Tropes vs Women discussion of the arguments

[TheHuckster]

I wouldn't say the plot of Portal is necessarily deep or amazingly innovative in and of itself, but the way the game advanced this plot was quite impressive, IMO. You had to really be a little observant and fiddle with things to really get the full backstory. The whole thing about GlaDOS having been human once and being forced into a robot consciousness was merely implied unless you happened upon a secret room that you don't need to enter to finish the game. This plot twist, to me, gives what was originally an inhuman villain not only a human side, but a human side one can sympathize with. Little is known about Caroline (the human whose consciousness became GlaDOS) but we can at least assume she was a career driven, intelligent, and determined character who through no fault of her own became a monster.

And, yes, Chell, in typical Half-Life Universe fashion, was primarily a facade, the same way Gordon Freeman was in Half-Life. This fact has less to do with any sort of sexism trope and more with the Featureless Protagonist trope where in many ways your own personality is projected onto the player. Even if your own gender doesn't match Chell's you in a way feel as though you are Chell, which is often the case in first person games.

Is Chell a strong example of a female character in a game? I would say no. But there's nothing wrong with that because it's also not an example of any sort of sexist trope. The developers and writers chose a certain style of gameplay where Chell's personality doesn't matter, and to say they should have gone out of their way to retool the game just to give Chell more of a personality solely for the sake of other games using sexist tropes is misguided.

[Ginger Tea]

If for example Portal switched between 3rd person computer controlled Chell moving from scene to scene talking to or back at GLaDOS all the while then giving the player control in first person by entering the room and saying something along the lines of "Now, let me think about this." I wouldn't see her as a pair of trousers (or an orange jump suit in this case).

Many games flit between interactive and non interactive, the latest Resident Evil has some triggered scenes, yes you could have the player control the action between the two points triggering the dialogue cut scene, or you could have 20 seconds of them running to the rooftop access ladder in the cut scene.

Had the channel I watched the first and perhaps 2nd part of their two parter (I don't recall if they did a 3rd before going onto the co op) continued the LP the story could have been drowned out as they talk over everything and it's not the game but them that is the draw.

You could hear GLaDOS telling them to get things, but the game was linear so they could spend 20 minutes prattling about on one level if they wanted then get the CD she sent them out for in the first place. Hell once they found out about the goop they spent way too long messing with it and making jizz jokes ignoring GLaDOS scolding them in the background.

The first I saw as a speed run, the guy was focused on the game so you could hear GLaDOS but she became background noise.

The story might have been fleshed out more in 2, but could you still play the game without sound and subtitles and beat it? In the Co-op there were info graphics about finding a CD, so you are in a level area and now know you need to find a CD (or if I recall something along the size of a Laser Disc), should the Chell part involve finding a pink teddy bear, could a deaf and illiterate person know they could solve the level by finding the pink teddy bear?

Regarding LPers on the whole.
Some are watched as they can't/won't play the game but want the story, If your LPer shares lore with you, you don't loose out. Had they never accessed the logs or did but cut them from the footage, I would be in the dark about Sevastapol and all it's ongoing issues outside of those spoken by NPC's. As it is, all I lost out on was the footage cut as they backtracked between sections where nothing happened, it was the video form of fast travel.

Hell I lost track of how many conversations were continued whilst Ripley walked off into another room to loot, I would have killed for some form of proximity sensor to trigger and the NPC to say "Hey don't you walk away whilst I'm talking to you." you got to do stuff whilst the exposition was spouted instead of sitting there waiting for it to end, but it would have been so funny to see their expressions the first time they get shouted at for walking away.
Story mode Chat logs were read, audio logs played, discussion abound, hell Kim one of the duo playing knew some of the Dev's from a few years back and brought up anecdotes about them, Aliens lore and all sorts of on topic stuff.

A game may have 20 possible endings and they got one, I might get another should I play the game, but if there is only one, well I got my lore and might get the game cheap at some point once the puzzles have faded.

I didn't fancy the game outlast as a good playing experience, Jesse Cox the YouTuber I watched let the story unfold, but had I played the game, I would have had the same grievances as him, why can't I wield some of the broken wood or a metal bar and brain someone?

I got the story or as much as he had unlocked, I don't know who he was in game if given a name, in my books it was Jesse Cox running around camcorder in hand, in the prequel you are a named character, but the name is the only difference between the two, I don't recall a cut scene where he spoke independently or verbally interacted in anyway. In neither game do I recall any form of dialogue tree or actual words come out of the avatars mouth aside from grunts of pain.

