This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

I don't know who this child belongs to, but I fully endorse the expression on his face.

A few weeks ago I was linked to this blog entry on Insomnia. At first, I felt compelled to write a response to it, but so ridiculous was the article that I couldn’t come up with anything beyond “What. The. Hell?!”… because how exactly are you meant to respond to such irrational, misogynistic vitriol?

I was able to ignore it for the most part because it was all too crazy for me to take seriously, but it kept being brought up in conversations that I had with friends and other game writers. The people I spoke with all voiced their frustrations at the piece not so much because they disagreed with the ideas in Kierkegaard’s rant, but because he did it in a way that now makes it impossible for anyone to criticise a female game writer without being associated with his hideous diatribe.

There are valid criticisms to be made about everyone’s writing, and there are plenty that can be made about the writing of many of the women who work in the industry. Not everyone is going to like Leigh Alexander’s work; not everyone is going to be a fan of Tracey John, and there will be people who don’t like Nadia Oxford’s writing. There will be people who find me intolerable. I think all writers should be kept in check and be called out when they’re doing a particularly bad job, but Kierkegaard’s method isn’t the right way to do it. If anything, he has been completely counter-productive because now, anyone who has legitimate criticisms of well-known female writers like Leigh Alexander won’t be able to voice their thoughts without conjuring thoughts of Kierkegaard’s needlessly abusive and highly sexist opinion piece.

So that’s one small step forward for Insomnia in their page hits for this month, and one giant leap back for games writing. Thanks, dude. You’ve ruined it for everyone.

WORK: Good Game – 90s Special

I had another stroke and now my face is stuck like that. Also, SCRUNCHIE!

Hey gang, I did another thing! Actually, I did several things. The first was a story for the Good Game 90s special, which went to air last week. For the story, I interviewed Dr. Rowan Tulloch from the University of NSW and the delightful Seamus Byrne, and it was intended to be a bit of a trip down memory lane, looking at what made the 90s so important for the gaming world and other significant cultural events that may have shaped gaming as we know it today.

To get into the spirit of things, I was given a scrunchie…to hold. You see, I had intended on wearing it in an outrageous side ponytail, but if Tropic Thunder has taught me anything, it’s that you should never go full-retard. When I’m in my default mode, I’m already fairly demented, so wearing a scrunchie would have only pushed me over the edge.

If you would like to watch that story, go here.

I will post more about the things I have done a bit later when I am no longer at work (this is a lunch-time blog post!).

WORK: Hyper – Pokémon Platinum Version

I looked at the photos of the Big Sisters and thought to myself: "Hey, leg braces are pretty hot." BUT LEG BRACES ARE NOT HOT. They make you walk like you sharted yourself. Oh, videogames -- you are so deceptive.

Hey, it’s June! This means issue 189 of Hyper goes on sale on Wednesday, and it also means I have another thing appearing in print!

This month I reviewed Pokémon Platinum Version (ah, my Nintendo DS adventures continue!) and I’ll admit that when it was first given to me to review, I was a bit apprehensive. You see, I associate Pokémon with my childhood, and I’ve always found that when I revisit the things I liked as a kid, I realise what a stupid child I was. I mean, I used to buy Spice Girls photos. In the 90s, when they were all the rage, I’d fork out all my coins to buy those collectible photographs, and it wasn’t like they were particularly interesting or scandalous images, either. “Oh, here is a photograph from a photoshoot they did for an album cover”, “This photo is of Baby Spice eating a bagel”, etc. Honestly, what a retard.

So I was apprehensive about revisiting Pokémon because I had such fond memories of spending hours and hours playing Red and Blue on my computer (my brother managed to download them from somewhere — I think there may have been a Gameboy emulator involved), and I didn’t want to come to the possible realisation that the videogame of my childhood was actually a piece of shit.

Whatever. The game has been played, the review has been written, and I’ve come to a whole lot of other realisations, which I shant talk about here because they’re all in the review. So go and buy this month’s Hyper, kids. I think it comes with a free issue of PC Powerplay or something so, depending on how you feel about PCPP, you may or may not be getting a bargain.

And now I’m going to return to my (two) day((s) a week) job and fetch the mail.