More publications!

Another quick portfolio post: I had two articles published in this month’s issue of Five out of Ten. The one I pitched originally is about masculinity in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and how the game’s thesis on what it means to be a man is really dissonant when compared to the rest of the series. And the one I wrote for the issue’s theme of ‘fantasy’ is about how, by adding and tweaking some of the series’ core mechanics, Fire Emblem: Awakening transformed from a war sim into a more straightforward power fantasy.

(On a similar note, I know it’s been ages since I’ve posted original content here, but I’m hoping to start up again soon! I’ve got a couple of pieces I’ve been working on, so hopefully that won’t be too far off.)

A Coda on Anders

I’m really, really late on this because my life got really busy, but last month an article of mine was published in the wonderful Electro Bureau. It’s a discussion of Dragon Age 2, focusing on how the relationship between Hawke and Anders helped me to shed the last of my baggage over an abusive relationship. (Content warning for emotional abuse by a partner, so tread carefully!) I think this is probably the last I’ll write about this game, because this piece was pretty cathartic in a lot of ways, and I’m about as proud of it as you’d expect.

News!

Putting this here for the sake of maintaining a portfolio: my first big feature on another site came out today. It’s an essay about the dating sim Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, published over at ZEAL, which is easily one of my favourite sources for interesting writing. I’m really proud of this, and hopefully it’ll be the first of many!

Queerness in Metal Gear Solid, or: Why We Need To Talk

(This piece is the first in a collection of essays on queer readings of the Metal Gear Solid series, and serves as an introduction of sorts. It begins by exploring the two recurring themes I’ll be covering – compulsory heterosexuality and an active rejection of the queer – before discussing the games’ portrayals of gender and bisexuality, with a particular focus on Strangelove. It contains general series spoilers, but nothing for V outside of Strangelove’s subplot.)

Naked Snake: Strangelove… Is that a code name?
Strangelove: No, just a nickname. […] Back when I was at ARPA, I kept a photo of The Boss on my desk. I was totally engrossed in my research and showed no interest in the opposite sex, plus I had a photo of a woman on my desk… The fools around me turned it into a cruel taunt, calling me “Strangelove”. […] in their eyes homosexuality was something strange. They were incapable of seeing things outside the lens of their own standards.

– Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

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The Metal Gear Solid games get a lot of praise for telling ambitious, cinematic stories with memorable characters and strong themes, even if they don’t always stick the landing. But they also cop a lot of flak for the less-than-elegant way they handle a lot of things, chief among them gender politics, and justifiably so. There’s been a lot of discussion around the way the series handles its women – just look at the uproar about Quiet – but this feels like a reductive approach which misses out on a lot of really interesting potential for analysis. I think the series deserves to be looked at through a broader lens, one which encompasses sexuality as well as gender and looks at more than just the obvious female characters.

I’d put forward the basic framework that MGS’s sexual politics operate on two different but connected levels. First, it assigns its heroes a compulsory heterosexuality, intended to prove their masculinity by giving them relationships with women. No matter how tacked-on or unconvincing the romance plot, the hero must get the girl; otherwise, this opens them up to all sorts of queer and “unmasculine” possibilities. This is complicated somewhat in later titles, but by and large the pattern stands. Secondly, whenever the series actually considers these possibilities, it shuts them down as quickly as it can. Queerness is thus reduced to a punchline, or else deployed as otherness to add another layer of villainy to its enemies, with a single exception in the form of Ocelot. And so, for all its attempts to interrogate masculinity, the series stumbles because it cannot uncouple what it means to be a man from what it means to be a straight one.

But, of course, the issue runs a lot deeper than that.

Thoughts on Sweet Fuse, Part Two: Sincerity as Strength

(Part two deals with Mikami’s route, and thus contains heavy spoilers for the entire game. It discusses how this path impacts the rest of Sweet Fuse, and how it ties together the whole game to deliver a powerful statement in favour of human connection.)

With the first part of this argument behind us: let’s talk about Makoto Mikami, and the final route, and why it’s so important that Sweet Fuse lets you romance him.

