[The Aberrant Gamer is is a biweekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Ah, the much-lauded Choice in Games. We can analyze and discuss until we’re blue in the face those titles that have allowed us to make meaningful decisions, and we can write entire essays in search of the elusive game that lets us make the kinds of decisions we’d really like to make in our fantasy lives.

But there is perhaps no choice more important than the selection of our lifelong mate – and there are quite a few games that let us evaluate, elect and consummate our decision of partner. Not only are PC dating sims (sexual or otherwise) a surprisingly broad genre, numerous adventure games have incorporated pair-up mechanics for their protagonists.

Dating sim mechanics really shine when they’re used to enhance the sense of humanity in otherwise unemotional titles. The long-running Natsume-published Harvest Moon series, for example, adds partner selection and marriage to place a sense of real life alongside what’s largely a farming/raising and resource management sim; Natsume’s latest offering, the Cave-developed Princess Debut, places dating sim elements alongside a rhythm game in a young maiden’s quest to get ready for the glamorous ball.

So you certainly don’t need to be a hentai game fan to be familiar with dating sim elements. In fact, after even only a little bit of exposure, you may notice a few repetitive archetypes.
…Okay, more than a few.

Remember when we rounded up some of the most common archetypes of eroge games? Well, dating sims – and games containing elements of them – are a bit like that, even though they’re non-sexual. Of course, it’s somewhat different, too – after all, you as player are considering a lifelong love partner for your protagonist, in whom you’ve already invested a lot of gameplay hours, as opposed to being a passive observer at a buffet of often-clichéd sexual fantasies.

But still, the options you have available are likely to be generally predictable once you’ve played a few of them. And because of that, you’re likely to find that you often gravitate toward the same preferred type as your character’s wife or husband.

So what does your dating sim archetype of choice say about you? Measure yourself a hefty dose of salt, plant your tongue firmly in your cheek, and hit the jump.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer' - What Your Dating Sim Choices Say About You" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[Back after a few months' hiatus, The Aberrant Gamer is happy to return as a biweekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

“Why don’t women like the big console games?” Someone asked me recently.

As a female game journalist, I’m one of the few and the proud, although as a female gamer I’m not nearly as unique as the population of internet forums would probably suggest. Still, I’m often asked questions like these, about “what women like” and what they don’t.

And I usually get a little bit miffed, to tell you the truth. I tend to reject assertions that there must exist a uniquely female palate for video games. I feel that my preferences and aversions as far as video games have more to do with my personal taste and less to do with my gender, and my position is generally that it’s the same for most women.

Is it really?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - What Women Want'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

[Back after a few months' hiatus, The Aberrant Gamer is happy to return as a biweekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

"Make her boobs bigger," someone says.

"No, no," I argue. "She needs to be petite. We’re going lolicon-style."

"How is a lolicon-style girl supposed to kick ass?"

I know, I know, but I’ve got this entire set of "kitty" clothes, and fuzzy ears, and am I really going to put them on an Amazon woman? Actually, that might be kind of cool. So I take her – my creation – and I make her a little bit taller and more muscular, and then I put the little ribbon and bell around her neck.

"It looks stupid," I decide, scrolling, overwhelmed, through plate armor and fishnets that might be more appropriate. My woman-in-progress gives me a challenging look, blinks patiently, turns her head a little from side to side while I decide what she will look like.

She should be more tan, she should wear high boots, and, okay, her boobs should be bigger. Tweak, tweak, tweak, and -- "She’s hot," my Soulcalibur IV co-pilot approves.

She is, I realize, when I give her a test run up against a bluish zombie Mitsurugi. I chose her voice and the way she poses, I gave her Tira’s big bladed ring (my proposal), and now I make her fight as if she’s dancing. She’s cool, she’s hot, she kicks ass.

And I made her.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - Uncanny Valley Of The Dolls'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

By now, just about everybody's heard of Miss Bimbo, the browser-based "game for girls" that's ruffling feathers with its anti-feminist gameplay. Girls adopt a glam-o-rama avatar and, spending virtual "bimbo dollars" on chocolate, fashion and some unspecified "medicines," complete various simplistic challenges with the stated goal of becoming "the finest, coolest bimbo that ever existed."

This is, of course, the perfect recipe for auto-cringe: it embraces superficial and arguably destructive ideals, is ostensibly aimed at "'tweens" (itself a cringe-inducingly trendy marketing buzzword), and the website itself is a car accident of cartoonish pink featuring some kind of skank with bunny ears. Aberrant Gamer is arriving fashionably late to this party, actually, with too many outlets to link already providing analysis and experiences with the dreaded Miss Bimbo (just Google it). As for me, the servers were so stressed I couldn't even play to any significant extent. The universal verdict? Disgusting.

Games like Miss Bimbo (created by a man, by the way) just can't win. Women find them disgusting and offensive, and gamers worry about the bad PR. But aren't we being a bit hypocritical?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - Material Girl'" »

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[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

We throw around lots of insults on message boards and comment threads, but there is perhaps none so common – and so virulent as fanboy.

What does that word even mean? Dictionary.com has no idea, but UrbanDictionary.com has several definitions. “A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture… but who lets his passion override social graces.” “A person who is completely loyal to a game or company reguardless [sic] of if they suck or not… a pathetic insult.” “An arrogant person… [who takes] the console war very seriously, as if it were a real war.”

Perhaps only in games does being a passionate fan become a negative. In film, hobbyists might have loyalty to certain directors or screenwriters, and comics has its Marvel versus DC – but is this sort of aggression so prevalent on movie or comic book websites?

This column has been quick to evaluate mob psychology in gamer behavior and condemn it as one of the major elements restraining games from attaining widespread social legitimacy. But fanboyism is a much more complex issue – particularly because none of us is immune. Not even the press.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - Auto-Neurotic Asphyxiation'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (34)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

I never had any designs on becoming a game journalist. Actually, I went to a two-year acting conservatory, and got a very good education, too. These days, I imagine my parents peek some of my articles – a defense of breast physics or a discussion of incest sex games – and wonder why they bothered sending me there.

But given the wary dance games and films have done about one another over the years, maybe I can yet use what I’ve learned. Now, it’s a rare film knockoff video game that’s worth playing. On the contrary, actually, film and games seem to be converging by moving further apart. Games that try to sell us that drawn-out, cutscene-heavy, empty-action experience that has been called “cinematic” (though to so call them seems to insult cinema) are a dying breed. Developers are learning that what makes a good movie doesn’t make a good game, and so we can hope that the film studios aren’t too far behind when they’re at the table to talk licensing.

Acting school was very much about the emotional experience. If you haven’t any experience with actors – no, not high school “Drama Kids,” but trained actors – I can tell you that the whole thing was very much as you might imagine. Lots of skinny folk in black, odd teachers who stood on chairs to shout at you, lots of open weeping. People got naked. But somewhere amid all that, we learned about what it takes to deliver honest, emotionally-grounded entertainment.

