I fall squarely into the “I like STUFF” camp. I don’t want some mediocre, ugly in-game armor that my character wouldn’t be caught dead in, but I luuuurve collectible figurines, posters, and the biggie—art books. I treasure game design art books like few other possessions. In the case of a fire, I would certainly save my limited edition art books before the games they came with. Hell, I’d snatch them up before I grabbed the console the games are played on. Game discs and consoles are more easily replaced than my precious art books (except for Jade Empire, perhaps. I’d make an exception to grab at least one of my two copies of JE).

Bioshock 2, followed by runner-up Fallout: New Vegas, is the best money I’ve ever spent on a collector’s edition video game. In a 13″ x 13″ box graced with awesome (if somewhat confusing to my Dollywood-loving soul, what with that butterfly) artwork, the collector’s edition contained three posters featuring vintage ads from Rapture, a vinyl 180g LP featuring the orchestral score from the original Bioshock, a CD containing the Bioshock 2 orchestral score, and a 164 page 8″ x 11″ hardbound art book. I was blown away when I opened it. I framed the posters and decorated my bathroom in a Bioshock theme—if the sink springs a leaky faucet, it’ll fit right in, ya know?—and they have hung there unmolested since….UNTIL I read an interesting comment on the previously mentioned Kotaku article, which mentioned a surprise if one shines a blacklight on the three Bioshock 2 posters. Of course I went home and tried it (with my laptop sitting on the floor playing the song from the Sea of Dreams teaser trailer for maximum effect), and…

HOW HAVE I MISSED THIS FOR SO LONG?

Behold:

Well, I suppose I missed it for so long because I have moved past the stage in my life in which I thought it was cool to have blacklights hanging around my house. I was so excited to discover this real-life easter egg, however, that I am now prepared to put a blacklight nightlight in the bathroom so guests can be awed/creeped out, according to their preferences.

More fun after the jump:

Definitely, DEFINITELY saving these from hypothetical fire.

Sofia Lamb = Joan Allen in the movie version, yes?

“Wait, there’s a romance element to this game? You’re going to hook up with that Bastila chick?”

“And you can make a female character, right?”

“If you make a girl character, do you get to hook up with one of the dudes?”

“YES?!”

Sold.

Well hello there, Mr. Onasi.

Like many other girl gamers (to judge from the internet, anyway), Carth hooked me from the start. He was a cutie—as much of a cutie as any character rendered by the graphical capabilities of the day could be—with his two little pieces of stray hair that swayed as he moved, his can’t-be-bothered-to-shave-while-saving-the-galaxy stubble, and his oh so earnest brown eyes. And the voice acting…well. I’m a sucker for good voice acting, and Raphael Sbarge’s performance just did it for me.

Carth is the first character to join your party in the game, after tutorial-level Trask Ulgo (RIP!), so there was a long time to get to “know” him before highjacking the Ebon Hawk and picking up the rest of the party. His backstory is pretty freakin’ epic: he’s an honored Naval officer, and he was betrayed by his hero and admiral who blew up his home planet and killed his wife and child…to the best of Carth’s knowledge, that is. Discovering the continued existence of his grown son Dustil, who was on the verge of joining the Sith (the party responsible for murdering Carth’s wife and Dustil’s mother!) was one of the most emotionally intense character quests I’ve ever played through in a Bioware game. Carth was occasionally distrustful, turning on my character with suspicion after conversations that led me to believe we’d established a bond. By the end, however, they’d fallen in love, and their slow-growing relationship greatly added to the story experience for me, particularly since I played that round as a light side character and their new-found love added another layer to her redemption. I straight up cried when Carth turned up in KOTOR 2 and told my (different) character that he would always love my OG KOTOR lady. Tears were welling, people.

