Category: Round 3

Blog 3: Mario, come save me! Oh, and by the way, I baked you a cake!

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Mario first graced the video game industry over 30 years ago and has since appeared in numerous reincarnations, many of which rest of the premise of Mario saving Princess Peach from the evil Bowser.  Princess Peach represents a common “damsel in distress” trope in video games and perpetuates the societal idea that women are helpless and need men to fulfill their lives. Since Mario and Peach first debuted, Peach has evolved to participate in some activities such as being a playable character in Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Party, and others.  However, in Nintendo’s most recent Mario game, Super Mario Run, Peach is subjected to the old position of helpless distress and even adds at the beginning that she will “bake a cake” for Mario if he comes save her.

Why is it that even in the 21stcentury, when gender equality, gender rights, and female empowerment are topics widely discussed, Nintendo still paints women in a powerless role?

Journalists and scholars debate over whether or not Super Mario Runis sexist or not. New York Times writer, Chris Suellentrop criticized the game for not only falling in the same gender patterns as before, but also exacerbating them by making Peach a playable character by unlocking her through a series of difficult tasks and in-app purchases. Suellentrop argues that this makes women seem like “prizes.”  On the other hand, Forbes writer Erik Kain, pushes back on Chris’s comments and believes unlocking Peach as a character is not objectifying women but simply a reward for playing the game.  Ina Fried of Recode also notes that while Mario may be dated with its references to the damsel in distress, it is this nostalgia that brings players back to new Mario games and Nintendo is neither perpetuating gender stereotypes nor subverting them.

In my opinion, Super Mario Run is at its core, a sexist storyline. Perhaps if Nintendo is ever willing to take the risk to create a game that completely goes against the “nostalgic” sexist Mario storyline, then people will begin to take note of the impact that video games can have on societal interactions.

Chris Suellentrop: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/opinion/super-mario-runs-not-so-super-gender-politics.html

Erik Kain: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/12/31/no-super-mario-run-isnt-a-sexist-retrograde-mobile-game/#663817907e10

Ina Fried: https://www.recode.net/2016/12/16/13984628/super-mario-run-gender-stereotypes

Source: Blog 3: Mario, come save me! Oh, and by the way, I baked you a cake!

Cognitive Development in Real Time Strategy Games

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Total War Warhammer 2 features turn based actions on a world scale but real time strategy based combat, this prevents it from being defined as a true real time strategy game but it this aspect features heavily in my experience. This Keeping track of several things at once is not an unusual feat for the average gamer, tracking ammunition, health, progress, timers, and mini-maps are all standard additions to what is happening on screen. Total War Warhammer 2 and other games with real time strategy properties take this multi-tasking to another level according to Glass, Maddox and Love in their paper,”Real-Time Strategy Game Training: Emergence of a Cognitive Flexibility Trait” (Glass  et. all 1). While true real time strategy games like Starcraft or perhaps more appropriately, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 3 that include economy as part of the real time processing were likely the focus of the study, Total War Warhammer 2 likely has similar effects, even if mitigated. The importance of the real time strategy game aspect is that instead of keeping an eye on several things at once the player is required to rapidly switch and almost simultaneously process the progress of several scenarios playing out at the same time. In Total War Warhammer 2 during a battle this may play out by applying buffs and debuffs that are time sensitive to certain areas, gauging the process of an infantry brawl, and moving calvary or other fast movers into a more advantageous position, while making sure that your ranged units have not got line of sight issues or been engaged by melee units. While playing multiplayer matches in Total War Warhammer 2 it is not uncommon to play somebody that mismanages their units and leaves one aspect of their army forgotten and ultimately useless, as a response players will often limit the amount of things that require micromanaging and focus on quality over quantity. Ultimately this kind of gaming challenges the players cognitive skills, and improves them through exposure and use.

 

Work Cited

Glass, Brian D., et al. “Real-Time Strategy Game Training: Emergence of a Cognitive Flexibility Trait.” PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 8, 1 Aug. 2013, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0070350.

 link to article

Source: Cognitive Development in Real Time Strategy Games

The Last of Them

Ethan Steinbacher

In the article Get Real: Narrative and Gameplay in The Last of Us, author Scott Hughes makes an analysis of the impact of gameplay mechanics in narrative driven games using The Last of Us as a case study. Hughes acknowledges the success and critical acclaim of the game stating that it is in many respects an entertaining game with many great features (Hughes 150). He claims that the immersion of the game is broken in two distinct ways. The first being that clunky gameplay systems such as an unrealistic inventory system and having superhuman abilities detract from the immersion to the point of ruining the story (Hughes 151). While I disagree with Hughes on this point, my disagreementlargely stems from a difference of opinion on what is worth nitpicking in games. The main point I wanted to address would be in his discussion of the players vulnerability in comparison between narrative points/cutscenes and gameplay. Hughes argues that throughout the game Ellie is portrayed in narrative scenes as a young girl in need of constant protection from the dangers of the post apocalyptic world. Meanwhile during gameplay she is for the most part able to hold her own without the constant protection of the player (Hughes 153). He states that this confliction undercuts the dangerous feeling of the world and breaks the immersion for the player. I would argue against this and that throughout the narrative of the game there are several scenes where Ellie seems experienced beyond her years. Whenever Joel is either incapacitated or weakened in some way and Ellie always steps up to defend him. I feel that moments of vulnerability described by Hughes are actually more of a contrast to Ellie’s character instead of defining them. These moments serve to foster a bond between Joel and Ellie instead of demonstrating the differences in their ability. With that in mind it makes sense that the developers had intentions beyond convenience for the player when they made Ellie something other than a helpless escort mission. The goal of the developers was to provide a companion that, while needing help from the player, was not a mindless drone incapable of either defending herself or making simple logical decisions. I felt that by making Ellie more capable in the actual gameplay of the game, they lended even more agency to a character that was already established as a useful protagonist in the narrative.

Gazzard, Alison. “Unlocking the Gameworld: The Rewards of Space and Time in Videogames.” Game Studies: the International Journal of Computer Game Research, vol. 11, no. 1, Feb. 2011.

http://compaso.eu/wpd/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Compaso2015-61-Hughes.pdf

Source: The Last of Them