The Cat Context podcast is turning one year old later this month, and to celebrate we’re goin’ live! On Saturday, April 20th at 2pm PST we will be live on stream from sunny Las Vegas with myself and Ellyndrial and a number of other previous guests (and potentially a phone visit from Arolaide) to talk about the last year of gaming. Save the date, and more details to come! :)

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Way back in December I wrote a post on Bioshock Infinite’s bland cover art, which developers said was purposefully generic to attract the “frat boy” console shooter market. I had two big problems with that decision. First, it betrayed the uniqueness of the Bioshock series and made me worry about what else might have been softened to appeal to a wider audience. Second, for obvious reasons I am not a fan of the gaming industry’s rush to cater to the “generic” audience, which inevitably means straight white college dudes, and I don’t think that will change until studios make it change.

 

After playing about half of Bioshock Infinite (don’t worry, no story spoilers here), I’m pleased to say that while the cover is bland none of that generic attitude made it to the game itself. I spend most of my playtime with my jaw dropped, either from the story, or the clever historical references, or scenery, or the crazy action sequences.

In some ways it makes the cover issue even more irritating. Bioshock Infinite is a really interesting game with really interesting features and, as with previous games in the series, an examination of certain aspects of American history and culture. It has been getting glowing reviews, and if my Steam list is a reasonable representation of current PC market then a lot of people are playing it. It comes from a known and beloved series of games with a fairly infamous auteur at the helm in Ken Levine. It was poised in a perfect position to show that games can be great and sell well by celebrating their uniqueness, not joining the herd of interchangeable dudes-with-guns games. Dumbing down the box art is extra depressing when the cover belies such great content, and makes plain the complete absence of Elizabeth, who is both critical to the plot and delightfully written.

Don’t mistake my griping about the advertising as an indictment of the game itself, though. If you like Bioshock, if you like games with thought behind them, if you like single-player shooters with crazy settings… ignore the cover, and get this game!

(More on the specifics of Bioshock Infinite in a few days after I finish it.)

This week on Cat Context we talk about Remember Me’s difficulty finding financing, argue over whether the Super Mario Brothers movie is any good, and discover the limitations of SWTOR’s free-to-play plan.

Remember Me had an uphill battle because its lead character is a woman. In that spirit, we talk a bit about our favorite women in games, how much we identify with our characters, and the effect that romancing Garrus can have on straight gamer dudes. (Hint: none at all.) We also launch a new segement: Games on Film! This week it’s 1993′s Super Mario Brothers. How did this movie happen, and did anyone actually read the script beforehand? Is Mario’s last name really “Mario”? Aro and Elly think the movie is delightfully awful whereas Liore actually kind of liked it. Go fig.

Also, Aro gets angry about SWTOR’s f2p system! Elly plays more phone games! Liore + Kerrigan, TLF!

As always Liore is joined by the most excellent Arolaide and Ellyndrial. This week’s call is from Doone — thanks Doone! Folks can email us at podcast@lioreblog.com, tweet @Liores, or call our voice mail at (347) 565-4673.

It would be downright awesome if you gave us a vote on iTunes. :)

* Super Mario Brothers movie for free on YouTube
* Two articles on SMB the movie from GameInformer and Den of Geek
* A huge list of DOS games that we don’t know for sure are very good
* Polygon on the Remember Me difficulties
* Free Music Archive page for our theme, in THE crowd by The Years

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Note: Here there be Heart of the Swarm story spoilers.

Hello! I have briefly escaped from the office to tell you a very important thing, and that thing is that Kerrigan is super cool.

One of the activities I’ve been doing lately after work is watching Jesse Cox and Husky play through Heart of the Swarm, otherwise known as Starcraft 2B. Although I’ve never played Starcraft before I’ve watched a live game or two in the past, and of course as a WoW player I was certainly aware of its existence.  I didn’t know much about the story, though, other than there being a space badass and an evil chick.

Heart of the Swarm is the Zerg chapter of Starcraft 2 and focuses on Sarah Kerrigan, previously a tough Terran fighter who had been corrupted into leading the creepy buggy zerg. (Think Locutus of Borg.) Kerrigan starts out 2B as mostly Terran, thanks to the actions of afore-mentioned badass Jim Raynor, but.. well let’s just say she goes on a journey of exploration over the course of the 26 new story missions. Up until now Kerrigan has arguably been a cypher in the Starcraft series, a character who primarily exists to be Raynor’s ill-fated love interest. Heart of the Swarm, though, is really her story, and it’s surprisingly good.

First things first: Kerrigan does not take any shit. She fights, she leads squadrons, she makes hard decisions. Sometimes she is a jerk and sometimes she is considerate. She’s not afraid to get dirty (or buggy). She doesn’t need rescuing, but she does need friends. Kerrigan is certainly no damsel.

