3. Insomniac directly confirmed that they used the same model for the appearance as the first, because of the false accusations.

 

All facts point to it not being the writer. Clinging to "no, it has to be her because she looks like her, all official sources must be lying" is not proof of anything. It's conspiracy theory. 

 

That's the essence of the whole point: you're leaping to a false accusation on flimsy grounds for this belief in general, although this instance is particularly acute.

 

You can prefer characters to look however you want, but making baseless accusations about the motivations of developers just because you don't like it really isn't cool. Especially not when developers are treated like absolute shit for all the hard work they put in. Don't pile this nonsense on top.

[Greatoneshere]

32 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I don’t have regressive gender values, and I’m not sexist. Quite the opposite actually, because sexists refuse to play as female characters in games regardless of what they look like. I just happened to develop what I consider to be a mental condition where I primarily desire to play as female characters in games now as opposed to male ones, and I think that part of it is due to me playing as so many male characters over the years. I got tired of playing as them all the time, and I was also starting to find them less appealing as main characters as well. I tend to prefer the attitudes, personalities and voice actors of female characters. As for what they look like, I just like the characters that I play as in games in general to be what I consider appealing, attractive and cool looking regardless of their gender.

 

We've had this conversation numerous times in the past, others have had this conversation with you numerous times in the past, which is why I didn't bother this time. You have others now, again, having this conversation with you and you're still not getting it. You've rationalized and justified it to yourself for so long that what I just quoted sounds normal to you. You sound pathological to me. You post rage clickbait videos full of BS. You're somewhat down a bad rabbit hole, but you don't want to see it. I'm not gonna continue to bother myself, but here we are again with this.

 

I would seriously catch up on at least some basic fourth generation feminism reading/videos and then re-read the things you've written in this thread. You won't, but it'd help. 

[stepee]

8 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

 

Oh man this looks really fantastic. Just a super smooth well made action game with a decent amount of variety it sounds like. Soundtrack seems banging as well.

[Phaseknox]

1 hour ago, legend said:

Looking like the character is not proof.

1. Writers don't direct the art, nor create the character models.

2. There is a credited model for  the actual character, who is so much the actual model, she got toxic attacks for it.

3. Insomniac directly confirmed that they used the same model for the appearance as the first, because of the false accusations.

 

All facts point to it not being the writer. Clinging to "no, it has to be her because she looks like her, all official sources must be lying" is not proof of anything. It's conspiracy theory. 

 

That's the essence of the whole point: you're leaping to a false accusation on flimsy grounds for this belief in general, although this instance is particularly acute.

Fair enough, I didn’t realize that it was just speculation that Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 was modeled from the insomniac employee because they definitely look a lot alike. But regardless she does look somewhat different and less attractive (IMO) compared to how she looked in the first Spider-Man game, and I don’t know why they changed her.

 

1 hour ago, legend said:

You can prefer characters to look however you want, but making baseless accusations about the motivations of developers just because you don't like it really isn't cool. Especially not when developers are treated like absolute shit for all the hard work they put in. Don't pile this nonsense on top.

I didn’t make baseless accusations about the motivations of developers, I just gave my personal opinion on how things somewhat appear from my perspective. If others disagree then that’s fine. As for developers they usually only get treated like absolute shit when they do things that go against what their fanbase wants, a good example is Volition and Saints Row. They doubled down during the development of the Saints Row reboot despite fans voicing their dislike with the direction that they were going with it, and look where that got them. Developers don’t always do the right thing, and when they don’t they should be called out on it.

 

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

We've had this conversation numerous times, others have had this conversation with you numerous times, which is why I didn't bother this time. You have others now, again, having this conversation with you and you're still not getting it. You've rationalized and justified it to yourself for so long that what I just quoted sounds normal to you. You post ragebait click videos full of BS. You're somewhat down a bad rabbit hole, but you don't want to see it. I'm not gonna continue to bother myself, but here we are again with this.

