Are You a Boy? Or Are You a Girl?

I wrote a post for Indie Statik about a game where you play as a woman. You can read it if you like. The response has been pretty civil, and that makes me really happy because I was expecting the worst case scenario of angry feminists on the left, angry MRAs on the right and everyone looking to tear me apart.

I cut a lot out from the already rambling intro (sadly, there wasn't enough space to properly question where trans* people figure in), but there was one bit in particular I really didn't want to take out but couldn't find the spot. Specifically, I wanted to talk about the only times I've been harassed for being a woman. Wait, what? How? Can you guess how this could happen to me, the straightest and whitest of males?

Press A to Atrocity in Spec Ops: The Line

I just beat Spec Ops: The Line a few hours ago. I know everyone already fawned over this game back when it was, you know, relevant, but a case of writer's block and some niggling doubts about its effectiveness made me decide to throw some words together on it. Here are my first impressions.

Finished Spec Ops. That was, without a doubt, Nathan Drake's least whimsical adventure yet.
— Colin Brown (@BacklogJourney) July 18, 2013

Overall, I thought the game was a tremendous pair of middle fingers, each one pointed directly at the writing of Call of Duty and Battlefield respectively. I'm not a pearl clutching type who is opposed to shooting dudes in a video game, but I'm getting to the point where "realistic" and meaningless violence gets to me. I don't get grossed out as I mow down zombie after zombie in one of the Walking Dead's few action scenes. I don't bat an eye at That One Scene from Bioshock Infinite, because it's an absurd made up place that is full of fictional racists. I'm totally desensitized to plowing over pedestrians in Saints Row, because I'm riding a jet bike while dressed as, I don't know, a panda or something. I don't even get overly icked by the hundreds of murders over treasure committed in Uncharted, because that's how all the proper pulp adventure novels roll, really. But as a pretty pacifist individual, the closer a game gets to real life killing the less I want to play it.

Spec Ops agrees with me, and that's why I... well, I didn't enjoy it but I appreciated it. Sure, there are some scattered clunky bits. The controls and AI aren't quite... all there like they would be in a straight military shooter with a higher budget. Some bits get frustrating because of it. But it's a slight blemish in what is otherwise a delivery device for the game's story and message. "Are you enjoying shooting these bad guys?" Spec Ops whispers in your ear. "Do you like it when dudes shout things about flanking and Delta Team at you?" it coos before smacking you on the back of the head for having fun. "No," it says, sternly. "Bad."

But there's one thing kind of bothering me about the ending of the game and the overall presentation, which is what prompted this post. Obviously there will be MAD SPOILERS FOR RIGHT UP UNTIL THE FINAL SECOND OF THE GAME so only skip past the break if you've finished the game for yourself.