My ex-boyfriend, however, the one who introduced me to the game…well, he HATED Carth. Loathed him with a passion, to the extent that he’d dress Carth in unflattering armor while he was playing KOTOR, and bring him up as an object of mockery in conversation long after we’d both finished the game. He despised Atton Rand of KOTOR 2 (not from Bioware, but carrying on the KOTOR tradition) similarly, and did unflattering imitations of Atton’s dialogue constantly while I was playing. He hated Sky from Jade Empire possibly even more than Carth, peppering the insults he’d practiced on Carth and Atton with homophobic nastiness about Sky’s potential bisexuality: “How can you POSSIBLY like him? You know he’ll go gay for a male character, right?” We broke up before Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins came out, so I never got to hear his repartee on Kaidan, Alistair, or Zevran, but I’d imagine he’s still out there somewhere slamming every male love interest Bioware includes in a game.

You may have had shitty fashion sense, but you could flirt like no one else, Sky. Give me a moment to fan myself, voice actor Cam Clarke.

I’ve heard the same sort of “criticism” (if vicious, hateful ranting or unnecessarily snide mockery can be called that) from a number of male gamers of my acquaintance, and I find it pretty disturbing. In their February 2010 issue, Game Informer magazine listed Alistair of Dragon Age: Origins as one of the “Top 10 Dorks of 2009,” referring to him as “the new Carth” and calling him a “crybaby” and “loser.” In the April 2010 issue, GI rounded off their response to a number of letters from angry female fans of Dragon Age and Alistair with this:

“We were going to use this opportunity to make fun of Alistair yet again, but if dozens of women are willing to write in to defend his honor, the dude must be doing something right. This could be an important revelation for all you single gamer guys out there: If you want the ladies to think you’re adorable, all you need to do is act like a stupid weiner.”

Your haircut was douche-y, Alistair, but you managed to be dreamy anyway.

Now, of all the video games in existence, these Bioware games are some of the few that show the developers really considered a female demographic when they made the game. A heterosexual female demographic, largely (with a gay option for light side ladies only in KOTOR, and bi male and female love interests in DA:O), which isn’t utterly and completely enlightened perfection, but it’s something. It’s a huge step for a medium whose vehicles often have me playing as a male and getting or not getting the girl at game’s end, playing as a meant-to-be-titillating-to-men female, or playing as an imaginary creature, only very occasionally allowing me to play as an ass-kicking but sexless chick. I enjoyed the romance quests in all of Bioware’s games for their writing and development, and I think a major underlying component to my appreciation of their inclusion was knowing that this part of the game was designed with me in mind. ME. A hetero chick who loves video games. Much as I’ve enjoyed some of these characters, I don’t think Carth’s, Kaidan’s, and Alistair’s popularity was based solely on their writing, their looks, and their voice actors’ performances. As an astute commenter pointed out recently, women are DIFFERENT. We all like different things. I can’t think of a romantic comedy I’ve ever enjoyed, and I don’t think it’s possible that Bioware has found a magic formula that applies to different characters, but somehow manages to appeal to all women. And yet, a remarkable number of women adore Carth and Company, myself included. I do think they are well-written and performed characters, but I also think the warm glow of feeling that my interests were actually considered in their creation adds to my appreciation.

That’s what bugs me about guys who whine about Carth and Co.—there’s a distinct stench of old boys’ club exclusion about it. Based on my wildly unscientific and anecdotal experiences with my ex and acquaintances, the boys who hate on Carth adore Bastila. They like having a sassy, conventionally hot female love interest included in the game, but balk when confronted with a character obviously written for the ladies (or even worse, TEH GAYS! OH NOOOOES!). If you don’t like a character, fine. There’s a bunch of ‘em in your party; talk to the ones you want to talk to, ignore the ones you don’t like, and move on. It’s the tantrums over Carth that make me feel something more misogynistic and sinister is at work, that some of these boys are outright offended that “their” space is being invaded by female interests. I’m sure there are girls out there who dislike some or all of these characters (personally, I thought Kaidan’s story was pretty dull), but I’ve never heard a woman spout off on a vitriolic rant over Carth and Co.’s inclusion in the games. I’m saddened that the person who introduced me to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was ultimately petty and small-minded enough that he valued his heterosexual male primacy over my engagement with the game, even as he encouraged me to play it.