Perhaps one way to elevate games – both in terms of how they affect their audience and in terms of how they’re treated by our culture – is to take a page not necessarily from the final product of films, but from their creation process.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - What's My Motivation?'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

If you're reading this column, you definitely own at least a couple video games. You probably own several, and some of you are the custodians of an innumerable collection that you meticulously arrange and then photograph for posting on internet forums. And you spend at least a decent chunk of your time playing, and another portion still of your time coveting the next purchase.

But what percentage of them have you ever completed?

Beaten, conquered, finished, whichever your pleasure. I recently spoke with Naughty Dog Studio vets Dan Arey and Bob Rafei on the launch of their new studio, Big Red Button Entertainment, and they theorized that the average gamer confronted with the average game is more likely than not to leave it unfinished -- and it seems a reasonable estimation. Rising retail costs mean that for most, it's damn near painful to crack the wallet open at the game store, and yet implausibly, despite the larger financial investment, it actually seems like we're finishing fewer games than we once did.

We demand more engaging, immersive and enduring game experiences -- and then we don't finish them. What's wrong with us?

Do you suffer from Completion Anxiety? Looking for answers? Yeah, me too.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - Completion Anxiety Disorder'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, sometimes NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Here at the Aberrant Gamer, we primarily deal with all the ways that games become part of our reality. We fall in love with game characters and we experience a range of real feelings about fake worlds. Games entrench themselves in our sociology, psychology and sexuality, and we can have real, visceral interaction with structures based in technology and artifice.

Ugobe’s Pleo dinosaur, billed not as a robot but as a “life form,” promises to develop its own identity, to respond to user behavior, and to evince a humanoid range of emotions and responses depending on its interaction. Something about its cute face, the motion of its eyes, triggers the human sympathetic response almost immediately – but just as with a baby, there’s no instruction manual that tells you just how to provoke desired responses. Most of Pleo’s literature encourages you to just explore. It’s kind of like a game, then, hinged on experimental interaction with an evolved AI. And I decided to find out, like I do with games, just how much technology could make me feel.

The Journey Begins

Pleo arrived at my house nestled in a foam block as if asleep, eyes closed and curled fetally on himself. His distinct weight, the feel of his robotic skeleton beneath his rubbery skin, almost lent him to being cradled, even though he wasn’t yet turned on. I held the sleeping “life form” in my lap, overwhelmed by a bizarre rush of maternal instinct and a shiver of futurist glee as I thumbed the instruction manual, which told me to “begin my journey” with Pleo by waking him up.

The first thing the literature says about Pleo is that he initially has several “life stages” – from awakening, to hatchling, to toddler, the last at which he stays arrested, a perpetually curious baby Camarosaurus. “Treat Pleo as you would any living creature – with care and respect,” advises the manual. All of this window dressing made it seem almost a violation to flip the thing over and put in the battery pack. I couldn’t help gently supporting its head as I flipped it over, well aware that I was already being sucked in.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer - My Week With Pleo'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Last week’s column wondered how games might mature enough to allow for believable sexuality, and concluded that aiming for intimacy is a good start. Plenty of games already use intimacy, or the emotional connection created for the player between their character and another, as a story element, and romance has been a key driver in game stories and character development, at times even successfully.

What makes a good game love story? Surely, the same recipe that works in other media can be extended to the game world – well-developed characters, a few key, stirring moments, a protagonist with which the player can empathize, and a love object that the player can feel something about through that empathy.

But games also require certain elements that static entertainment media don’t. After all, the most blunt differentiator of games from other forms of entertainment is interactivity – and given that love is all about interaction, games have the possibility of creating more engaging romances than any of their sister media.

Just like we learned last week with sexuality and intimacy, games might not have explored all of their potential yet. That’s all right; it’s a young, adolescent medium, and adolescents are not the smoothest operators. But in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, let’s look at five game romances that are really on the right track.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Be My Valentine - The Top 5 Game Romances" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

It’s easy to knock action video games. It’s all vaguely silly, implausible stuff – bullet time, acrobatic corkscrews, explosions, and heroes who sass monsters with hip one-liners. But you can’t really blame them – after all, action video games are the torch-bearers for action films, and when it comes to emulating their conventions and allowing players to interact with them, games are quite admirable as imitators.

Take the Devil May Cry series as an example, whose next-gen successor has just hit the scene this week. It achieves the formula handily, even stylishly. And it should. A triple-A melee franchise about devils, demons, babes, guns and swords – playing it demure, intellectual and understated? It just isn’t meant to be.

So you can’t fault it for flaunting high-powered, scantily-clad females with impossible measurements, suffering under a combination of neck-breaking high heels and massive endowments that, taken as a pair, make them likely to tip over. Aggressively foxy babes are part and parcel of the action format to which the game skillfully – and enjoyably adheres.

When we talk about sexuality in video games, the closest thing we’ve got is these cleavage-spilling women, and to some extent, the endlessly resilient, solidly built and smoldering (though much more thoroughly clothed) men alongside them. This column previously defended the value in gratuitously-fleshed game gals as a useful complement to the raw, animalistic nature of brawler games. Blood, bare flesh and adrenaline rush as a package are the closest we as humans can get to our primal state, and it’s amazing that video games can tap into that.

Some people will buy my theory that video game flesh is effectively bestial; others feel it’s simply juvenile, a disservice to women and men alike. Either way, it's true we don’t live in caves anymore – and we’re growing up. So what will it take for sexuality in games to grow up, too?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Getting To The Action" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

The core of the game market is its very own culture, and at times it can be a bit tricky to understand, a tangle of contradictions. We’re geeks – we don’t want to be cool by anyone’s standard, and yet we retain the right to judge nearly anything outside of our world as lame.

We’re often deemed as antisocial or isolationist, and in many cases embrace that judgment – but we want to find each other online, to play together, network and discuss en masse nearly constantly. We’re annoyed whenever the mainstream media misunderstands our pastime – and yet we love to brawl with them. We don’t want to be part of the mainstream – and yet, we often wish our non-gaming friends would just “get it.” Alone and yet in a crowd, immersed in fantasy and yet immediately reactionary to real-world events, craving challenge while longing for accessibility.

With that in mind, it’s no small challenge game developers face trying to produce something that will appeal to us. We want games to be fun, but when we’re not occasionally frustrated, we dismiss the lightweight, relegating the title to the realm of the casual. We want depth and engagement – but we’ll snooze through too much dialogue, cinematics and story. We want emotion, but characters being “emo” is something to be mocked.

We know we’re a reactionary bunch – even the best among us as individuals have been caught up in the mob psychology from time to time, with a little help from the internet. And for quite a while now, it’s seemed like the core of the gaming audience is impossible to please, continually frustrated on a real emotional level by games that try to pretend they “get it,” but are really just trying superficially to hit all the right notes.

