FemShep rules!

Guys imagine this. You are an avid gamer. You love to complete the campaign and then fully embrace the multi-player, often spending more time on that than you do the campaign. It feels good right? Then imagine having to do that and in around 80% of the games you are absolutely, inexplicably forced to play as the opposite sex. Not as good? Well that’s how it is for us ‘Girl Gamers’ and it sucks.

Many new open-world RPG games have embraced female avatars brilliantly, with just as much availability to morph your character into whatever you want as the male counterparts get. I spent 100+ hours on games like Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion with my female adventurer, and I absolutely loved being able to be me (albeit a MUCH improved version of me, if I ever saw a Deathclaw in real life I can guarantee I wouldn’t run up to it with a Powerfist!).  For me being able to play as a female is very important, and if I’m honest I don’t think it’s just because I want to play as a female, sometimes I still choose males. But it’s nice to have the choice.

Mass Effect has always been another that has great customisation for both sexes. Some NPC's did still address me as a male, but I didn't care!! I was saving the galaxy as my kick-ass FemShep! And with the release of Mass Effect 3 the publishers addressed all us hard done by FemShep users by giving us an interchangeable cover! Now that's showing us some love, and it was greatly appreciated.

The main place this choice is lacking is FPS’s. Females can serve in the Army, they can do whatever males can do...so why can’t we play as one in FPS’s? I don’t mean for the campaign’s, it’d just be really nice if developers would acknowledge the female gamers by offering this choice in multiplayer. It would require minimal effort (as far as I’m aware) but would go a long way in the gaming community.  

The game that really wound me up for not giving players this choice is actually ‘Brink’. i bought it on release, and still love the game but why are there no females? Are you telling me there are no female rebels in The Ark? I highly doubt that. Brink is as limited as a lot of the FPS’s out there, you can change the size of the muscles and their load out but not much else. I have to admit I found it incredibly disappointing.

I don’t think there is a logical explanation for why female avatars aren’t included in more games. And it’s time we stood up and spoke about it. Major RPG’s have done it, and it has meant new voice actors, different romance options and different dialogue. I’m only asking for the option of a female to be in the online version of FPS’s (something I think we’ll all agree on, we don’t necessarily need to have female’s in the campaign) so come on developers, get it done!!! 

DLC - For Love or Profit?

DLC is meant to prolong the longevity of a game, but instead it seems more and more developers are releasing downloadable content that should have been included in the retail version.

Personally I LOVE DLC. I have spent a hell of a lot of money on all the DLC packs for, amongst many others, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age: Origins, Gears of War 1 & 2, Borderlands and various Call of Duty games. I have also spent a small fortune on my Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Lips music libraries. I have no aversion to developers bringing out DLC - in fact I embrace it. I love that they are making it possible for us to go back to a game we’d completed and have something new to do, even a year after the release. 

Worth the extra 1200MSP??

But I think that should be the purpose of DLC. DLC should be an optional increase to an already amazing game. I feel there are some developers who are releasing below par games with the view to releasing a few DLC packs to cash in. Take the Call of Duty franchise for example. The games that include Zombie mode only include 1 map for the game mode. Now I am aware that Zombies isn’t the main focus for these games but if you are going to include something in a game I don’t think it should be half-assed, and to me that is what Zombies mode feels like. Particularly in the first CoD game to include this mode, Call of Duty: World at War. This zombie map basically saw players put in a hut and told to survive. There were none of the perks, machines or the desperate run to turn on the power. There was no long slog to learn the map. It was as basic as it could get so of course when DLC packs were released that promised fun by the bucket-load we all jumped at it and didn’t think twice about the extra 1200MSP spent. Our appetite for zombie annihilation was sated, for a while at least. But more and more DLC was released and we kept on buying. Overall how much have you spent on a CoD game? And after all that money, does it feel like a game with extras, or just a complete retail release? If you have bought all the map packs for CoD: Black Ops up to now you have spent £70/$105 on this game, would you have paid that for the disc in store? Somehow I doubt a game priced that high would do as well.

Resident Evil 5 was also a culprit. Capcom went as far as to release multiplayer DLC soon after retail release. The DLC was announced BEFORE the release of the game and included the games only online VS multiplayer. 400MSP saw players able to take the Mercenaries mode online and fight in 5 different modes, Slayers, Survivors, Team Slayers, Team Survivors and Versus. Surely this is something that should have been included in a $60/£40 game?

DLC is an amazing way to prolong the enjoyment gleaned from a game. I completed Mass Effect 2 last year but when ‘The Arrival’ DLC was released I was as excited as I had been when playing the game for the first time. That to me is what DLC should be. Improving an already amazing game. Not making a game complete at an extra cost.