There was a long monologue from the head honcho once you triggered his event, but as with Alien Isolation, he would talk and talk whilst you walked away, though it did fade the sound after a while, there was no "Tell me more about X" not that I recall, it was just a huge exposition dump that could have been a cassette tape for all it mattered instead of a man in a glass fronted cell.



The future of Trousers in First Person.

With the advent of 21st Century VR as apposed to 1990's we may actually get the gaming experience we envisioned with those polygons of yore, it should not be another Chell, Stanley or Master Chief when it comes to a VR game, ideally you get a customizable section in each game or it uses your devices profile avatar (should they make such a thing) so that when you drop into COD GTA or any game online, they see YOU or how you wish to be perceived, Story mode GTA VR would not have Trevor's or any one else named, it would be you and your choices, ideally including the ability to off your boss and have the story change due to that.

Character autonomy would be a bad thing, people have worn VR goggles and spectated someone else playing and become nauseous due to it, so you should not have your control stripped from you as the game moves you to where you want to go, unlike the 3rd person game where it is acceptable.

Had Portal not come out yet but was a launch VR title, I would be against any predefined character skin, being first person immerses you into being the subject to where Chell is just a face that isn't yours when you look in the mirror (See Sam Becket of Quantum Leap).

Sam was the one playing the star spangled banner in the style of Jimmy Hendrix, but to the rest of the world it was their alien abduction nut grand dad.
Grand dad didn't exist in Sam's mind, if he didn't look in the mirror he could easily forget who he was and I wonder if there was ever a scene planned or indeed filmed where he forgets he is a woman and walks into the gents and wonders why he cant find his penis when he undoes his trousers fly.

So I want to be the test subject, the reporter in the asylum with a camcorder, the beat cop or space marine.

In most cases its easy, you are a generic horde, I would not want to be Shepherd in Mass Effect VR, but Me as the intergalactic hero, I want the game to say my name. I go by my middle name and ignore when people call out my first name, I ignored my cousin as I didn't recognise his voice and he had to slap me on the head to get me to turn around and acknowledge him, I wasn't ignoring him because he didn't use my middle name, I just assumed this voice somewhere behind me was calling to someone who shared my first name.

So being addressed as David, Mary, Sue or Paul I would be brought out of immersion in game, I don't want to be playing Quantum Leap the video game (well actually that would be cool) I want to be playing the game where I am the person they look at and talk to.

[Hyena Dandy]

The story might have been fleshed out more in 2, but could you still play the game without sound and subtitles and beat it?

Well yes, but how does that mean that there's no story? Most any game you COULD beat without subtitles and on mute. That doesn't mean that they don't have story. That means that you're willingly missing out on a good portion of the story. There's nothing wrong with watching Let's PLayers, that's a great art form in and of itself. Let's Plays are amazing, and I love them, but while a let's play can give you a simplified version of a game, I think it would inevitably skew your opinion on the game, its characters, and story, away from the game itself. In the same way that if I were to tell you, scene by scene, the events of a movie, it wouldn't be the same thing as if you'd watched the movie.

You're missing out on the game, if all you know about it is Let's Players. Now some games you can watch an LP of and think that they don't look that fun. I often do that if I'm curious about if I might enjoy a game or what it would look like. New Legacy is a fun group, and the Best Friends Play series is one of the few things both my boyfriends agree on. But I don't think I'd consider watching Two Best Friends Play an equivalent experience to playing it myself.

You can ignore the story in a lot of games. Or you can not. But to say that the ability to ignore it means that it doesn't exist is a mistake. As you pointed out, you didn't get to hear GLaDOS. So you don't get to understand how important she is to the games, because for the most part, you didn't have her as a part of your experience. But that doesn't mean that she's not a vital part of the game. It means that you chose to engage with the art through a medium that minimized your ability to see that.

[Ginger Tea]

With portal 2 I think it was a case of neither had played portal or one had and the first 2 videos were to orientate enough to do the co op which I think had its own inbuilt tutorial which they chatted over.

I have no desire to watch a lets play of portal2 as I would rather not know the puzzle solving aspect of it, I have long since forgotten those from the speed run and stopped caring once I found out the cube didn't return in game (in an end credits sting or Easter egg yes, but it's not something that Chell would have found, though I think there was some game exploit where you could get into the room from some random hard to find place).

I guess another way I could have worded my could you beat the game without the story would be, say you can read and speak, but not English, or Portal was a Polish game and was not translated, the game is not intentionally withholding the story from you, your lack of English or Polish is until someone patches in a language pack.

GLaDOS might as well be reading Orem Lip sum or whatever that Latin text is called.