I do feel as if I’ve probably had this same conversation too many times at this point, it does feel like going around in circles. I guess that I just can’t resist the topic since I primarily like playing as female characters in games these days. I don’t mean to cause a stir with any of it, I just like to discuss this stuff since I enjoy gaming and talking with other gamers about the hobby. We’re of course not always going to agree or see eye to eye on things, but that just comes with the territory in general. Regardless I still like to get other perspectives on things, because I like to see where others are coming from.

[skillzdadirecta]

32 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

As for developers they usually only get treated like absolute shit when they do things that go against what their fanbase wants, a good example is Volition and Saints Row. They doubled down during the development of the Saints Row reboot despite fans voicing their dislike with the direction that they were going with it, and look where that got them. Developers don’t always do the right thing, and when they don’t they should be called out on it.

With harassment and death threats? I mean.. you could always just not buy their game. This era of toxic fandom is NEVER justified. Someone makes something you don't want or like, don't buy it.

[legend]

36 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

Fair enough, I didn’t realize that it was just speculation that Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 was modeled from the insomniac employee because they definitely look a lot alike. But regardless she does look somewhat different and less attractive (IMO) compared to how she looked in the first Spider-Man game, and I don’t know why they changed her.

 

I appreciate the concession!

 

36 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I didn’t make baseless accusations about the motivations of developers, I just gave my personal opinion on how things somewhat appear from my perspective. If others disagree then that’s fine.

 

Your statement was "Some examples of western developed games with female characters in them that seem to have been deliberately made less attractive looking" which claims a motive of the developers to make their female character less attractive. That's simply not it in any meaningful capacity (I'm sure we can find *some* games where the character by design is unattractive, but that's not a meaningful trend and not the case for many of the games you cited). There are far more benign reasons than an intent to make characters less attractive, such as some of the things I enumerated in my earlier response.

 

 

36 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

As for developers they usually only get treated like absolute shit when they do things that go against what their fanbase wants, a good example is Volition and Saints Row. They doubled down during the development of the Saints Row reboot despite fans voicing their dislike with the direction that they were going with it, and look where that got them. Developers don’t always do the right thing, and when they don’t they should be called out on it.

 

Ooph. My man, you have no idea. The amount of shit developers get is legendary. And to top if off, they work incredibly long hours, for often comparably low pay to other fields, and then get laid off when the game they put the whole lives into was successful, because the execs need to report "growth" every quarter for shareholders over the people who bled for it and laying people off is the easy way for them to do it.

[Greatoneshere]

4 hours ago, Phaseknox said:

I do feel as if I’ve probably had this same conversation too many times at this point, it does feel like going around in circles. I guess that I just can’t resist the topic since I primarily like playing as female characters in games these days. I don’t mean to cause a stir with any of it, I just like to discuss this stuff since I enjoy gaming and talking with other gamers about the hobby. We’re of course not always going to agree or see eye to eye on things, but that just comes with the territory in general. Regardless I still like to get other perspectives on things, because I like to see where others are coming from.

 

It's good to be open and wanting to discuss things, but when you say things like: "I don't mean to cause a stir with any of it", the reason you are causing a stir is because the things you're saying are softly sexist. Should we not call you out when you do so? You just going: "no it's not soft sexism" when multiple people over the years have told you otherwise over and over just makes you seem disingenuous. 

 

Saying "of course we're not always going to agree or see eye to eye on things" is like saying that we don't agree on what racism is, or that nazis are bad. This isn't about debating our favorite pizza toppings, this is about pathological, ingrained sexism on a subconscious level on your part. Whether you work on yourself and admit that to yourself or not is up to you, but that's why this always causes a stir. You have some clearly deep, pathological problems when it comes to this specifically. You have everyone from responsible, smart users like @Ghost_MH to @legend to @Keyser_Soze explaining this yet again to you in this thread. They're wrong? I'm wrong? We're all wrong? But just on this topic, not other topics? C'mon.