She also has tight pants. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, necessarily. Blizzard dressed Kerrigan in skin tight but combat-appropriate outfits throughout the game, and it never felt too pandering. It helps that Blizzard isn’t afraid to make her hideous in some ways — by the end of Heart of the Swarm she still has a pretty face and curvy bod, but they’re somewhat tempered by her sprouting bizarre bone wings and artificial hair. If we have to accept some modicum of “sex sells” in games (which I’m not sure we do, but whatever), then I guess I’m okay with half-bug women competently leading an invasion of killer worms in tight Tron armor.

Oh aye, I’m dead sexy.

In the midst of a bunch of controversy over games with women as lead characters, it strikes me that Blizzard just slipped one right by us. Heart of the Swarm is told from Kerrigan’s point of view and we play her between missions while she talks to her crew. Although Starcraft has a top-down combat system that puts the player at a distance, Kerrigan is frequently the most important piece on the battlefield. She is indisputably the main character of the campaign.

I mean, it’s a Blizzard game so it has amazing cinematics and a ham-fisted but loveable storyline. The characterization isn’t on a “Cart Life” level or anything, but I’m genuinely surprised to see it from the same company that also just added two busty bikini-clad stone lady “consorts” in WoW as a raid encounter.

The best selling games from last week were, in order, Tomb Raider, God of War Ascension, and Heart of the Swarm. Two of those games have women as main characters: Lara Croft and Kerrigan. And while people are buying Heart of the Swarm for the multiplayer as much as for the campaign, it supports what we folks have been saying all along — if you make a good game, the gender of the lead character won’t be a limitation.

After watching Heart of the Swarm and becoming a Kerrigan fangirl I picked up Wings of Liberty (aka Starcraft 2A) and started reading up on newbie multiplayer strategy. Props to Blizzard: they have created a new SC fan.

It was Daylight Savings on Sunday, but we managed to stay awake long enough to talk about always-on DRM in the wake of SimCity and the latest Neverwinter MMO beta weekend.

Unsurprisingly none of us are in favor of always-on DRM, whether it’s EA’s servers or Games for Windows Live or whatever. We sigh and roll our eyes a lot over the SimCity launch debacle, talk about why cloud saving your city can be a bad idea, and Liore yells at everyone to stop buying EA games. Also, all three of us were in the Neverwinter MMO beta and all three of us didn’t like it! Aro thinks the graphics are straight out of 2003, while Elly can’t stop waving two fingers in the air. Is this better or worse than Dungeons and Dragons Online?

Also, talk about Popori butts in TERA! Sleepless nights with SimCity 4! More talk of phone games!

As always Liore is joined by the most excellent Arolaide and Ellyndrial. We weren’t able to get to calls and comments this episode, but many thanks and we’ll play them all next time! Meanwhile, email us at podcast@lioreblog.com, tweet @Liores, or call our voice mail at (347) 565-4673.

It would be downright awesome if you gave us a vote on iTunes. :)

* RPS on why a server connection may not be necessary in SimCity.
* Polygon’s rapidly plummeting SimCity review score page.
* Liore took video of the Neverwinter MMO character creator.
* Free Music Archive page for our theme, in THE crowd by The Years

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EA resolution update: Still holding firm! On the one hand I am really not sorry I missed the Sim City debacle, but on the other I am sad to be missing out on the new Mass Effect 3 DLC, which has been getting rave reviews from ME fans. NO EA in 2013!

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Last week TERA managed to separate me from some of my hard-earned cash. It’s not the first cash shop to lure me in — I, too, know the shame of owning WoW’s sparklepony — but it’s certainly the first time I’ve ever spent money in a free-to-play multiplayer game. I swore this day would never come, so what happened?

Don’t Nag Me!

You can ask my Mom or any employer I’ve ever had — I do not like being nagged and micromanaged. I was playing LotRO when they switched to the free-to-play model and even with a subscription I never could get past the coin symbols all over the interface. It was immersion-breaking for sure (and that’s coming from someone who usually doesn’t notice that kind of thing) and just felt like nagging. Did you know you could pay real money to take this horse now? Or try this quest? Or visit this zone? Or… GOD STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO, GAME.

Tera, on the other hand, puts its cash shop behind an icon in the main menu and otherwise never mentions it. Heck, the shop wasn’t even in the game for the first week of f2p. I appreciate that relaxed attitude. In fact, the closest TERA gets to nagging is reminding players how long they’ve played every hour, which is a holdover from its South Korean design roots.

Don’t Limit Me!