But as the first was linear I just see it as adding flavour and nothing else, had she specifically told you to go through the orange door pick up the pyramid and take it to the disposal chute in the gold room, well you are fucked if there are multiple rooms and objects to pick up.

What if you go into the gold room pick up the beach ball and drop it onto the floor button in the blue room? GLaDOS would say you are wrong, but you wouldn't understand Polish GLaDOS and 'solving' the puzzle would just be brute force.

So an open world game that is still meant to be linear would be a struggle for a deaf illiterate gamer, or someone who doesn't speak the language and the devs didn't build in visual cues without resorting to the "CCTV of the 3 items route".

I might dig out my Orange Box DVD at some point and give it a go, but TBH from what I remember hearing I'm 75% sure I would finish it and still be of the impression that "And nothing of importance was lost" should the game have just been released as a 3D puzzler with 50 levels.

I'd probably not play Portal2 single player, but instead download a tonne of well rated work shop levels, for me I would be more than happy with an infinite supply of levels to drop in and out of, listening to whatever music I like, than eventually have to end the game and face GLaDOS.

I wont play GTAV story mode either, I just want the open world aspect of the game, you don't have to be a criminal although it can be harsh on you for the smallest infractions, someone posted on another forum I go to that he was playing the game as one of the guys was not in a mission and was intentionally ignoring calls getting him into them and was cycling around. At one point some NPC hit him he punched back and was gunned down by the cops, how much was exaggerated I could not say, but as the game is intended to be based around criminal activity, when you try to be honest an legit, it doesn't like it.

Can you run a red light and get the cops on your tail and just pull over for a ticket, or would they just start on you? I know you can get arrested in story mode (and have your weapons confiscated) but online?

Farcry 4 I've avoided LP's for, I know you can sit for 10 minutes and have the 'happy' ending or you can then fight against Pagan Min, ever since I found out about the short game I want whomever is playing to run towards his soldiers and say "Take me to Pagan Min" I want the game to give me the "Lets fuck things up" that the trailer (intro cut scene) promised.

I want to be able to do half and half, stay in the building for the ten minutes and eaves drop on the torture of the guide, just walk in and be like
"Hey Ash watcha playing?"
"Just a bit of the old torture."
"Cool, so this 'Fuck shit up thing', you gonna be long here I'm kinda looking forward to it."

Without playing it, my current understanding of the game is "20 minute game" or fight against Pagan Min and if there isn't a 3rd fight with, I'll save my money.

[Gravekeeper]

Pardon my French but what the fuck are we even talking about now and does anyone remember what the original topic was supposed to be? -.-

[Hyena Dandy]

GLaDOS might as well be reading Orem Lip sum or whatever that Latin text is called.

But as the first was linear I just see it as adding flavour and nothing else, had she specifically told you to go through the orange door pick up the pyramid and take it to the disposal chute in the gold room, well you are fucked if there are multiple rooms and objects to pick up.

What if you go into the gold room pick up the beach ball and drop it onto the floor button in the blue room? GLaDOS would say you are wrong, but you wouldn't understand Polish GLaDOS and 'solving' the puzzle would just be brute force.

Yes, again, you CAN. But to say that GLaDOS is not an important part of the whole experience is a mistake. Games are not simply about completion, they're about the total experience. The GLaDOS is a part of portal. Maybe you would still enjoy it, yes. And some people play Skyrim by settling down in a village and living a day to day life. Some people play Madden the way Jon Bois does. That doesn't mean that Madden's attempts to simulate football are irrelevant simply because it is possible to make 7 foot giants with 99 in every skill category in the creator, or that Skyrim has no story due to the fact that you can ignore it.

[Ginger Tea]

I was under the impression that you could not go from acquiring the portal gun to GLaDOS showdown in one swift move, it was an ordered progression of moving between testing grounds until you got to the level in the game where you were given a chance to shoot a portal whilst on a conveyor belt leading you to your doom.

If I were to play the first portal is there a way to 'not play the game' but to escape the maze and liberate myself in the first 10 minutes? or is every play through the same until that point?

Yes you can raise a family and fish instead of learning shouts and never see another dragon in Skyrim, but that is an open world game, If I want to slap down real money and become a GTA millionaire and live out my days cycling and hiking I can.

Hell even Little inferno can stay by the fireside long after the combo has been unlocked just so long as you never actually use it, you cant buy all three items at the first opportunity and burn your house down to venture into the open, you have to wait until you receive a letter hinting at them.

Open world games are like a choose your own adventure book, Portal is not (unless you can show me evidence that you can break free of the maze and attain freedom without playing many if any levels of a 3D puzzler).

Portal 1 reads as "if you completed the puzzle go to chapter 2, if not go back to chapter 1 and try again."