I may not have been so into your storyline, Kaidan, but of all these dudes, you're a bona fide hottie.

In the past, I’ve stayed quiet while men of my acquaintance made fun of Carth, or even, to my shame, half-heartedly joined in. No more, my friends. I loved Carth Onasi, and I plan to shout it loud and proud if confronted with haterade in the future. I love Bioware’s inclusion of my demographic, I love the creations they’ve dreamed up with my demographic in mind, and I, like the women who wrote in to Game Informer to defend Alistair, will not be silenced. You don’t like my man in that Bioware game, Mr. Gamer Dude? Suck it.

With that said, I still wish my dark side lady Jedi could have hooked up with Canderous in KOTOR. Gimme gimme, Bioware.

It seems like women in technology-related media can’t win. They’re wildly discriminated against if they don’t meet a conventional standard of attractiveness, but if they are considered “hot,” their geek or gamer cred is constantly called into question.

I’ve never been a fan of Munn’s marketing of her own good looks, because I feel that it encourages viewers to look at her (and by extension, other women) primarily as an object to be looked at, rather than an intelligent human being with something to say. Since I graduated from college, got poor, and stopped paying for cable television, I haven’t kept up with Attack of the Show, so I can’t personally verify some of the Jezebel commenters’ claims that Munn routinely makes misogynist jokes and mocks other women’s looks. If those accusations are true, I find them highly distasteful. All I’ve got to say is this:

Though I was conflicted about my girl-crush Morgan Webb’s bikini-clad appearances in FHM and Maxim, I have never, EVER heard accusations or seen recorded evidence of her bagging on another woman.

You’ll always be the Tech TV goddess of my heart, Morgan.

Good times!

Pokémon Snap came into my life at the height of my younger brother’s Pokémon obsession in the ’90s. It’s a rail shooter in which you move along a track and take pictures of various Pokémon as you pass them. As a kid, I could never understand why my most artistic shots didn’t get the best scores. Now a little older and wiser, I see that the Pokémon’s size and proximity to the center of the picture are the two most important qualities, according to Professor Oak. He’s not partial to asymmetrical cropping.

As for Professor Oak himself….what a guy. He’s supposed to be the Pokémon expert, but he’s unwilling to cruise around in the Zero-One vehicle and snap a few Pokémon pics himself. Instead, he sends some kid out to do it. Ah, well. Fortunately for him, my work is impeccable!

Pokémon Snap is extremely simple. As I mentioned before, you ride around in a cart Zero-One vehicle and take pictures of Pokémon. As you progress throughout the game, you earn several items (apple-shaped “Pokémon food,” a “Pester Ball,” and a magic flute) that have different effects on the Pokémon so they’ll have better poses in your photographs. I was surprised to see how many of the game’s secrets and tricks came back to me while playing. Hit Koffing three times, and get a picture of Jigglypuff on stage! I’ll wonder forevermore how much of my brain space is occupied by video game minutiae like that.

Replaying Pokémon Snap gave me some insight into the Pokémon franchise’s enduring power. No matter how objectively awful the gameplay might be, there’s something addictive about the act of collecting Pokémon (or their pictures), repeating the same actions again and again in hope of a higher score.

Maybe I’ll play it again in 2025 and let you know if it affects me the same way.

Spoilers:

After continuing play on the Awakening Expansion Pack, I still felt frustrated with the shambles of my previous romance quest and decided to investigate. I popped my original Dragon Age disc into the 360, and found that my game had glitched and placed an early save in the top slot (from which, apparently, the expansion pack gleans information on previous playthroughs). I resaved the ending of my original game over the rogue save slot, replayed the beginning of Awakening, and voila! Queen Anora turned up to chat with my character. All is well in Ferelden now. Except for some pesky Darkspawn attacks, but I’m more than up to eliminating them.