Thoughts on Sweet Fuse, Part One: The Female Power Fantasy

(It occurred to me as I was writing this piece that I was essentially trying to cram two very different essays into one, and this was making it read terribly. On the other hand, though, I also couldn’t bring myself to cut either argument, so I wound up splitting it into two sections to be published separately for the sake of length, clarity, and spoilers. This part deals with the game’s six main routes, and has only vague spoilers for content.)

I have spent months wondering if gaming has a female equivalent to the power fantasy of violence which is so standard in the business, and what such a thing might look like. I don’t think that kind of thing is one-size-fits-all, because games about power through violence, even those with optionally female protagonists, don’t scratch that fundamental itch for me; I want to be respected for more than just my prowess at dishing out death and diplomacy. Similarly, I’ve tried a whole lot of otome games – dating sims pitched at a female audience – without really feeling like they wanted to imbue me with any real sense of strength or agency, at least beyond my choice of love interest early on.

I think the kind of power fantasy I’m talking about would involve a compulsory female protagonist who is liked and respected by the men and women around her, not because of her skill at shooting things, but because she is capable as a person and damn well comes to earn it. And as the player, I should be made to feel competent too, because her victories are intimately mine. I can finally say this with confidence, because this game exists and I have played it. It’s a PSP title called Sweet Fuse: At Your Side, and it’s a shame that barely anyone has heard of it.

Doves, Dating, and Deconstruction: Hatoful Boyfriend as Critique of Romance Games

Most of what’s been written about infamous pigeon-dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend deals with the fundamental bait-and-switch of the game’s entire premise, namely the way in which it establishes itself as a jokey romance game and ultimately winds up as more of a psychological thriller. On the other hand, very little’s been said about its place within the wider tradition of the genre of otome games (romances with female protagonists targeted towards a female audience, usually with multiple endings) and romance games as a whole. This seems to me a fairly notable gap, since the way in which the game plays with expectations draws on the building blocks of the medium and goes well beyond “but then it gets dark”. Everything in the game serves as part of a very deliberate attempt to disrupt a genre which exists primarily in a sort of comfortable shorthand, and is largely complacent in being nothing more than simple wish-fulfilment fantasy. Rather than not being what it seems, Hatoful Boyfriend is exactly what it appears to be; it pits the tropes of romance games against themselves and rounds out its characters far beyond expectations, which serves to critique the genre’s chronic self-absorption and, in doing so, manages to produce something with wide-ranging and genuine appeal.

(Major spoilers under the cut – yes, this game does have them.)

Once of Liberty: American Ideology and Individualism in Metal Gear Solid 2

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game which has drawn almost continuous discussion since its release in 2001, and for good reason: it’s been called the first postmodern video game, and even today it comes across as clever and provocative. Part of the reason it works as well as it does is because it’s a rearticulation and deconstruction of Hollywood action films; this is pretty blatant even without the numerous times its creator Hideo Kojima has gone on record and talked about his love of the medium. (As his Twitter proclaims, “70% of my body is made of movies.”) The interesting thing about this, though, is the extent to which MGS2 revolves around not just the trappings of the genre, but the fundamentally American ideology it espouses: namely, that of individualism and personal autonomy. Or, as Howard Suber puts it:

What American movies are selling is the Unstated State Religion of America: Individualism — the belief that the most important power in the world lies within each person.

Metal Gear Solid 2 takes this philosophy and runs with it, spinning a moral about the importance of the individual and arguing that it falls to each of us to forge our own legacy. At the same time, though, this glorification of an ideal sits uneasily against its harsh critique of America as a political power, and it’s this tension which coaxes out some of the game’s most interesting messages.

(Major major spoilers for all of MGS2 ahead, particularly endgame).