[Keyser_Soze]

Wow, finally @Greatoneshere admits I'm smart! 🥹

[Phaseknox]

13 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

With harassment and death threats? I mean.. you could always just not buy their game. This era of toxic fandom is NEVER justified. Someone makes something you don't want or like, don't buy it.

With harassment and death threats? Of course not, I didn’t realize that the hate could be so extreme. That’s different from people just voicing their opinions on what they disagree with or dislike, or not buying the games like you said.

 

13 hours ago, legend said:

Ooph. My man, you have no idea. The amount of shit developers get is legendary. And to top if off, they work incredibly long hours, for often comparably low pay to other fields, and then get laid off when the game they put the whole lives into was successful, because the execs need to report "growth" every quarter for shareholders over the people who bled for it and laying people off is the easy way for them to do it.

It’s worse than I realized. 

 

11 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

It's good to be open and wanting to discuss things, but when you say things like: "I don't mean to cause a stir with any of it", the reason you are causing a stir is because the things you're saying are softly sexist. Should we not call you out when you do so? You just going: "no it's not soft sexism" when multiple people over the years have told you otherwise over and over just makes you seem disingenuous. 

 

Saying "of course we're not always going to agree or see eye to eye on things" is like saying that we don't agree on what racism is, or that nazis are bad. This isn't about debating our favorite pizza toppings, this is about pathological, ingrained sexism on a subconscious level on your part. Whether you work on yourself and admit that to yourself or not is up to you, but that's why this always causes a stir. You have some clearly deep, pathological problems when it comes to this specifically. You have everyone from responsible, smart users like @Ghost_MH to @legend to @Keyser_Soze explaining this yet again to you in this thread. They're wrong? I'm wrong? We're all wrong? But just on this topic, not other topics? C'mon.

I’m not really familiar with the term soft sexism, this is the first that I’ve heard it referred to me. Multiple people haven’t mentioned it over the years over and over. And pathological, ingrained sexism on a subconscious level? Clearly deep, pathological problems? I didn’t realize that I was coming across like that. And I don’t recall saying that anyone was wrong about anything. However, I don’t deny that I do need to work on myself in some ways.

[TheLeon]

This fuckin’ thread…

 

And somehow I’m the virgin. 

[best3444]

The only thing that was said in this thread that was incorrect is that @Keyser_Soze is a "responsible, smart user".

 

Spoiler

 

[Spork3245]

"Soft Sexism" 

[SaysWho?]

On 4/24/2024 at 10:00 AM, Spork3245 said:

Yes?

[Spork3245]

1 minute ago, SaysWho? said:

Yes?

 

@Keyser_Sozewill be the judge of... something... something

[Greatoneshere]

8 hours ago, Phaseknox said:

I’m not really familiar with the term soft sexism, this is the first that I’ve heard it referred to me. Multiple people haven’t mentioned it over the years over and over. And pathological, ingrained sexism on a subconscious level? Clearly deep, pathological problems? I didn’t realize that I was coming across like that. And I don’t recall saying that anyone was wrong about anything. However, I don’t deny that I do need to work on myself in some ways.

 

I'm surprised that you find it surprising you're coming off like that. I have to ask then: why do you think a bunch of users always get on your case about this over the years? Like, did you find this to be some strange mystery every time? They may not have termed it "soft sexism" but they were essentially saying that in other ways over the years, myself included. Soft sexism means you're sexist, but not in a particularly overt or galling way, just under the radar. It may not even affect women in real life, but you have a bad, patriarchally ingrained sexism that maintains a certain status quo in your head and your life that is ideologically unhealthy. You've so bought in to it that you think you're fine, your views on this are fine, and you make your views nice and presentable so they're palatable even though the views themselves are cringy and somewhat offputting. I wish you'd open your mind up to what all of us are saying and at least try to attempt some self-examination on this issue, just to try and see what we're all talking about. Instead you double down on wild rage clickbait conspiracy theories that are adjacent to getting red pilled. In the past I'd break down all of your posts in this thread to show you in all the ways this is troubling but I've done that before and your mind doesn't change at all. Three users in this thread this time did the same and you're still defending yourself and your views. So I'm not sure it's worth bothering for me to do so. Your cognitive dissonance is strong on this issue.

