Nerd Girls Deserve Better

I don't usually like writing about meaningful things, least of all voicing opinions that delve into politics or social commentary, but I just need to vent about something.

Right now we're in something of a Nerd Renaissance where things like sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, video games, and so on are finally getting mainstream acceptance and exposure.

Now in my opinion this is fantastic! Nerds have always been picked on and dismissed, so it's great that we no longer have to hide away our comics and 20-sided dice lest we be discovered for the geeks we are. We can finally let our nerd flags fly.

But as more and more people are willingly taking on the label "nerd," there has also been an incredibly hypocritical backlash within the community against people who are arbitrarily designated as not nerdy enough. Unfortunately, a lot of this vitriol has been directed against women, and I can't count the number of times I've seen the ostensibly liberal, open-minded nerd community turn into knuckle-dragging morons the second a woman dares to say, "Hey, I like games and comics too!"

Okay, I get that many male nerds are introverted and often lacking in social graces, but there is no excuse to shun women as attention-seeking fakers just because they admit to liking anime or RPGs or anything else. Guess what, GIRLS LIKE THINGS TOO. And as difficult as your school life of noogies and getting shoved into lockers was, chances are that nerd girls had it so much worse than you.

The worst part for me is the fact that the nerd community is generally pretty progressive and liberal in areas such as marriage equality, election reform, economic responsibility, and so on. Why is it that some nerds can go from railing against homophobia to making "Make me a sandwich, bitch" jokes in the same post?

The definition of the term "nerd" has broadened significantly in the last few years, something that a few furiously pedantic jerks are resisting with everything they've got. I would consider myself a huge nerd (as would basically anyone who knows me), but even I sometimes get called out for not being nerdy enough in certain ways. You know what, I hate math. Hate it. And chess too. And Starcraft (though I do have a man-crush on Sean "Day[9]" Plott). So what?

If a woman says she's a nerd, then she's a nerd. There are no gatekeepers of the subculture. There's no standardized test. The only thing really that sets us apart form non-nerds is our obsessive quest for knowledge in our area of interest. Yes, even sports can be nerdy if you get super into statistics and trivia.

I think the world needs more nerd girls. Swap out doll houses with chemistry sets and nerf guns. Watch Star Wars with your daughter. Invite girls to your tabletop game nights. Be inclusive!

And good lord, if I ever see that "How guys take pictures vs how girls take pictures" image on Reddit or anywhere else again, my head is going to explode.

Planetside 2 Review (sort of)

Many years ago, I was a dweeby kid who was super excited to be in my first closed beta—the original Planetside. The hype behind the game was pretty intense. I mean, an MMO FPS? Unheard of! My friends and I had planned out our entire play styles and alliances long before we even downloaded the client.

And then we actually played the game…

Now don’t get me wrong: the original Planetside had its moments. Its long, tedious, ultimately pointless moments. Victories were fleeting, but the strategy and skill involved at least made the fight occasionally worthwhile.

Fast forward nearly a decade, and I was involved in a new beta test: Planetside 2. I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. Aside from my disappointment in the original game, I did still have a blood feud against SOE for what they did to Star Wars: Galaxies (i.e. they shit all over it).

But I was actually pleasantly surprised at Planetside 2…for a time. The big fights were epic and chaotic, the small fights were sneaky and strategic, and the weapons and vehicles were fun to use, if a little clunky and not at all bound by the laws of physics.

And I must say, the visuals were surprisingly amazing for a game of its scale. Of course, that’s assuming you have the hardware to handle it, which is few notches above what you would expect since the game engine has some pretty serious optimization issues.

Most importantly the game was fun, which usually trumps most other flaws in a game.

Unfortunately, SOE still don’t seem to have the formula down, even well over a year after the game was released. Despite multiple patches aimed at fixing graphics optimization, the game still chugs at higher settings, even on decent hardware. There are also numerous problems with textures, pop-in, and so on. Perhaps most glaring are issues with invisible enemies and difficulty distinguishing friend from foe at a distance.

But the worst problems stem from the gameplay itself. Vehicles and consumables are limited by a resource system split into three categories: air, vehicle, and infantry. Each of these pools refill by a small amount every few minutes, and the amount restored is based on the territories your faction controls.

This sounds fair and balanced in theory—until you realize that the faction who is already ahead of the others gets harder and harder to stop due to an excess of resources. In an attempt to counteract this advantage, vehicles also have cooldown timers that can be reduced with certifications, which are earned with experience. While this does prevent people from trying to go kamikaze multiple times in a tank, it really doesn't do much to restrict one faction’s ability to use brute strength in numbers to snuff out less populated factions that might otherwise be more skilled.

And therein lies the other major problem with PS2 gameplay: the zerg trumps all. It is extremely rare for a small yet skilled force to hold back the zerg. True, they might get a high number of kills and XP while the fight lasts, but they will ultimately lose their objective to superior numbers.

There’s a catch 22 on the losing side. No one likes playing against impossible odds, so a lot of people on the underpopulated factions log off, which only makes the population gap worse, which of course makes more people quit, and on and on.