But with No More Heroes, it’s finally happened – someone’s made a game that knows who we are.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': No More Complaints" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Shooting has always been, and will probably always be, a core game mechanic. Not that this necessarily needs to involve violence – we’ve shot bubbles, fireballs that turn plants into coins, and portals, to name just a few, without ever harming anyone. But in successful story-driven games, the cultural relevance of a given game mechanic is often extrapolated to create a story. And the easiest story that can be spun from projectile-attack game mechanics is war.

War is so often a component of video games not just because the mechanics lend themselves easily, but because, over centuries of humanity, war has often been a component of the human condition. The morality of war, or lack thereof, is an issue discussed and debated in every era, across every facet of global society. And sometimes, as a result, we end up discussing the morality of war video games.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': What Are You Fighting For?" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

I started with nothing but an empty lot, overrun with stones and weeds. And over the course of years, I labored from sunup to sundown, building my humble farm. The seasons marched on, sometimes singing my nape with blazing heat, at other times blanketing my fields in a mantle of snow. But I persevered.

Now, I am the proprietor of a successful dairy farm where ten cows earn me hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in cheese. Tiny sprites, masters of their craft, labor dutifully across my acres of seasonal crops. I own a private island, a vacation cottage, and a barn built entirely out of golden lumber. I’m a billionaire.

The only thing left for me, as master of this fruitful domain, is to find one special girl to make my wife.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Playing The Field'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Last week, the Aberrant Gamer was forced to acknowledge spending an alarmingly significant number of hours on games. And not just playing – thinking about them, writing about them, chatting about them and making amateurish game-related craft projects. In and of itself, it wasn’t so alarming.

What gave me pause was how nervous the idea of stopping made me.

To that end, the Aberrant Gamer declared a week-long moratorium on gaming of any kind, in the hopes of learning something about a chronic, habitual game user’s relationship with the behavior, the nature of gaming, and the abiding nature of the soul, or something. In other words, I wanted to see what would happen. And I invited readers, both in the original column and in a challenge extended to the readers of my workblog, Sexy Videogameland.

So how’d we do?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Abstinence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

During the holiday break, Aberrant Gamer took a hiatus from whence it’s happy to return. And over said holidays, I put in a lot of game time, and received an array of game-related presents. I received a package of Sculpey craft clay, and promptly used it (amateurishly) to mold tiny Chocobos -- which match the Chocobo mug I received as another present –and an array of Harvest Moon farm animals.

I also made a Weighted Companion Cube cell phone strap to go with my Portal ringtone. I spent all of Christmas Eve playing Guitar Hero 3 with my friend, and then we spent all of New Year’s Eve playing Umbrella Chronicles. When the Times Square ball dropped, we paused the game, switched to the TV, counted down with the rest of the world. Then we went back to the game.

We live in New York City. Does this seem, perhaps, just slightly unhealthy?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Resolution" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

With the march of time, the games we remember from years past are those defined by a pivotal moment wherein we made a transition, even briefly, from players in the seat of control to people at the mercy of a revelation. If games were just toys, we’d still love them, but we follow them as a medium because they affect us. The question of emotional, personal engagement continues to persist this year, widely discussed in industry circles – just how essential it is, how to create it in an authentic way.

In a banner year, what will we remember about this year’s slate of titles? The answers are largely personal and subjective, but here are the Aberrant Gamer’s top five most affecting moments in games. It should be noted that while a couple of game endings are indisputable candidates, they were not included here -- endings are naturally affecting by virtue of being conclusions, and also, simply to avoid spoiling. Nonetheless, spoilers proliferate, so we suggest a quick eye-scan of the header titles before reading.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': The Year's Most Poignant Moments" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

The end of the year tends to be a time of reflection, and it’s been said that this is one of gaming’s most prolific – if not its best – years yet. 2007 has seen all kinds of evolutions on the experience of gaming, and while we perhaps haven’t hit yet on that elusive formula for true emotional engagement, this year’s offering feels a lot like nudging up against the boundary of everything we’ve previously believed games are capable of being, in terms of the ways they can affect, immerse and even permanently change us.

As the industry struggled to find that magic balance between story and gameplay, compelling characters took front and center. The reasons we play span from getting the opportunity to be a hero – or a villain – to experiencing a new perspective, a different ability, a new angle on the world, a new sense of a self that is not us. It can be argued that the key to a game experience is a lucky cocktail of features that make us love – or loathe – our characters, that our final impression will hinge on what that character was, or was not able to do. With that in mind, we take a look this week at five of the year’s most aberrant, interesting, compelling and effective characters in games. Minor spoilers within...

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': The Year's Best Characters" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

If creating motivation in gameplay were a simple matter, designers would be all set. As it is, there are many kinds of gamers, and many kinds of motivation to which they respond. One tried-and-true motivator that has been a standby through the ages is the "save the princess" mechanic -- create some simple emotional or conceptual attachment to a character, and then whisk her away. There are many variations on this, of course -- find the lost relative, rescue all the hostages on the floor, extract the military scientist.

This mechanic works well not only because it can create a high-stakes purpose, but because the idea of being on a rescue mission endows the protagonist -- and, thereby, the player -- with a sense of his or her own heroism. It's rewarding to feel you can make a difference, that you are critical to someone else's survival. Usually, this savior role means defeating a boss, navigating a difficult terrain, or assembling the clues to solve a mystery.

But this is the Aberrant Gamer, and we don't do usual.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Playing The Hero" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Combine the veil of anonymity with the community elements the internet supports and you’ve often got a vocal mob. Far from being an exception, gamers are perhaps a case-in-point – off the top of your head, can you think of any other discussion topic, aside perhaps from American politics, that incites such a firestorm? An earlier Aberrant Gamer column took a look at the “hot-button issues” in the gaming community, examining those topics most likely to bunch gamer panties, and theorized that lingering social misconceptions and the fact that we still feel mostly alone in our world despite advances in networked gaming and an increasingly broader audience contributed largely to our defensive attitude and quick rise to anger.

One of the “hot-button issues” Aberrant Gamer highlighted in the past was our often unjust scrutiny at the hands of mainstream media, complete with accusations of violence, maladjustment, addiction and anti-social behavior. We’ve had to defend our favorite hobby from this kind of malign almost since its inception. We’re innocent.

Or, we were. Lately, many have found themselves asking whether, as our own society with its own set of norms and behavioral standards, gamers are approaching – if not already crossed – a line from the justifiably passionate into the alarmingly vitriolic. As certain kinds of gamer behavior, mainly online, reaches a fever pitch, many of us have found it increasingly difficult to take a defensive stance. It’s becoming harder not to ask certain questions about ourselves.