[Biggie]

So how’s the video game? 

[best3444]

8 minutes ago, Biggie said:

So how’s the video game? 

 

I'll tell you tomorrow. I have this and top spin to play so I'm hyped. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

21 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

I think it has been slowly going that way for a while. It also seems to coincide with the gender divide among gamers closing. We are not quite at 50/50, but we are getting closer and closer. There’s also more and more women working in game design and game development. 
 

I can’t imagine trying to make characters “sexy” will ever go away. But I can’t help but feel the idea of having to make a character look like an object to lust after as a way to pander to a certain demographic is not as necessary as it once was. At least not in the US. 
 

Maybe age has something to do with it too. That being the older you get less you need an exaggeratedly proportioned woman to see somebody attractive. I just saw a statistic that only 24% of gamers are under 18. I don’t know about you, but I have a much more broad level of attraction to the female body than I did at 14. It’s possible the average age of gamers in South Korea is much younger (as an average) than here in the US so targeting the gaze of the 14-21 year old boys makes more sense still. 

Absolutely. 

There is a broad range in sex appeal from porn stars, to just plain attractive people, to very average looking people.  Many Asian developers probably stray to far to the "porn star side", while some western developers are moving pretty far to the opposite end.  These trends go in waves, and as with most other fads, just wait and things will change again.

Someone brought up Arwen from LotR as an example -- my final thought on this entire discussion is that Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett were two of the most attractive women in Hollywood when those movies were filmed.  It was no accident that they were picked for two of the few key roles, in an otherwise male dominated cast, in those movies.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Biggie said:

So how’s the video game? 

What video game? 

[Biggie]

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

What video game? 

Stellar Booty

[Phaseknox]

13 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I'm surprised that you find it surprising you're coming off like that. I have to ask then: why do you think a bunch of users always get on your case about this over the years? Like, did you find this to be some strange mystery every time?

I don’t really recall a bunch of users always getting on my case over the years for liking to play as female characters in video games, but I know that they sometimes make fun of me for it because I’m so adamant about it.
 

13 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Soft sexism means you're sexist, but not in a particularly overt or galling way, just under the radar. It may not even affect women in real life, but you have a bad, patriarchally ingrained sexism that maintains a certain status quo in your head and your life that is ideologically unhealthy. You've so bought in to it that you think you're fine, your views on this are fine, and you make your views nice and presentable so they're palatable even though the views themselves are cringy and somewhat offputting.

I seriously didn’t realize that I was coming across like this. You’re the first to bring it to my attention, and I didn’t know that you had this view of me. It’s a bit disheartening to hear.

 

13 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I wish you'd open your mind up to what all of us are saying and at least try to attempt some self-examination on this issue, just to try and see what we're all talking about. Instead you double down on wild rage clickbait conspiracy theories that are adjacent to getting red pilled. In the past I'd break down all of your posts in this thread to show you in all the ways this is troubling but I've done that before and your mind doesn't change at all. Three users in this thread this time did the same and you're still defending yourself and your views. So I'm not sure it's worth bothering for me to do so. Your cognitive dissonance is strong on this issue.

I appreciate you bringing all of this to my attention, because I guess that I’ve been kind of naive to how I’ve been coming across with my views on certain things and how I’ve been presenting them. I know that I can be hardheaded at times and set in my ways, but I do listen and want to do better.

[Biggie]

4 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I don’t really recall a bunch of users always getting on my case over the years for liking to play as female characters in video games, but I know that they sometimes make fun of me for it because I’m so adamant about it.
 

I seriously didn’t realize that I was coming across like this. You’re the first to bring it to my attention, and I didn’t know that you had this view of me. It’s a bit disheartening to hear.

 

I appreciate you bringing all of this to my attention, because I guess that I’ve been kind of naive to how I’ve been coming across with my views on certain things and how I’ve been presenting them. I know that I can be hardheaded at times and set in my ways, but I do listen and want to do better.