Hell I even stopped writing to see if there was a script to see if there was any branching due to players breaking out prior to the section where you are on a platform heading towards a fiery death.

Nada, one level has a few sentences about how hard the level is and not to feel bad.

The other is the companion cube and if you delay destroying it, GLaDOS will keep on saying that you should destroy it in 8 different ways.

If you would like to destroy the companion cube go to chapter 18 if not go to chapter 30

and chapter 30 just has another way of asking you to go to chapter 18 if not 31 until you the reader go to chapter 18.

It's only during the 19th level when GLaDOS stops sounding like an in game tutorial, had they not made the leave the facility face GLaDOS part of the game, she would be nothing other than a voice over the PA teaching you the mechanics and giving you encouragement or beratement at random intervals along the way.

[Hyena Dandy]

It's only during the 19th level when GLaDOS stops sounding like an in game tutorial, had they not made the leave the facility face GLaDOS part of the game, she would be nothing other than a voice over the PA teaching you the mechanics and giving you encouragement or beratement at random intervals along the way.

She is a part of the game. Her personality is designed to be a piece of the experience. The comments she makes are characterization of her. Portal can be played without GLaDOS, but to not engage with that section is to miss out on a part of the experience. To not pay attention to anything other than gameplay and your ability to reach the end of the plot is to reduce the totality of the game to only one part of it. It's like reading only Alan Moore's scripts, and saying you read the comic. as visaul as his description is, it's not the same thing.

[Kheldarson]

She is a part of the game. Her personality is designed to be a piece of the experience. The comments she makes are characterization of her. Portal can be played without GLaDOS, but to not engage with that section is to miss out on a part of the experience. To not pay attention to anything other than gameplay and your ability to reach the end of the plot is to reduce the totality of the game to only one part of it.

Precisely. Her comments also give clues as to who Chell is. One big theory is that Chell is Caroline's daughter.

[BlaqueKatt]

Pardon my French but what the fuck are we even talking about now and does anyone remember what the original topic was supposed to be? -.-

well, I'll throw in my commentary:

My ex used to play KOTOR, as the female character, when it was revealed tht the character was a Sith lord that the Jedi took pity on and erased their memory, It made more sense that Darth Revan was a female. However there is a group(of males) that were considered "in charge" of what's canon in the SWU. They decided that a female could never become a sith, much less a sith lord, so Darth Revan was a most definitely male.

Similar to the mass effect storyline where shepard could be male or female and the story changes little per character, but "canon" is shepard is male. Discussed here-the second to last paragraph especially.

[Ginger Tea]

Pardon my French but what the fuck are we even talking about now and does anyone remember what the original topic was supposed to be? -.-

Well I went through the list and rated Chell against it and then made a hypothesis for a similar puzzle game (Sokoban) mimicking Chell in her silent protagonist with an ever present female voice over a PA.

My character ticked more boxes and took it to 3rd person (although you could console toggle Portal between first and 3rd apparently) so you couldn't just forget you were Chell and not a bottle of Mountain dew from GMod.

Say my Brown coated WoC&S warehouse employee made it into an actual game and the PA had a similar support/dismissal approach to GLaDOS as well as work as an in game tutorial, would she be just as good if not better (seeing as more boxes were ticked) than Chell going by that list?

Both are a Character/Avatar neither speak or have any autonomy in the game, nor can you leave the level's into a more open but still confined stage till a set point in the game (was it only 19 levels before you were sent to die? the script seemed to be formatted to indicate that 19 did indeed stand for the 19th room)

---

Also whilst reading said script I didn't see anything outstanding about Chell's past during those levels or up to where she is about to face off with GLaDOS where I stopped reading.
It was not the best formatted and the end just turned into a wall of text.

Portal 2's script was even worse and I'm not sure if it was in order, Whitely or what ever it was wasn't visible around the top and when I did see GLaDOS talking I am sure it was dialog towards Atlus and Peabody dubbed Red and Blue.

So wading through that to get her interaction with Chell was too much to ask.

When it comes to first person, I don't want to be Sam Beckett, I want to be the test subject, but to me saying Chell is a great character when she says and does nothing herself is like giving the title of best actor in Cloverfield to the Camcorder and not the person wielding it.

Although it's Cloverfield, a ducks fart had better screen presence.

[TheHuckster]

...

I'm lost now. What point are you trying to make? Are you saying that Portal is not an open world game, and therefore it is bad?

Yes, Portal is linear. There are a few places where the world is a little open graphically (e.g. to proceed to the next part you need to think outside the box a little) but its genre is more of a puzzle game than anything else. The writers just decided to add a bit of story and other creative elements to it so it's not just any old puzzle game you might buy. You can't just explore the entire facility willy nilly it's because it doesn't fit the genre of the game.