More on the game soon, when I’m done playing it.

Thus far I’ve only played the very beginning opening sequence, but I’m in a state of high dudgeon. SPOILERY SPOILERS AHOY!

In the original game, my mage character fulfilled the romance quest with Alistair: Morrigan got knocked up with her god-demon baby and Alistair and my character both survived. Because my character was an elf, rather than a noble female, she couldn’t be queen. Therefore, I had Anora (daughter of an enemy, but more qualified than Alistair to rule) ascend the throne, and Alistair and my character romantically rode off into the sunset (in postscript, anyway) to rebuild the order of Grey Wardens together. Hurray!

You had a douchey haircut, Alistair, but my character didn't care! You two were in LOVE!

This was one of the only endings that allowed one to carry on the romance—Morrigan takes off on game’s end, with or without demon baby or love; Leliana (in my varied but not lovin’ experience) says she’s going to hang out with the Urn of Sacred Ashes people or go back to Orlais; and Zevran (again, no lovin’ yet, but EVERY time so far) chose to keep hanging out with the main character and fighting the good fight.

Morrigan's a hot chick, but she'll leave your ass for a god-baby. She'll do it!

I was very satisfied with the outcome of my original romance quest in Dragon Age: Origins. Then I started playing Dragon Age Origins: Awakening.

When my gentleman friend (with a male dwarf character from Dragon Age: Origins, who had hooked up with Morrigan and made Anora queen) played the intro to Awakening, Queen Anora greeted him at its end. When I played through with my character, who should meet up me after killing a castle-full of Darkspawn but KING ALISTAIR. King Alistair who must be married to Queen Anora, who can only be involved with my character if she’s a piece on the side.

No, no, NO!

Anora is the queen in my game. The not-married-to-Alistair-queen.

Alistair went on to call my character “love,” mention that he wished he could keep her “at court,” and kiss her. Somehow, he turned into the king instead of a plain old Grey Warden. WHAT?! Did Anora eat a poisoned shellfish and keel off between then and now?

Thanks to Mass Effect 1 and 2, I know Bioware is perfectly capable of  creating a seamless storyline between original game and sequel. In Mass Effect 2, relatively insignificant side missions I’d performed in Mass Effect 1 popped up and affected—at the very least—conversations I had whilst running around on various planets. I didn’t engage in any of the love quests in Mass Effect 2, because it made more sense for my (imported from the first game) character to stick it out with her original love interest. After seeing the way plot points of the first game carried through to the second, I had complete faith that my character’s initial love would come back in a significant way in the third and final chapter.

If it turns out that I sacrificed Ashley and you and Vivian Shepard don't have a future, Kaidan Alenko, you are SO. DONE.

After playing the intro to Dragon Age Origins: Awakening, I’m shaken to my romance quest-loving core.

I made specific, seriously game-altering choices in order to gain the outcome I arrived at upon the end of Dragon Age: Origins. In DA:O, it was a big mothereffin’ deal to choose between Alistair and Anora as the ruler of Ferelden. I’m shocked that something that was such a pivotal point in the original game (complete with dramatic music!) was completely squashed out of existence when I loaded a preexisting female character into Dragon Age: Awakening.

I’m pissed that my OG romantic ending is ignored in this game incarnation, but I wonder about the further implications. I long ago started two separate female characters in DA:O, one of whom I meant to pair off with Zevran, the other with Leliana. If I had paired up with the ex-prostitute bisexual male elf, or the lesbian bisexual female human option, would the game remain true to my choice of Ferelden’s ruler? Or would Alistair still turn up as king, speaking to my character as his lover?

I’m going to play back through Dragon Age: Origins and check it out, because the inclusion of King-lover-man-Alistair—in my game, anyhow—is extremely reductive and obnoxious.

I recall being terribly excited to play Resident Evil 5, because I loved Resident Evil 4 so much. I watched early trailers of the game with bated breath; I could hardly WAIT for it to come out.

Then it did.