Are we crueler than we were years ago? And have we, as a society, become unhealthy?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Are The Kids Alright?" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

If you’re a regular reader of The Aberrant Gamer, you know by now that hentai game stories tend to hinge on implausible conventions – exaggerated male fantasies that serve as a vehicle for the action. Generally, the h-game protagonist is a markedly ordinary young male of high school or college age, whose poor luck and relationship difficulties are suddenly reversed by a stroke of impossible luck, wherein he finds himself suddenly surrounded by eager beauties. Those women too, follow certain archetypes, and thus we have a formula.

In that respect, The Sagara Family is formulaic in every way; the protagonist, Yusuke, is sent by his father to board nearer to his school with a family consisting of a beautiful, youthful widow and her four equally nubile daughters. The game is billed as “the ultimate homestay fantasy,” and indeed it is – Mom wears skimpy lingerie as she swills sake late in the evening, and the youngest daughter, Ruruka, gets the urge to crawl into bed alongside Yusuke at night. By the way, she’s young enough to be considered innocent in doing so – yet, says the game, she’s 18, of course.

The first sex scene takes place between Yusuke and his host mother, Maria, not ten minutes into the story’s unfolding, once each female and her general, two-dimensional nature has been introduced. With h-game stories often comprised of rather long, elaborate narratives – essentially, the player must click, click and click through a great deal of text to get to the action – it’s not unusual to throw the first bone, so to speak, early. That the game is stereotypical and cheap is apparent – but if you’re a regular reader of the Aberrant Gamer, you know by now that there’s always something else going on.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Meet The Family" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats – those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Where there are games, there are conventions, and where there are conventions, there are people in character costumes – doing cosplay. The images of these devout fans in costume are part of gamer culture, especially online, where pictures of elaborate, pitch-perfect character clothing frequently make the rounds of blogs, forums and news sites. The people behind the pictures can be objects of wonderment, when the costume is good, or the butt of jokes, when it’s not so much. In either case, seeing a photograph of a person who has spent weeks or months preparing, through meticulous craftsmanship and hours of styling, to look – sometimes eerily – like a video game character can provoke plenty of curious reactions. Some wonder at the cosplayer’s efforts – despite spending hours and hours on gaming and game fandom ourselves, the level of detail on display makes some people wonder if the person’s quite well mentally. Have they begun to cross that line, beyond which fantasy and reality are becoming difficult to distinguish? Are they flagrantly attention-whoring, hoping to cash in on the attention and affection popular game characters receive? Are they high-strung detail-obsessives?

According to Adella, one cosplayer who’s earned a reputation in the close-knit hobbyists’ community, “there are plenty of psycho cosplayers.” But when she decided to do a series of Aeris costumes, it changed her life. And it wasn’t because of psycho cosplayers, but because of psycho gamers.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Flower Girl" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (39)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

This column often treats archetypes and conventions – those standards in story, art and characterizations that repeat again and again in our media – because it’s often those things, whether subtle or broad-stroked, that ring, in their repetition, the knell of our social identity. “Conventional” is not a word with a positive connotation, however; overly weighted reliance on a standard theme is often the result of an absence of creativity, and a production in any media that cleaves too close to archetypes runs the risk of creating a two-dimensional experience, a story told in symbols instead of emotions, in words instead of thoughts.

One such convention that appears often enough in video games is that of the laboratory – partly because science fiction is a popular genre, and labs also make good backdrops for horror. We’ve seen a lot of experimental labs in our most classic franchises, from Metal Gear Solid to Resident Evil and even titles like Final Fantasy VII and, more recently, BioShock, to name just a few. These are often places where we can find clues to the origin of the central conflict – this is where the employees were killed, for example, this is where the antagonist was created. They can be haunting and informative, in that they generally retain an echo of something that happened prior to the protagonist’s involvement in the plot. They also retain shades of the organization that spawned it, often in its clean, orderly white lines, refined aesthetic and frighteningly advanced technology, personified by a soothing computer voice still maintaining her omniscient eye over the space, her digital impassivity oblivious to the fact that the world has changed.

But Portal taught us that even computers can get a little nuts when they’re abandoned.

The Enrichment Center would like to inform you that spoilers following the jump may result in decimation of ignorance, violent rages, and hives. The effects of prolonged exposure to spoilers are not part of this article.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': HUGE SUCCESS_" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

In honor of Halloween (though, by the time this column runs that holiday will likely have passed), Aberrant Gamer will this week revisit another horror title, after the fashion of our previous examinations of Silent Hill 2 and 4. An earlier also dealt specifically with the role of little girl-children in the genre. As with the others, this column contains spoilers of an older title.

Horror as we know it in the West is often married to a few common conventions that have existed since before the dawn of the gaming era. The classic black-and-white horror clip often depicts a young lady screaming a shrill soprano just outside the reach of monstrous clawed fingers, highlighting the archetypal vulnerability of the female. In recent years, we’ve seen some survival horror titles that wedge their way into a crevice of a man’s psychological armor, making him the vulnerable one; Silent Hill and Siren have been praised in particular for their generally more believable male protagonists, anti-Supermen with common flaws and foibles. Similarly, some of the Resident Evil titles, the third installment of Silent Hill and some others have empowered the female, casting her as a competent, plausible combatant instead of a vulnerable feed sack for zombies. These games have been reflective of a general trend in broader media that has begun to view women neither as defenseless victims nor as sex objects.

Haunting Ground is not one such game.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Haunted Doll" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

There are some twenty games in the Castlevania family released in the U.S., and the series is relatively simple thematically in comparison to some of its other long-standing contemporaries. The premise from one game to the next is generally simple, and yet the series is beloved for a certain flair. Even in its more primitive days, it added atmosphere and a certain sense of dread thanks to several key elements that repeat in most, if not all, of the titles in the quintessential gothic horror franchise.

For example, the resurrection of a dark lord along with his avatar, a castle so grim and dread it almost seems a living thing, is the usual fashion. It’s usually a safe bet these days that a Castlevania game will likely feature Legion as a boss, that fleshy orb swathed in an army of shambling corpses. One can expect to find oneself in a chapel in the Catholic style, and probably in a clock tower, too. A veritable menu of gourmet comfort foods, from pasta to sushi, is inexplicably dropped by ghostly creatures of myth. Most of all, the majority of the games share monsters in common, and a brush with Death is usually king among these.

But it’s Castlevania’s cruder beasts who are most responsible for its style – even in the earliest eras of the most basic sidescrollers, the elaborate, haunted bestiary set the game apart. Many a button-mashing eighties baby who stayed up late exploring the infested annals of Dracula’s castle found himself unable to sleep, wondering at the creepy, cursed history of those gruesome monsters that was explained in more detail – often one or two unsettling sentences – in the bestiaries of later titles, a cast of characters that, in large part, survives numerous revamps to return, reviled and welcomed, in Castlevaniatitles to date.

Some of those monsters just happen to be really, really cute chicks.