Freedom, Culpability and Failure in Dragon Age II, or: My Boyfriend The Terrorist

“Freedom was no boon.” – Varania, Dragon Age II

“I cannot imagine how we forgive ourselves for all the things we didn’t say until it was too late. But how else do you tell if something is hot but to touch it?” – Doc Luben, “14 Lines From Love Letters Or Suicide Notes”

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Perhaps this is an overly dramatic way to introduce a blog post about a video game, but Dragon Age II is the kind of ambitious beast that deserves it. It’s dark and experimental and messy and very very flawed, but it just got to me in a way that I don’t think I’ve actually experienced in the medium before. As this excellent piece by Alex at While Not Finished argues, the whole game is marked by a feeling of powerlessness almost unheard of in a format which usually tries to give the player as much control as possible. Most of the major plot beats are immutable: your sibling always leaves the party after the first act, the qunari always stage an uprising, the mages and templars always wind up in a climactic battle for the city, and all you can do is try to avert the worst-case scenario. And in such a bleak setting, there’s only one way to wind up a victor:

[Another blogger] suggests that the real win condition of DA2 is to get through it without having any of your companions turn on you (which, if you have Sebastian, is impossible unless you side with the Templars), and she’s right. […] So most of the choices in DA2 are more subtle than an either-or decision at the end of a long dungeon. The most important choices in DA2 are about what Hawke does have control over: how she relates to and how she treats her companions. Does she make an effort to forge a relationship with these people? Does she earn their respect? Does she support their goals or does she thwart them? Does she help them with their problems or merely meddle in their affairs? Friend or rival? Building a relationship with these people is the most important thing […] If you want what passes for a good ending in DA2, to “win”, you need to get to know the characters. DA2 is a character drama: it is nothing without them.

By and large, I do agree with the argument that the game is about Hawke’s lack of power over the world at large, and it nails what I liked about Dragon Age II. But I differ on two key aspects, and they’re both crucial ones. One, although I do agree with the idea that it’s about making the best of the little you get, I don’t think you can “win” the game as such (and, as the credits rolled, I certainly didn’t feel like I was walking away a victor). Instead I’d argue that it doesn’t even really have a win condition, because it’s not supposed to be a game that you win or lose in the classic sense as much as it is a story you can impact. And two, the role of agency is far more complex and problematic than presented here. The game’s central theme is that of freedom and security, which permeates its whole tone; where it really shines is how this comes across (and is problematised) in your relationships with your companions, and the way you can skew them towards friendship or rivalry. It’s a brutal take on the typical affection system: agreeing with a character in order to try and win them over is synonymous with granting them agency over safety, and that’s not always the best or most satisfying way to go. The freedom given to the player is at least as problematic as the freedom given to any of Hawke’s companions, and it certainly isn’t an easy thing to bear. This game is not a power fantasy, which is why it sits somewhat oddly against the genre as a whole, but that defiance of convention is exactly why it’s so good.

Here’s the long and the short of it: Dragon Age II presented me with the greatest sense of personal failure I have ever experienced in a video game, and the real tragedy was that it was completely and utterly the cumulative product of my conscious decisions.

(Colossal spoilers for the whole game under the cut, of course.)

Game Design and Taking Romance Beyond the Transactional

“Romance in games is inherently transactional,” a friend told me once, “but isn’t everything? It’s just a limitation of the format.”

That was six months ago, and I’ve been mulling it over since. As optimistic as it might seem, I refuse to believe that romance arcs in games are incapable of transcending the basic “choose correct conversation option, repeat until you receive sex” formula. Granted, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise – a quick Google search for romance games turns up either flash games or a general sense that it’s a weakness of the medium. As sad as it may sound, romance being done well in games is something I’m deeply invested in; interesting character dynamics and a feeling of immersion are two of the things I look for in media (and games in particular) and I’ve thus far found it kind of lacking. It feels tacked-on at worst, and prescriptive at best; either it has no bearing on the story at all, or it’s inseparable from the plot but completely divorced from the sense of player agency which is so crucial to the medium.

Romance in games roughly tends to follow one of two models. Either they’re a complete side story to the “real” plot and add no more than some dialogue, as in many RPGs, or the plot splits off into one of multiple routes depending on which character you choose to pursue, as in many visual novels and dating sims. For the sake of argument, let’s ignore games which assign you a canon love interest and a set path for that relationship; I’m interested here in the way choice plays into romantic arcs, whether in their selection or the way they unfold. I think my ideal here is a game in which the player’s enjoyment of the plot is inextricably linked with their enjoyment of the game’s central relationship and the choices they make in regards to both, and I don’t think that’s impossible to ask.