I played it. I remain decidedly underwhelmed.

I played Resident Evil 5 with my significant other. I played as Chris Redfield, partly because I had a problem playing as the female sidekick to a supermacho dude. My boyfriend preferred a faster character with lighter weapons, and took up the controller as Sheva. This pleased us both, as it lent an extra layer of ridiculousness to the gender stereotypes present throughout the game. Particularly satisfying was the screaming option: “Sheva! HURRY!” or “CHRIIIS!”, amongst others, which amused both of us when we reached locked doors and could annoy the other until they arrived.

I am very mannish Chris. Even though the person manning my controller has a vagina, I am as ridiculously "manly" as possible. At all times. Even when I wear zebra stripes.

Oh, the gender stereotypes in this game. This is all from memory (the last time I played RE5 was summer ’09), but damn. The protagonist is a strong (‘roid-y sort of strong) male, the sidekick is a spaghetti-strap top wearing chick (on first playthrough; on subsequent occasions she’s wearing a bikini-inspired “outfit”), and the persistence of the talky female wears down the manly man enough to admit that he failed his first female partner and now she’s been kidnapped by the baddies or something. But then the two save the first female partner, who looks completely unrecognizable from previous games because she swapped her black bob out for a long blonde ponytail.

I'm Sheva, a secure, amazing man. My girlfriend is writing this, and I'm unaware. If I were, I'd pick out a better shirt.

THAT’S supposed to be Jill Valentine?

Oh yeah—and the cleavage-y villainess Excella, who behaved provocatively to the male villain and was rewarded by being turned into a giant, ship-eating tentacle monster. Lovely.

This woman, though she does much to advance the baddies' cause, is turned into a giant tentacle monster that nearly destroys a ship. Ick.

Knowing me, this will sound surprising: the sex-stereotyping was the least of RE5′s problems. As a shooter, this game was not very challenging. This game was not scary. This game was, above all, tiresome and frustrating.

If I hadn’t had a partner to keep me going back, I would never have finished Resident Evil 5. The gameplay was very meh. Instead of being terrified—but exhilarated—to see what was around the next corner, the BF and I were fighting one another to have a decent amount of enemies to shoot first. The only parts that managed to get a scare out of either of us where when we went through a tunnel, where one player had to carry a lantern and the other one could shoot.

We played while drinking in order to suffer through the monotony, but several parts were just plain baffling, even while stone-cold sober. We ran around trying aimlessly to kill Wesker and evil-Jill for nearly a half-hour before realizing we couldn’t damage them during that stage. A helpful internet guide informed us that we just needed to SURVIVE for seven minutes during the first Wesker/Jill encounter. Thanks, helpful internet person! We ended it, and our game, by killing Jill nearly fifteen times before realizing we just needed to survive their attacks and save Jill with some bizarre button-pressing combination. Thanks! The final battle with Wesker was similar. Some attacks were clearly indicated by button prompts onscreen. Others? Not so much. Only thanks to internet-posting heroes were we able to finish the final battle and toast one another with the remains of our whiskeys.

This dude was in the first level. He was one of the scariest things in the game.

Furthermore: no merchant. I missed that man and his promise of safety between harrowing parts of the game. Moreso, I missed those frightening parts of the game. Aside from a few parts (dark tunnels, running waste-deep in alligator-filled water) the game just wasn’t scary. I’m not judging the scariness from the co-op comfort of having someone by your side; Resident Evil 4 would have been plenty terrifying if my boyfriend could have played alongside me as Louis. The scares just weren’t there in RE5. Almost every time an enemy jumped out, I expected it. The Ouroboros tentacle-monsters just weren’t as awful as anything the Plagas infected, too. A giant bundle of tentacles was annoying, but hardly worth running away from and hiding.

At the game’s end, the boyfriend and I were so disappointed that we went back and (drunkenly, of course) replayed the entire thing on the highest difficulty level to see if it would scare us.

I MISS YOOOOUUUUUU!!!!!