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Dracula's Girls" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

We’ve discussed before the ways that hentai games tend to rely on archetypes to make the impossible possible. Because the common h-game protagonist tends to be a regular, shy young boy – studious, socially awkward, perhaps a bit insecure – only a coup of fate would put him in such intimate contact with a selection of beautiful women. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but Let’s Meow Meow! is not one of these.

In fact, Let’s Meow Meow!, which revolves around a subservient cat girl and a host of other strange creatures from her homeworld, takes both archetypes and fantasy to an unusual extreme. It only makes sense, though – girls with cat ears, or rabbit ears, or puppy ears don’t actually exist, of course, so it takes more than a little stretch of the imagination to create an entire plausibility background for a rather long game employing all of these and more.

Highly fetishistic, anti-realistic, silly bubblegum – Let’s Meow Meow! is all of these and more. But is it really so strange?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Pet Projects" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Last week, this column looked at the case of a marriage on the rocks because of Second Life, and wondered how well Aberrant Gamer’s favorite standby, “at the end of the day, it’s only a game,” holds up to a multiplayer environment. After all, the presence of real people, even if they’re just digital representations thereof, throws a monkey wrench into the closed world of immersive fantasy that single-player experiences provide.

The analogy can be taken beyond Second Life, fortunately, whose status as a “game” can be debated (Aberrant Gamer says “not”). I’ve often written here that personifying one’s character in a game is a choice, one the player is advised to make for the best relationship to the experience.

Most video games in general provide a forum whereby people can alternately attack or chat up digital avatars, but only in multiplayer games are those characters representations of other players – many of which may be personifying, caring for their characters just as much, if not more, as you do. For an example, check out Koinup, a new social network not for your real life, but for your virtual one – personal pages, diaries and photo albums revolving entirely around your avatar or MMO player character. Plenty of people spend more mental and emotional time, if not literal time, in Azeroth than they do in the real world.

Which makes a bit of sense, actually, given all the things there are to do in a game like WoW, and the relatively deep level of user engagement required to really be successful there. After spending so much time on a character, it’s only logical that one would extrapolate into more complex social relationships, even romantic ones. But what if there weren’t so much to do?

What if there were an MMO based only on one thing? What’s the world like in an MMO based entirely around sex? Wanna find out?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Visiting Red Light Center" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Last month, an article in the Wall Street Journal generated some considerable buzz. It was the story of a man whose marriage to his real-world wife was suffering in favor of his Second Life marriage. The virtual “marriage”, between a middle-aged biker guy and a woman he’s never actually met, cost the two of them hundreds of real-world dollars in gifts and in-world investments -- the couple owns a Second Life business selling lingerie, and have built a number of social and business relationships with other avatars. More significantly, though, it was costing them hours and hours of their real-world time, and for the man profiled in the article, it was seriously threatening his relationship with his flesh-and-blood wife.

"It's really devastating," the 58-year-old wife told the WSJ. "You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they'll be having sex with a cartoon." She later joined a support group called EverQuest Widows, for women who’ve lost their husbands to an online game, and her children are trying to get their mother to move out.

She doesn’t want to leave, though. She told the WSJ her husband is a “good person” who’s just “fallen down a rabbit hole.” She can understand, she says, how her husband might want to re-live his life as a 25-year-old man, access experiences that he can’t in his mundane life, at his somewhat advanced age.

Sounds familiar – historically, our culture knows exactly what it means when a middle-aged man suddenly buys a sports car and starts “working late.” But there are innumerable reasons why our society is confounded when asked whether the EverQuest Widows are victims of adultery. Is it cheating?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Love in the Uncanny Valley" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Last week, this column discussed the dignity of our long-standing heroine, Samus Aran, the respect we as gamers maintain for a woman who doesn’t show skin, and the relative low popularity of searches for Samus hentai (which, ironically, have abruptly spiked in the recent week as if to spite me). Scantily-clad game heroines and burgeoning breast physics are a topic quick to raise ire in particular among female gamers – it’s exploitive and degrading, some say; it’s unnecessary and misleading, others claim.

Let's rethink that a little, shall we?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': In Defense of Breast Physics" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

It was the eighties, and our eight-bit protagonists didn't give us too much to chew on. Who they were, why they were, wasn't deeply explained, and didn't really need to be. The elaborate discussions of character and story we're fond of (or sick of) today would've been ludicrous, infeasible. And yet, somehow, there was room for one of the most arresting character revelations of all time, one that goes down in generally accepted history as one of gaming's most singular moments.

Samus Aran undressed, and a generation fell to its knees.

This 1UP article documents our twenty-year relationship with the silent hunter in far more detail than this column has space to address, but it doesn't answer the question of why. Metroid is a space action game with aliens and pirates, not a psychological essay in character development; the drama revolves around the alien threat, the treacherous terrain, the ubiquitous destruction countdowns - less on the story of the girl at its center. You get more personal information from a generic townsperson NPC in any RPG than silent Samus has offered us in two decades. And yet, perhaps to spite the relative lack of information, fans prize her more dearly than all of the other more gratuitously rendered, more vocal, more revealing (in every sense) game females we've been offered since - Samus is more beloved than most male heroes, too.

Miracle of miracles - could a woman in full-body armor and a helmet be sexier than all the rest? Could it be we don't need breast physics to fall in love?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': Childhood Sweetheart" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

The following article contains minor BioShock spoilers – there’s no discussion of the ending or of major plot points, but this week’s column focuses on a character who appears about halfway through the game and on the environment in which you fight him.

Still with me?

Continue reading "COLUMN: 'The Aberrant Gamer': An Evening With Sander Cohen" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

In last week’s column, we discussed BioShock’s Little Sisters as part of a legacy of creepy, ambiguous little girls in survival-horror who highlight our dark sides with their innocence and shame us by letting us see ourselves through the eyes of a child – even if those eyes are a pair of eerie orange headlamps. Mention the Little Sisters, though, and the question’s bound to come up: Harvest or rescue?

Whichever your pleasure, chances are BioShock fans (and those who are damn sick of hearing about it) have heard or participated in a discussion to that effect at some point over the past week. And in those discussions, chances are someone’s raised the issue of choice in games; that very issue came up in the comments on my last column. As I mentioned last week, I have heard in my colleagues’ work, in emails I’ve received and in various discussions lately – whether about BioShock or other games, such as in the comments of my recent column on Persona 3 – that thus far, what we’ve been offered in terms of "choices" from gaming often tend to amount to little more than what one reader called a “cost-benefit analysis”. In other words, since the impact of our choices is limited to a statistical benefit or penalty (with perhaps a different ending tacked on), any moral or emotional decision presented to us can be reduced to a technicality.

In a recent article at Sexy Videogameland, however, I explained why I feel that the immersive, richly-realized environment of BioShock makes the moral issue very much a choice[spoiler-free link], in that it very greatly alters how it feels to play the game. The sensation of having a choice, an impact, comes from my relationship to the game, a connection that I actively choose to make whenever a game is fleshed-out enough to make it possible. If you aren’t particularly absorbed in or affected by the experience of playing BioShock, or any other game, chances are you’re calculating cost and benefit rather than feeling anything significant changing for you, either.