The most popular free-to-play payment model for online multiplayer seems to require limiting gameplay to prompt people to buy things. SWTOR has limits on how many dungeons you can run as a free player, EQII limits the quality of equipment that free players can wear, and Age of Conan requires people to subscribe to access last year’s expansion. It’s difficult to play many of these games for free without being made to feel like you’re a second class citizen. (“Please sir, can I have some more hotbars?”)

TERA, on the other hand, has a model closer to buy-to-play* titles like Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World, although you no longer purchase anything up front. The entire game, from 1-60, is available to free players. There are no limits on content, all races and classes are available, all dungeons, and so on. The result is that I’ve been able to get a thorough look a the game over the last month.

Instead of limiting free players, TERA and other positive F2P models add value for paid/subscribing players. Don’t remove access to content if I’m playing for free — give me bonuses. Elite (subscriber) level in TERA gives things like broker house posts with no fees, instant teleports, and a fancy pony, all of which are totally sweet, but my actual core gameplay changes very little.

Take My Money!

So the game doesn’t nag me and I can access all the content without spending a penny. Why did I spend money?

Convenience, certainly. Once it became clear to me that TERA is my new “dabblin’” MMO, I went for the time-saving measures of the Elite subscription. (Seriously, unlimited instant teleports to major cities makes my game-life a lot more awesome.)

Cosmetics are also a big draw, although I know that not everyone likes playing dress-up. I haven’t yet bought any costume gear, but I have my eye on a pair of black hipster glasses for my elf the next time I get the urge to spend money. Buying a month of Elite also gave me a shiny pony and a flaming halo that is totally useless for anything except looking awesome, and I am certainly not immune to looking awesome in games.

The final motivator, though, was just really liking their F2P model. I don’t want games to nag me. I don’t want them to create content gateways for freeloaders. I voted with my dollars, and me and my fancy halo regret nothing.

* “Buy-to-play”, or as we used to call it, “buying a game”. *roll eyes*

One of the reasons I got into technical and copy writing as a career, I used to joke, was because there’s no such thing as a “documentation emergency”. (Before that I did a lot of network operations, where everything is pretty much an emergency.) It turns out that I was totally wrong! Starting last week my workplace has been on high alert about a gigantic project that launches at the end of March, and the result has been many long hours and mentally exhausting days.

By the time I get home I am frequently burned out. I don’t feel like writing (sorry, blog readers), I don’t feel like chatting (sorry, guildies), and I don’t feel like doing anything too mentally taxing. My response to this so far has been to play the Auction House and level a bit in TERA, and watch a lot of Australian reality competition shows*.

But really, I’d rather be playing games. Specifically, I think, a single-player meaty title with a good story. Occasionally I stare at my Steam list, and somewhat like Ellyndrial’s post about just Shutting Up and Playing I feel overwhelmed by choice and the perverse inner voice of optimization. Witcher 2 was supposed to be great, but I hear the combat is obnoxious. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was also suposed to be great, but I’m pretty terrible at stealth games. I’ve already played through the Mass Effect trilogy a million times, KOTOR 2 is apparently kind of dumb in the middle, and.. man, maybe I’ll just watch more reality shows.

So since apparently I am too brain-dead to actually pick my own game for the rest of March, clearly it is time to ask the internet! Qualifications are:

1. I’m fine buying a game, as long as it isn’t published by EA and can be found for under $50.
2. Great story.
3. Great story.
4. Not super complicated or demanding.
5. Any single-player genre (RPG, Action, Retro Emulator, whatever).
6. NO SKYRIM.

So whatcha got for me?

* Right now it’s S1 of Amazing Race Australia. I like AR anyway because of all the travel, and non-American reality shows are the best because everyone is so nice!

It’s Retro Game week on Cat Context! We’re talking about some of our favorite hits from the past, and sorting out whether they were actually amazing or if we’re just nostalgic.

Retro gaming is where Aro is a champion, and she helps us cover all our bases by talking about old console games, modern day emulators, and how great retro games have a great story. Liore talks about her Tamagotchi and playing System Shock 2, and Elly is a grump who says he likes retro games, but we don’t believe him. Star Wars Galaxies is often referred to as a game that died before its time, but is it that great or is it all nostalgia? All three of us tried out the SWGEmu and are amazed at how less satisfying it is now. Also, Elly and Aro fight over which Final Fantasy game is best, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Also, Elly and Liore get defensive about playing TERA! Talk about the Neverwinter and Firefall betas!

As always Liore is joined by the most excellent Arolaide and Ellyndrial. What’s your favorite retro game? Email us at podcast@lioreblog.com, tweet @Liores, or call our voice mail at (347) 565-4673.

It would be downright awesome if you gave us a vote on iTunes. :)

* The SWGemu website
* System Shock 2 on GoG
* Free Music Archive page for our theme, in THE crowd by The Years

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