You’re fine @Phaseknox  Don’t let the soy boi douche bag get to you. 

[best3444]

2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

You’re fine @Phaseknox  Don’t let the soy boi douche bag get to you. 

 

Yea. This is the most ridiculous thread I've read in a very long time. It's a videogame message board where a user enjoys playing as attractive female protagonists. He is is extremely adamant about to an extent that it can come off a bit odd, but it's none of anyone's concern that he likes it this way. 

 

To attack Phaseknox like this is completely over the top and unacceptable. 

[Greatoneshere]

33 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I don’t really recall a bunch of users always getting on my case over the years for liking to play as female characters in video games, but I know that they sometimes make fun of me for it because I’m so adamant about it.

 

As I said earlier, I'm talking about years of this on the entertainment board, this board, etc. where this has come up in the past. Not specifically limited to just having some weird, pathological obsession of limiting a large portion of your video game playing to this since it has applied to others things you do in the past. Your adamancy on this issue to me is a confession of the problem I've been pointing out. It comes up rarely, and I never said it was harmful to anyone, but it's still not a good ideology to have.

 

33 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I seriously didn’t realize that I was coming across like this. You’re the first to bring it to my attention, and I didn’t know that you had this view of me. It’s a bit disheartening to hear.

 

This is why I suggested reading some basic fourth generation feminism. This is what the term "woke" used to mean, to be "woken up" from all of the ingrained negative social norms that society has created over hundreds of years that we've all been subconsciously playing into, in this case, women to be viewed and thought about in certain ways. Same applies to racism, etc. It takes actually reading up and educating ourselves on these things because we're countering societal brainwashing. 

 

33 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I appreciate you bringing all of this to my attention, because I guess that I’ve been kind of naive to how I’ve been coming across with my views on certain things and how I’ve been presenting them. I know that I can be hardheaded at times and set in my ways, but I do listen and want to do better.

 

Well I definitely appreciate that you're keeping things civil and straightforward. I'd re-read all the posts that have been responding to you in this thread and try to grasp what, exactly, smart users like legend are saying. No one is saying to not enjoy beautiful women, we all do, but the way we do it, the way we think about it, the way that manifests itself in the world all matter. For instance, there's nothing wrong with an incredibly attractive female main character. What's weird is the creator's specific obsession with it. To be like: "I thought sleazily about how much her backside needs to look hot as fuck to dudes because you're staring at her backside the whole game". It's the intent there that's sleazy. It's just sort of gross. I'm pumped for the game, I don't care what the character looks like, but it does speak to heteronormative gender dynamics in art, as yet another reminder that the intent behind why things are done the way they are should have a point or if it's saying more about the artist than anything (that they have weird views on women).

 

28 minutes ago, Biggie said:

You’re fine @Phaseknox  Don’t let the soy boi douche bag get to you. 

 

23 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Yea. This is the most ridiculous thread I've read in a very long time. It's a videogame message board where a user enjoys playing as attractive female protagonists. He is is extremely adamant about to an extent that it can come off a bit odd, but it's none of anyone's concern that he likes it this way. 

 

To attack Phaseknox like this is completely over the top and unacceptable. 

 

I'm not surprised by this; you two are: (a) not very smart; and (b) he has a history of this, I'm not limiting my comments to only what he said in this thread so maybe you two should step aside since you both usually have no idea what you're talking about. Adults are talking here. The fact you frame me pointing out his sexism as an "attack" is all that needs to be said about your grasp on this issue. I like that trying to educate someone or wake someone up from their ingrained negative social norms is always an "attack" when it gets pointed out on the non-political boards regardless of who is doing it. If you two actually cared about elevating yourselves at all, you'd sit down and listen and learn and try to see that it's never an attack. Legend and Ghost_MH suddenly "attacking" other users when they never do normally? Crazy talk. And I just jumped into this thread on the last page, so I assume you're not just referring to me.