“Choice in games” is the new Holy Grail, it seems. In the comments on the article I just mentioned, one reader raised PC games like Fallout and Baldur’s Gate as his ideal example of how a game should handle choice. When applied to console gaming or a single-player closed story, though, they become less possible because of the lack of open-endedness, real-time dynamics, or other players. But what would real, definitive branching in games, real gratification for decision-making, look like? And could it be that – of all things – Hentai games know something we don’t?

Continue reading "The Aberrant Gamer: 'Choose Your Own Adventure'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. NOTE: No BioShock spoilers whatsoever beyond discussion of exposition; Leigh's twisted, but humane.]

This week, legions of souls were pulled down into Rapture. The ruined utopia built on – and decimated by – vanity, greed and madness is compelling for many reasons; hauntingly vivid environments, unprecedented physics, and an unsettlingly lifelike quality in the smallest of aspects, in each little discarded artifact of a society torn open by excess and obsession, hiding in the fringes of their broken world.

One of the things that makes BioShock so compelling, ironically, is its humanity, a funny thing to think of when it’s so immediately evident just how far from humanity Rapture’s citizens have strayed. But it’s the objectivity of that distance that really gives one pause; though they’ve long since made fatal strides from the path of sanity, we can see behind each blood-smudged mask and spliced body, can hear in each broken moan and tortured whisper, the ghosts of who they used to be – ghosts that look quite a lot like us.

It makes sense; it’s very clear in the environmental storytelling how a tweak became an overhaul, how a paradise became Hell – rooted, as such extremes always are, in a very moderate wish. What if we could repair those traits which cause us suffering? Scientists, doctors and therapists, dieticians, cosmetologists and engineers endeavor to that end even in our real-world lives today. What if there wasn’t necessarily something wrong with us, but we just wished to be a little more beautiful, a little stronger, a little more resilient?

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Aberrant Gamer: 'Suffer the Little Children'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

This column has touched before on how we gamers are a highly defensive lot. We’ve all struggled a long time to convince the uninitiated of gaming’s legitimacy, fending off accusations by tech-ignorant parent watchdog groups, censorship agencies, irate politicians and hyperbolic TV specials who have latched on to the hot new scapegoat.

Why are we so sensitive? After all, it’s not like it affects us personally if a large and stubborn percentage of society continues to misinterpret our favorite little pleasure. Nonetheless, ire en masse at the slightest provocation is the norm online. Just about everyone who follows, writes or discusses gaming on blogs, chat, forums or in online play has experienced that moment of hesitation wherein their opinion on a particular gaming issue differed from the popular sensibility and they wondered, should I say this? Everyone has experienced that zero-point when, finger hovering over the “submit” button, they weighed their desire to express a point of view against their dread at the landslide of flames and grief they’d invoke.

It’s quite likely that no individual among the plugged-in, ‘net-savvy core gaming demographic is a knee-jerk lunatic; rather, this is probably an expression of mob psychology. We’re one of the most vocal mobs in any industry – why? First, let’s take a look at some of the topics most likely to create a thousand-comment explosion of offended debate.

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Aberrant Gamer: 'Hot-Button Issues'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Much has been made of the role of player choice in games. Choice, after all, not only crafts the experience, but creates an impression of character moreso; after all, there are many games, particularly in the RPG genre, where you’re given a choice of how to respond to questions or in conversation that has little to no bearing on gameplay or plot. Rather, the act of selecting whether to give an affirmative response or an ambivalent one – even when the effect is ultimately the same – connects the player to the character, allows him to express his own feelings through the protagonist.

This is especially true for the so-called “silent protagonist”; the character who has no distinct personality of his own aside from the way the player chooses to have him express himself. This was a nearly omnipresent convention in an earlier, simpler time, when storylines were far more basic and game engines much more limited. As the role of story and characterization in games became more sophisticated alongside the games themselves, the experience became more about getting to experience a character with an interesting destiny, a difficult personality, or some foreign internal conflict we could enjoy vicariously. We learned to become the individual that the game asked us to be, and the silent protagonist quietly became extinct.

Still, truth is often stranger than fiction, as the adage goes, and can often be much more illuminating. In a voiceless protagonist’s silence, we can often hear ourselves. But can that silence actually create characterization? And more importantly, can it create that emotional conundrum that we as gamers so desperately crave – that flashpoint wherein we must choose between power and morality?

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Aberrant Gamer: 'Persona 3: Two-Faced'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media.]

Common character archetypes have become mainstays of the standard H-game. Whether it’s something heavily story-driven, like Yume Miru Kusuri, or action/puzzle oriented, like The Maid’s Story, there are general, predictable character constructs whose appearance you can rely on, and whose scripted tendencies create an element of predictability. Which isn’t so bad – after all, if you play games for the stories, let’s be honest: you don’t need hentai for that. So while the heavy use of archetypes may detract from the stories, they strongly support the primary purpose behind H-games.

And what is that, exactly?

Depends on who you ask, of course. But largely, the elements of H-games—archetypes, heavy plot, and often ambiguously intimate relations—combine to create a bizarre sort of love letter from the past, targeted toward men with unresolved issues relating to women in the teen years. Almost all H-game protagonists are teen boys, for one thing, and the classroom is the most common setting (fantasy environments, like lush resorts or expensive mansions, are second). In a recent article in The Escapist, I explained this subliminal layer that undercuts most story-driven Hentai games—the game as vehicle for reconciling perplexing male-female relationship issues lingering from youth.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common H-game archetypes and let them speak for themselves, shall we?

Continue reading "The Aberrant Gamer: 'The Usual Suspects'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. NOTE: This week's column analyzes a game's plot from beginning to end; be advised it contains spoilers for those who've never played it.]

After last week’s look at symbolism in Silent Hill 2, a lot of feedback asked AG to look similarly at other Silent Hill games, and the most popular request was AG’s take on Silent Hill 4. It’s my pleasure to oblige— please keep the requests coming!

Silent Hill 4: The Room is generally considered the least popular of the series among fans. Let’s consider why this should (and shouldn’t) be the case—and, of course, we’ll visit all the deliciously twisted elements of aberrant psychology that make the Silent Hill series so compelling.

The town of Silent Hill is almost a character in and of itself in each game in the series. It advances to enshroud each protagonist—always an individual on the point of emotional crisis—in a sort of Biblical purgatory, a transient, flexible reality that calls them to account for past sins. And yet, throughout the course of the series it becomes evident that the town is more than a mirror for others; it’s got its own native history, the dark tale of a morbid cult whose disciples abused children, performed occult rituals, and disregarded the fabric of reality. We learn a little more about the over-arching story of the mysterious town in each game, and perhaps no greater quantity of history is revealed in any previous game than in Silent Hill 4.