Now I’ll admit that this is a difficult problem to fix. The mantra of the MMO developer is “balance,” but there’s such a thing as too much balance. For example, you would think that a lone foot soldier would be terrified of tanks. Haha, nope.

Vehicles are basically XP piñatas, and determined infantry with a mediocre level of skill can kill most solo vehicles. Infantry can die hundreds of times with little to no penalty, but a tank driver has to use up resources and wait out a cooldown timer every time they pull a vehicle.

Aircraft are even worse. True, they are far more maneuverable and have an easier time of keeping enemies at range, but they are basically made of tin and filled with gunpowder. There is also a laughable gap in skill between new pilots and the so-called “aces.” I’m a moderately skilled pilot, especially compared to players who treat aircraft as a quick ride rather than an alternate play style, but I am embarrassingly outclassed by the real pilots in PS2.

I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing. If anything, I think PS2 needs more opportunities for skilled players to shine. But with the restrictiveness of the resource system and lengthy vehicle cooldowns, it is extremely difficult for new players to learn the ropes.

Now, I know I've been pretty critical of the game so far, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy it. PS2 can be a lot of fun (when you’re winning), and the fact that I’ve logged nearly 400 hours in the game is certainly a testament to its longevity.

The real issue isn’t that the game is buggy or suffering from balance or playability issues. The problem is that the game is not improving. PS2 today is not significantly better than it was in beta, and in some ways it has gotten worse.

I really hope that SOE can get their shit together because I really can’t handle holding two blood feuds against the same dev.

I haven’t even touched on the free-to-play nature of PS2, which I will briefly cover in a future post. But the TL;DR version is: It’s not too bad! You can get by perfectly fine without paying a cent, but subscribers do get a pretty significant advantage in their increased resource and XP gains. Still though, the pay-to-win factor isn't as bad as other freemium games, and the game is still worth a shot if you like large scale, objective-based FPS games.

Child of Light Review

I don’t fault Ubisoft for their philosophy of “this worked before, so let’s do it again,” but after an ever increasing amount of Assassin’s Creeds, a handful of Farcrys (Farcries?), and who knows how many Tom Clancy games, I find myself sometimes worrying that the Quebecois game developers might be getting lazy or even *gasp* greedy.

But then they go and surprise me with a game like Child of Light. Before I get into the game itself, I have to say that it’s already ahead in my book simply for being a new IP. It’s not a sequel. It’s not a remake. It’s new. Hurray!

Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s get down to it.

Form

            It’s no secret that Child of Light is beautiful, but let me stress it again anyway: this game is freaking gorgeous. The animations are fluid and graceful, and the art is as whimsical as you would hope a fairytale would be. The game feels like playing through an impressionist painting.

The music is equally as magical, and I would say that it rivals the soundtrack from thatgamecompany’s Journey, which is high praise from me. I mean seriously, listen to the music from Journey. Incredible.

Anyway, Child of Light follows Aurora, the young, red-headed daughter of a duke and a mysteriously deceased mother. After suddenly falling into a deathlike sleep, Aurora finds herself in a magical world full of fairies, monsters, and talking mice.

            The story is very much a fairy tale down to the rhyming couplets used by the characters. There’s no meter to speak of, but I think Ubisoft can be forgiven for not writing the entire script in iambic pentameter. The characters are archetypal yet charming, and Aurora and her firefly companion, Igniculus, are especially entertaining. The plot doesn't exactly hold any surprises, but it does offer an interesting take on Sleeping Beauty, and the storytelling is solid and entertaining. The ending is very satisfying and actually quite moving, which is rare in the gaming world.

Function

            Combat in Child of Light plays similarly to many of the Final Fantasy games. The player controls a party of only two characters, and fights occur in a battle screen that exists outside the normal game world.

The fights are somewhat turn based, with each character and enemy sharing a “Timeline” gauge that determines when an action can be performed. Actions include spells, melee attacks, and items. You can also change out party members in mid-combat.

            In many RPGs of this sort, you’ll find yourself using the same few characters because either they’re all the same or there are only a few who really kick ass. The different characters in Child of Light, however, all fill unique roles that can be helpful in different fights. In addition to the holy trinity of  tank, healer, and damage dealer, there are also buffers, debuffers, and so on.

            While the main party is busy fighting, you can also control Igniculus and use him to either heal your allies or slow down your enemies. This is an important part of strategic combat in Child of Light, because attacking an enemy when they are in the “Casting” stage of the progress bar will interrupt them and delay their ability to perform another action. This results in a mathematical dance of figuring out just how much you need to delay your enemy and how fast your attacks need to be in order for you to hit them in the right window of opportunity.

            The combat is simple yet fun, but unfortunately, it is also very repetitive. A few fights into the game you've pretty much seen everything you’re going to see. There are a few boss fights, but in general the only differences between those and regular fights are your enemies’ health and damage. There are a few Pokemon-like match ups where certain attack-types do more damage to certain enemies, but there really isn't much strategy involved.

Verdict

            Overall, Child of Light is well worth your time, especially if you love the “artsy” types of video games. While I was somewhat disappointed in the repetitive nature of the combat and the somewhat lackluster item synthesis system, the game is still fun and beautiful and, most importantly, not a sequel!