I feel like this may just end up turning into an online journal of sorts.
Rather than study for finals I did the following instead:
1) Completed another quest in Dragon Age
2) Made Pad Thai
3) Looked at blogs, and found some cool ones
4) Watched Princess Bride
Today has been a good day...I should study...
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Dragon age rant (ish?)
Video games usually get a lot of flak for portraying women in negative roles, they are usually helpless or unable to care for themselves, or they are shown in revealing clothing and have unrealistic shapes. It seems that bioware has been trying to buck this trend, many of their games have had strong female leads and female supports. Their newest game Dragon Age seems to continue that trend.
Dragon Age, like many bioware games, allows the player to play as either a male or a female. Regardless of your sex you are treated the same by your companions, and it seems that the people of Dragon Age value your skills far more than your race or gender (If you are to defeat the dark forces afterall your ability to kill them is far more important). But the main character is a blank slate, so instead I'll focus on the side characters in this game (or the npcs if you will). In the game you play as a hero who has to save the land from an evil army (basic stuff really), and you meet a good amount of companions to join you on your quest. While most games include one or two females and a dozen men, Dragon Age has a varied cost of characters. The party line is split down the middle, there are four males (two humans, an elf, and a dwarf) and four female characters (3 humans and a dwarf/golem) (and a dog). Every character is well written and interesting in their own way. The female characters aren't there just to be looked at, they actually drive the story and are key members of the team. None of these characters are damsels in distress, and all are very capable fighters (two are actually mages which are incredibly feared by commoners). Morrigan for instance proves to be a very powerful mage, and if the character is not a mage themselves, she becomes essential to the party. The same is true for Wynne, who has proved to be the most valuable character in the game (for me at the least) because of her focus on healing magic. Its interesting because it seems that the men in this game are far more replaceable than the women (you only have two mages and both are women, and you only get one archer another woman, while the men are all sword or axe wielders of some sort). All of the men can be made into tanks of sorts (they absorb damage), but the specialization of the women is incredibly important and makes it so they are invaluable. Furthermore these women actually wear armor! I know it seems ridiculous to make this a point, but women in most games have always worn short skirts made of chain mail, or other equally unhelpful things, but I find it refreshing that the women in this game care far more about their safety than whether or not they look pretty.
Dragon Age, like many bioware games, allows the player to play as either a male or a female. Regardless of your sex you are treated the same by your companions, and it seems that the people of Dragon Age value your skills far more than your race or gender (If you are to defeat the dark forces afterall your ability to kill them is far more important). But the main character is a blank slate, so instead I'll focus on the side characters in this game (or the npcs if you will). In the game you play as a hero who has to save the land from an evil army (basic stuff really), and you meet a good amount of companions to join you on your quest. While most games include one or two females and a dozen men, Dragon Age has a varied cost of characters. The party line is split down the middle, there are four males (two humans, an elf, and a dwarf) and four female characters (3 humans and a dwarf/golem) (and a dog). Every character is well written and interesting in their own way. The female characters aren't there just to be looked at, they actually drive the story and are key members of the team. None of these characters are damsels in distress, and all are very capable fighters (two are actually mages which are incredibly feared by commoners). Morrigan for instance proves to be a very powerful mage, and if the character is not a mage themselves, she becomes essential to the party. The same is true for Wynne, who has proved to be the most valuable character in the game (for me at the least) because of her focus on healing magic. Its interesting because it seems that the men in this game are far more replaceable than the women (you only have two mages and both are women, and you only get one archer another woman, while the men are all sword or axe wielders of some sort). All of the men can be made into tanks of sorts (they absorb damage), but the specialization of the women is incredibly important and makes it so they are invaluable. Furthermore these women actually wear armor! I know it seems ridiculous to make this a point, but women in most games have always worn short skirts made of chain mail, or other equally unhelpful things, but I find it refreshing that the women in this game care far more about their safety than whether or not they look pretty.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Woohoo
Decided to create one of these after waiting five years (watch I'll probs join facebook in another three years)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)