That can only be a good thing, right?

Continue reading "The Aberrant Gamer: 'Sympathy for the Devil'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. NOTE: This week's column analyzes a game's plot from beginning to end; be advised it contains spoilers for those who've never played it.]

Konami’s survival-horror bacchanal Silent Hill 2 relies on dynamics of aberrant psychology as its most pivotal element. All of the Silent Hill games do, to some extent—but entering the mind of a man in his own private Hell has never been so stark, so unsettling, or so delightful as it is with protagonist James Sunderland. We’re introduced to James in the opening, when he receives a letter from his deceased wife, Mary—supposedly dead of fatal illness three years prior, summoning him to the town of Silent Hill, where she’ll be waiting in their “special place”, a hotel room where they once vacationed together.

Of course, this is illogical. The town of Silent Hill, its crumbling borders preventing escape, its evolving scenery defying reason, plays the role of a biblical Limbo in these games; the protagonists are inserted into the disorienting nightmare to confront symbols of their inner darkness. Mary’s impossible invitation, then—via a letter whose writing grows fainter, fading as the story progresses—is more of an invitation from James’ subconscious to explore the events of his past. We know—though we hope against hope—that Mary just can’t really be waiting for us in Silent Hill.

But could James, who feels himself a grieving widower, truthfully be a mercy killer? Or is it something even worse?

Continue reading "Column: The Aberrant Gamer - 'Sundering the Mind'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (32)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side—we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

As we’ve discussed before, the click-through, plot-branched story game is the most common format in the genre; you could almost think of many H-games more as interactive novels than games. Verbose and prosaic, it almost seems counter-intuitive to make the player sit through all that story, when one would assume that what they really want is to get to the “good stuff.”

Designers of these games seem to be aware of this, and so the plot devices that most normally appear tend to be cheap and easy shortcuts; the games need characters on the verge of revelation, with sex as the catalyst to catharsis. In so drawing them, designers kill two birds with one stone—they don’t have to make players wait too long, and they can draw depth of emotion in the story (or at least, so endeavor) at the same time.

As a result, the “troubled teen” is a conventional archetype. These novella-like H-games regularly feature young girls with emotional problems or deep-seated issues. Sensibly, from the standpoint of creating an erotic game, they’re prone to dangerous, impulsive or inexplicable behavior—like having wild relations with a boy they hardly know, conveniently enough. Sometimes, the girl characters are outright mentally unstable, straddling the line between salvation and madness.

You, of course, are the one who must rescue them. Indeed, should you reject their advances, the fragile things’ very lives could be on your hands.

Continue reading "The Aberrant Gamer: 'Yume Miru Kusuri: Falling in Love with Crazy Girls'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side—we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

When we think of Hentai games, we usually think of traditional “bishoujo” dating sims, the click-through stories with occasional plot branches and interruptions for a few still sexual images. The range beyond that is somewhat limited, largely because attempts to introduce other game elements often feel misplaced or awkward. There are simplistic strip poker-style card games, with progressively undressed women in the background, and more than a few fighting games that—except for the ability to punch off your female opponent’s clothing, possibly some erotic CG as a reward for victory—play pretty much like any 2D brawler.

The dialogue-tree story format is so prevalent because it’s safe, but it turns many off to the genre. Hard for people to sit through verbose text box after text box, automatically clicking, during what’s supposed to be their—let’s call it “intimate leisure time.” These games are often called simulators, but with a limited number of choices and possible outcomes, and almost entirely static imagery, the player becomes more a passive viewer than a real-time orchestrator of any actual action—so it’s somewhat of a misnomer.

But what if a sex game really were a sim? What would it look like if the player had flexible objectives, a variety of elements to manage at once—and complete control?

Continue reading "The Aberrant Gamer: 'The Maid's Story: Control Issues'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats. However, this special column deals, head on, with the subject of violence in games.]

The year is 1993, and a few kids are at the arcade, playing two-player Mortal Kombat. Sub-Zero versus Sonya, and the ninja’s winning. One of the kids is so small she has to hop up and down in the air to watch the fight, and she often does.

Sub-Zero’s being played by the oldest of them, and the kid’s practiced at this. The onlookers know exactly what’s coming. “Finish her!” They cheer in unison to Sonya’s dizzy swaying. The oldest kid bites his lip, steeling himself on the controls. Everyone’s watching, and he’s gotta do it right.

As Sub-Zero wrenches Sonya’s head from her body with the spine still attached, the oldest emits a guttural cry of triumph. The littlest child hops extra high to view the blood-drenched words spattered across the screen. Fatality.

All the kids squeal with the delight of the kill. My cousins and I.

Continue reading "The Gamer's Dark Side: Bloody-Handed?" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side-- we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

Just like with sex, the visual component’s a huge part of gaming. However, the text-only interactive fiction community’s still going strong, programming, sharing and entering into competition text adventures of all stripes— throwbacks to the Infocom era that are often quite sophisticated. Gamers can still enjoy over a decade’s worth of text adventures with only a simple, fuss-free interpreter for TADS or Inform, two of the most common languages for writing interactive fiction.

Interactive fiction—commonly called simply “IF”—requires a goodly helping of imagination. This is due in part to the fact that solutions are sometimes notoriously obscure, but largely, it’s simply because in today’s environment of lush game cinematics and jaw-dropping graphics, it’s increasingly tough to play a game where all of the images are user-created—that is, spun from the mind’s eye.

Many Hentai games are little more than point-and-click slideshows of character graphics; given the often typified plot construct clumsily erected to showcase the sex scenes, plenty of people prefer to bag the “game” entirely and just download the CG sets. Given this, how erotic can a completely image-free sex game be?

Continue reading "More Talk, Less Action: Erotic Text Adventures" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side-- we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

The gaming audience is notable for being as much a cultural network as it is a simple community of consumers—as such, we tend to be highly interested in previews as much as we are in experiences currently available.

And we tend to be just as interested in reading and discussing games we may never even get to play—whether that’s because development houses have no plans to publish a title in our home country, or because the game itself is vaporware that might never actually materialize, no matter how interested we are in it.

As such, it’s not unusual for Japan-only titles to light up the discussion boards and blogs—as an extension, our community grapevine often goes miles toward selling imports. As an example, the Japan-only Ouendan games are enormously popular with the Western audience—rather than direct ports, however, we have Elite Beat Agents, where the music and cultural references are less specific to Japan. As I understand, those cultural references that might not have translated well were the reason for making a game very similar to Ouendan rather than simply translating it—nonetheless, my experience with other gamers suggests to me that a direct translation, say, of the recent Ouendan 2 would sell very well here, on the heels of the popularity of the original Ouendan and EBA both.

In other words, a game without English language, and as culturally foreign as you please, can still generate a lot of buzz on our shores. Certainly, some Japan-only titles never so much as create a blip on our radar; it takes a certain special something to generate high levels of interest and regular coverage around a game we’ll probably have limited-to-no actual exposure to.