If you like open world games, then fine. But it makes no sense to call Portal a bad game just because it doesn't fit your taste in genres. That's like me calling Citizen Kane a bad movie just because it didn't make me laugh like Monty Python and the Holy Grail did.

[Ginger Tea]

However there is a group(of males) that were considered "in charge" of what's canon in the SWU. They decided that a female could never become a sith, much less a sith lord, so Darth Revan was a most definitely male.

Similar to the mass effect storyline where shepard could be male or female and the story changes little per character, but "canon" is shepard is male.

With Starwars (well scifi in general) women are few and far between or were back then (cant recall the last sci fi I watched made in the 2000's)

4-6 had in order of appearance
Leia, Aunt Beru, some woman on Hoth who said something, that counts and Mon Mothma with speaking roles.
Then random background characters in the Canteena and group scenes.

Leia is the Smurfette and I don't think any of the women actually shared screen time aside from Leia and Mon Mothma (Maybe Hoth woman was in the same shot IDK off hand) and I am not sure if they actually spoke to each other and were not just speaking to the group as a whole, so that Bechdel test might be a fail.

Padame, her guard/body double and Anakin's mother are the only ones in the prequels I can remember. But at least Padame and the mum spoke to each other.

Alien was never written towards a specific gender for each cast member, Weaver could have been Dallas and John Hurt Ripley, somewhere along the lines they decided Ripley the lone survivor should be a woman, that or the cast was drawn from a hat and it's RNGesus we have to thank for having such a great character.

Can't really see Harry Dean Stanton saying "Get a way from her you bitch." well I WANT to see it, but I just can't, Weaver just comes along and rips him out of the loader and tells him to get back to helping Estevez repo cars.

Star Trek TNG I can only recall there ever being 3 women at the same time for the first few seasons.
Crusher Troy and the head of security who died and I cant remember the name of. EDIT Tasha Yar.

Should Sci-Fi adopt the tagline "In space less than 1% has a vagina"?
I think there were more visible women in Starship Troopers than most of the other movies put together.

Anime is probably the only one to buck that trend, but they tend to go for the whole harem trope instead.

[Ginger Tea]

I'm lost now. What point are you trying to make? Are you saying that Portal is not an open world game, and therefore it is bad?

Game play is not story. I like the concept of Portal, looking at the script gives me the impression its only 19 levels in the first game, think I'd have way more fun with 500 user generated maps TYVM with or without GLaDOS chattering in the background.

If you like open world games, then fine. But it makes no sense to call Portal a bad game just because it doesn't fit your taste in genres.

The story is the bit I am indifferent to slanting towards "it's just background noise" until you get out of the final testing chamber.

Hence my likening it to a choose your own adventure book with only one outcome go to chapter 2.

Should I get Portal 2 and get 500 user generated levels, chances are I would be looking for the 501st, that or making my own.

But its genre is more of a puzzle game than anything else. The writers just decided to add a bit of story and other creative elements to it so it's not just any old puzzle game you might buy.

And I said from possibly my first post on portal "Puzzle game with a story tacked on", perhaps as an afterthought beyond lets give them a voice over explaining these new concepts.
And again why I said "What if we did this to Sokoban." Sokoban doesn't need a story, neither does Battleships, let a lone a god damn movie.
But if someone were to make a 3rd person Sokoban with a Chell like character and GLaDOS like antagonist, it's still Sokoban with flavour text. You can play with or without.

[Hyena Dandy]

But if someone were to make a 3rd person Sokoban with a Chell like character and GLaDOS like antagonist, it's still Sokoban with flavour text. You can play with or without.

...IT'S A DIFFERENT GAME.

The story is a part of the game. Gameplay is not story. Story is not gameplay. NEITHER OF THOSE IS A GAME. The entire work of art is the game. It's the story AND the gameplay, AND the art direction, AND the sound design. If you have only one of those things, you do not have a full game. If you change one of them, you have fundamentally altered the game. Maybe you don't like GLaDOS and would rather play the game with her muted. Fine, that's cool, good for you. But you can't say that therefore, because you can play with her muted, GLaDOS is not a part of the game. If I made a game otherwise identical to Five Nights at Freddy's, but with tiny stickfigures on white backgrounds for the animatronics, a phone guy on night one that just says "Hey you lose if they get in the office, close the doors, watch the power, and check up on Foxy sometimes, cool, bye" it would not be as good of a game as FNaF, even though I have done nothing to alter the gameplay.