[legend]

2 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Someone brought up Arwen from LotR as an example -- my final thought on this entire discussion is that Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett were two of the most attractive women in Hollywood when those movies were filmed.  It was no accident that they were picked for two of the few key roles, in an otherwise male dominated cast, in those movies.

 

I brought up Arwen. Liv and Cate are indeed beautiful. The point being made in that comment wasn't that they were not beautiful, it's that it would look stupid if they were running around in bikinis. It was contrasting the difference between have attractive characters and having overly sexualized characters in a setting that doesn't make sense. That they are beautiful, but not sexualized and that the former works but the latter doesn't in that story was the point.

[skillzdadirecta]

On 4/24/2024 at 7:19 AM, best3444 said:

I love Phaseknox but his obsession with women protagonists and him criticizing female characters is cringe worthy.

51 minutes ago, best3444 said:

To attack Phaseknox like this is completely over the top and unacceptable. 

 

[Biggie]

35 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

As I said earlier, I'm talking about years of this on the entertainment board, this board, etc. where this has come up in the past. Not specifically limited to just having some weird, pathological obsession of limiting a large portion of your video game playing to this since it has applied to others things you do in the past. Your adamancy on this issue to me is a confession of the problem I've been pointing out. It comes up rarely, and I never said it was harmful to anyone, but it's still not a good ideology to have.

 

 

This is why I suggested reading some basic fourth generation feminism. This is what the term "woke" used to mean, to be "woken up" from all of the ingrained negative social norms that society has created over hundreds of years that we've all been subconsciously playing into, in this case, women to be viewed and thought about in certain ways. Same applies to racism, etc. It takes actually reading up and educating ourselves on these things because we're countering societal brainwashing. 

 

 

Well I definitely appreciate that you're keeping things civil and straightforward. I'd re-read all the posts that have been responding to you in this thread and try to grasp what, exactly, smart users like legend are saying. No one is saying to not enjoy beautiful women, we all do, but the way we do it, the way we think about it, the way that manifests itself in the world all matter. For instance, there's nothing wrong with an incredibly attractive female main character. What's weird is the creator's specific obsession with it. To be like: "I thought sleazily about how much her backside needs to look hot as fuck to dudes because you're staring at her backside the whole game". It's the intent there that's sleazy. It's just sort of gross. I'm pumped for the game, I don't care what the character looks like, but it does speak to heteronormative gender dynamics in art, as yet another reminder that the intent behind why things are done the way they are should have a point or if it's saying more about the artist than anything (that they have weird views on women).

 

 

 

I'm not surprised by this; you two are: (a) not very smart; and (b) he has a history of this, I'm not limiting my comments to only what he said in this thread so maybe you two should step aside since you both usually have no idea what you're talking about. Adults are talking here. The fact you frame me pointing out his sexism as an "attack" is all that needs to be said about your grasp on this issue. I like that trying to educate someone or wake someone up from their ingrained negative social norms is always an "attack" when it gets pointed out on the non-political boards regardless of who is doing it. If you two actually cared about elevating yourselves at all, you'd sit down and listen and learn and try to see that it's never an attack. Legend and Ghost_MH suddenly "attacking" other users when they never do normally? Crazy talk. And I just jumped into this thread on the last page, so I assume you're not just referring to me.

[Biggie]

2 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

atleast he was able to disagree with Phase in one sentence unlike the guy who writes a essay.

[AbsolutSurgen]

7 minutes ago, legend said:

 

I brought up Arwen. Liv and Cate are indeed beautiful. The point being made in that comment wasn't that they were not beautiful, it's that it would look stupid if they were running around in bikinis. It was contrasting the difference between have attractive characters and having overly sexualized characters in a setting that doesn't make sense. That they are beautiful, but not sexualized and that the former works but the latter doesn't in that story was the point.

You keep bringing up Bikinis, and I have no idea why.

[legend]

Just now, AbsolutSurgen said:

You keep bringing up Bikinis, and I have no idea why.

 

If only there were a record of the conversation that would allow you find the context. Guess we'll never know.