A certain, special something—like the ability to feel up high school girls.

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Aberrant Gamer - 'Touchy Subjects'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side-- we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

Long-form console games demand a lot from us—tens of hours, blood, sweat and tears—and often, that’s what’s required just to finish the major story arc. The perfectionist gamer compelled to meticulously unlock, collect and complete every subquest, minigame and secret in some of today’s titles might be an example of aberrant psychology all on his own. I mean, don’t you wonder what the person who ranks Foxhound, gets straight S in Dante Must Die mode, consistently ties up 100% completion—and writes dead-serious 200-page FAQs about it, complete with ASCII diagrams—is like in real life?

We’ve all been like that at least once, though—for me, hours and hours of Chocobo Hot-and-Cold come to mind. But the consistently-obsessive completionist is an aberrant gamer for a future column. Today we’ll talk about the majority of us, and what keeps us pushing through the epics—especially as the core audience matures and has, it seems, increasingly diminishing time to pour into long, long games and all the little extras they often require to produce the most satisfying endings or end-of-game evaluation results.

In fact, it seems there’s very little these days that can motivate us to work our way down a task list of minutiae necessary to gain some reward not essential to simply finishing the game. These days, lots of people don’t care about getting every Piece of Heart, for example—but there is one reward that’s worth innumerable detours, time, and sleepless nights. Only one prize is always in fashion—the almighty flesh-baring, exploitive, jaw-dropping Alternate Costume.

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Top 5 Aberrant Alt.Costumes" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side-- we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

Hentai games offer the opportunity to experience things that can’t be experienced in any other kind of game. You probably think I’m referring to the sex—and you’re right, but not in the way you might be thinking.

The protagonist’s gender in any kind of game varies depending on a number of factors— necessary relationship to plot devices, or relevance to a specific audience, for example. Sometimes we get a female hero just because a chick looks better kicking butt in scanty clothes. Largely, though, female gamers are used to identifying as a man in the majority of games; similarly, males playing as gorgeous girls are far more likely to objectify their protagonist than to identify intimately with her. Plenty of games allow you to choose the gender of your player character—offering generalized dialogue and little more than a different sprite, perhaps a few other tweaks here and there. It's not a perfect science.

In any of these cases, a degree of separation, a glass wall, is interposed between the player and the character for whose fate they are responsible, between the player and his total immersion in the experience. That’s not to say that you and your protagonist need to have gametes in common to create a satisfying suspension of disbelief; personally, the game characters to whom I’ve best related have happened to be males, since relationship relies on a variety of factors, most of them subjective, with gender being minor among these.

But can you think of any other game that actually allows you to swap genders during the game—and moreover, uses this transient gender identity as a plot device?

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Aberrant Gamer: 'X-Change: Switch Hitting'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a weekly, somewhat NSFW column by Leigh Alexander, dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side-- we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

Can you call a game a “sex game” if there’s no sex?

It’d be tough to classify old chestnut Princess Maker 2, originally created by Evangelion maker Gainax in 1993, as a Hentai game—in fact, it’s probably most appropriate to call it a parenting sim. More similar to Nintendogs than it is to any sex game, the player is tasked with raising a girl child to adulthood. A laundry list of stats—things like strength, grace, morality and stress-- combine to determine what kind of woman she’ll be. Her health and well-being, her job, and even her future husband are the result of the way you raise her.

The story begins under a fantasy premise—“the gods” bestow you with a little girl about ten years old as a reward for defeating a demon lord and saving the city. Apparently, there’s no gratitude from the populace in the form of monetary compensation (there never is, is there?) because despite being a supernatural war hero, you must immediately put your dewy-eyed ten-year-old to work. Each job causes a boost in some stats and a decrease in others—working at the farm, for example, boosts strength but lowers refinement. You can also affect her condition by gifting her with pocket money or scolding her. Finally, the game has an RPG-style adventure mode, which allows you to raise a little fighting heroine, in addition to snagging special items.

There’s a dizzying number of possible endings— among others, your daughter might end up a nun, a scholar, an innkeeper, a lady-in-waiting or a lumberjack. She can also be a soldier, a bounty hunter or a street performer. She can even become Queen, if you raise her up real well.

But what if you don’t? You wouldn't entertain dirty wishes for your little girl, would you?

Continue reading "COLUMN: The Aberrant Gamer - 'Princess Maker 2: Daddy's Little Girl'" »

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

[The Aberrant Gamer is a new column dedicated to the kinks and quirks we gamers tend to keep under our hats-- those predilections and peccadilloes less commonly discussed in conventional media. Hentai gaming, fantasy fanfics, twisted psychology and notes from the dark side-- we'll expose, discuss and enjoy the delicious underbelly of our beloved gaming universe.]

The H-Game genre is a peculiar one; many people have played at least one cracked title traded furtively over message boards, and they're easier to find on torrent sites than many mainstream ROMs-- yet they're almost never openly discussed.

Recently, though, H-Game discussion's begun spreading like venereal disease, piquing the curiosity of the uninitiated and leading to some inevitable questions-- are these really just sex games, or is there more to the story?

Though The Aberrant Gamer will examine individual titles in further detail (as Sexy Videogameland has done with Kana: Little Sister and with Nocturnal Illusions), an over-arching truth emerges as a commonality among all of these decidedly bizarre titles-- there's always something else going on.

Some of these games make an earnest attempt at the romantic-- even if their vision of romance resembles that of a fifteen year old boy (give flowers, receive sex marathon). These "dating sims" can be all the more haunting in that respect-- it feels a little uncomfortable, a little greasy-handed, to nobly woo a sweet-faced high-school girl in a game that you play-- let's be frank-- to get off.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, H-Games can feature elaborately complex, often dark storylines-- sometimes a flimsy smokescreen that seems designed to forgive sexual situations that would raise the eyebrows of some criminal psychologists, and at other times a downright suspension of reality, making the entire masturbatory experience seem downright surreal.

Whatever the device, H-Games inevitably evoke some reaction other than plain old arousal-- you might laugh at them, you might feel like a creep, you might be rather offended (yeah, since we gamers are so sensitive to ambiguously-aged anime chicks). Or, as with Kana: Little Sister, you might even get a little choked up. Far from being simply a more interactive alternative to plain ol' porn, the H-Game is definitely its own animal.

Among other issues, The Aberrant Gamer will review these games regularly, and welcomes your tips and suggestions about the strangest, best, worst and silliest Hentai titles you've seen-- and anything else sexy, creepy, twisted and clinically aberrant in the gaming world. More to come, so keep your eyes peeled and send me your tips!

[Leigh Alexander is a blogger at her Sexy Videogameland site and reviewer for outlets including Paste Magazine. She can be reached at leigh_alexander1 AT yahoo DOT com.]

Posted by Leigh Alexander at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)