It didn’t.

I’m still disappointed, though Chris Redfield’s zebra-striped, bleached-hair clubbin’ outfit somewhat ameliorated the pain of the second playthrough. Unlike either of Sheva’s bonus outfits (the first one of which was some sort of shiny bob wig metal-lamé club number, and the second of which was some horrifying faux Native American weirdness).

I adored Resident Evil 4 beyond the bounds of any defined love. Resident Evil 5, however, I’d avoid, unless I had a buddy to play it with and a few gallons of alcohol on a holiday weekend.

Disappointing, to say the least.

Growing up, I wasn’t interested in shooters. Goldeneye left me cold. I played Halo’s campaign on co-op and enjoyed it, but never felt a burning desire to pick it up again. I didn’t start playing Resident Evil 4 until 2006, but as soon as I began, I fell madly in love.

I played the first part of the game on a teeny-tiny TV in a dorm room, while I was working as a counselor at an arts-intensive for teenagers. They were a pretty well-behaved bunch, but there was still nothing better to let off steam at the end of the day than having the shit scared out of me by Plagas-infected Spanish villagers, and fighting them off with my ever-growing arsenal. It was truly terrifying on that tiny TV, though, since I couldn’t see what was coming for me half the time.

I could, however, see El Gigante on the tiny TV. It was an intimidating sight.

Resident Evil 4 engaged me with its potent combination of fright and firepower. Shooters that didn’t offer visceral scares had previously bored me, but there was no way in hell I’d touch a survival horror game in which I had to run and hide from the baddies instead of blowing them away. RE4 offered just enough ammo that the gameplay was challenging, but doable. If I did run out of ammunition, I always had my trusty knife and a kick combo that knocked off enemies’ heads. The weapons got better and better as the enemies got harder and harder, and I gained confidence in my ability to kick mutated-parasite ass. Suplexing creepy, zombie-esque monks was an unparalleled experience.

Shotguns are my particular favorite.

And the button prompts! Never before had I played a game in which I wasn’t safe during the cutscenes. It was heartbreaking to mistakenly press RT/LT instead of A/B and see Leon get crushed by a boulder or fall off of a cliff, but oddly satisfying when I succeeded and realized, heart pounding, how narrowly I’d escaped a gruesome death. The art direction and sound design of RE4 were absorbing, and the button-pushing cutscene action made the whole experience more immersive. My eyes were glued to the screen, fingers ready on my Gamecube controller, throughout the entire game.

You've got to be quick with buttons to duel with Krauser.

Normally I’m a sucker for a good story. Most of my favorite games feature a complex, engaging plot, well-written and voice acted dialogue, and serious character development with a focus on character relationships. Not RE4. This game’s plot, to be quite frank, was one of the stupidest, most nonsensical things I’ve ever played through. The power of this game, however, is such that I did. not. give. a. damn. Honestly, the cheesy dialogue probably improved the game for me by giving me a break from the intensity of the gameplay. “Krauser, go get the girl.” “Where’s everyone going? Bingo?” It never gets old.

I loved the merchant, despite his persistent refusal to sell ammunition. His absence was high on the list of my many problems with Resident Evil 5. The shooting galleries in RE4 were a blast, and considerably improved my shooting skills for engagement with “real” enemies.

"OVER HERE, STRANGER!"

And Leon. Oh, Leon, my longest-lasting video game crush. The leather jacket, the ill-conceived snarky one-liners, the vaguely emo-esque haircut that somehow stays in place through everything: I’ll never forget you, Leon Scott Kennedy.

Dreamy!

When Saddler is finally done away with, the jet ski successfully jumped into the Atlantic, and the main game finished, Assignment: Ada is good times and the Mercenaries minigame—in addition to being fun—is absolutely necessary to master in order to have a hope of surviving the main game on its “Professional” setting.

I love this game so much the sound of a chainsaw revving still makes me jump. It’s time to grab my riot gun and annihilate an El Gigante or two.