Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by Philip Wythe

As Grand Theft Auto V approaches a Steam release, gamers have continued to question whether the series will implement a female protagonist. Some fans have argued for a Bonnie-and-Clyde storyline, while others still believe the series should only have male protagonists. This week, we explore some of GTA’s history with female characters, and how a female protagonist would fit well for the open-world franchise.

In early 2015, Rockstar Games is scheduled to re-release the immensely popular Grand Theft Auto V onto PC. Rockstar’s long-awaited Steam version features a brand new first-person view, which utilizes high-end graphics in order to portray Los Santos and Blaine County with immersive detail.

However, GTA V’s PC release follows only shortly after a much larger debate in the gaming industry about GTA’s misogynistic content, after an anti-sexual violence petition led Target Australia and Kmart Australia to pull the game from stores shelves. While some gamers protested the decision, writers such as Polygon’s Colin Campbell have simultaneously rejected in-store removal, while defending the original petitioners’ concerns about misogynistic content.

GTA’s relationship with women has indeed been an ongoing issue over the past two decades. Last year, The Guardian’s Matt Hill hosted an interview with Rockstar Games’ co-founder and head writer, Dan Houser, in which Hill asked Houser about the lack of a female protagonist within GTA V. Houser originally responded, “The concept of being masculine was so key to this story,” disappointing many gamers hoping for a female protagonist.

Houser later expanded on Gamespot, stating, “… it’s one of the things that we always think about.” He argued that a female protagonist “didn’t feel natural for this game,” suggesting that a woman player character was “definitely for the right game in the future–with the right themes, it could be fantastic.”

Indeed, gamers have been wondering for ages whether Rockstar will finally design a female protagonist. The original Grand Theft Auto, released in 1997, featured four women playable characters – each from a variety of races and ethnicities. Since ‘97, the series hasn’t returned to women protagonists at all. And, as GTA V has reintroduced multiple protagonists into the series, many fans were disappointed to find that all three player options were male. Although Michael, Franklin, and Trevor are interesting and complex characters, the lack of gender diversity felt jarring.

When Houser notes that a female protagonist needs to “feel natural for [the] game” he’s largely correct. The right game requires the right protagonist, and creating a game setting which organically supports the player character is important for a strong narrative.

Yet, as GTA’s writers and developers have moved onto more mature and serious narrative themes, Grand Theft Auto certainly feels long overdue for a strong female protagonist. Rockstar’s 2004 rendition, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, took a critical view at Los Angeles gang violence and police corruption in the early 1990s. And 2008’s GTA IV touched on American socioeconomic class, wartime trauma, and class mobility in New York life.

Some fans have argued in the past that a woman protagonist would not necessarily “fit” into Grand Theft Auto’s world, suggesting that male protagonists are integral to GTA’s atmosphere and story. However, Grand Theft Auto’s core narrative themes – ambition, power, socioeconomic class, and cultural satire – are thematic concerns which a variety of female characters explore in the series alone. In GTA IV, socioeconomic oppression deeply affects Roman Bellic’s fiancé, Mallorie Bardas, who has a sexual affair with Russian mobster Vlad Glebov in order to settle Roman’s mafia debts. And women characters such as Candy Suxxx and Mercedes Cortez have examined sex work, and satirized the pornographic film industry in the process. Indeed, Grand Theft Auto’s maturing view at American society and culture means the series must seriously tackle women’s experiences in the American criminal world.

The idea of a female protagonist is not particularly foreign to fans, either. For years, gamers have been wondering whether a female protagonist would enter the series – and how she would appear. Some fans have suggested that a former sex worker would be an interesting protagonist; others note that an ex-FBI agent, military veteran, or police officer would provide an interesting backstory. Another recurring suggestion among fans is a Bonnie-and-Clyde storyline, between a male and female bank robbing couple. This idea seems to fit perfectly alongside GTA V’s introduction of multiple player characters, and even harkens back to GTA 3’s main antagonist – Catalina, leader of the Colombian Cartel, and ex-girlfriend of protagonist Claude Speed.

Likewise, GTA’s audience isn’t universally masculine. According to NPR, approximately 15% of GTA V’s fans are women gamers. Writers for Jezebel and Mashable alike have praised the game’s core gameplay, while also simultaneously critiquing its representation of women. Grand Theft Auto certainly does appeal to women gamers, and feminist critique of the series largely rests on its presentation of women characters – not, per say, its sprawling open-world gameplay. After all, a variety of open-world games with women characters – such as Saints Row, Assassin’s Creed Liberation, Fallout, Dragon Age, and DayZ – have been applauded for their engaging gameplay and freedom of choice, whether good or bad. Feminist concerns with GTA lie specifically with the series’ characterization and representation of women, not the game’s freedom of choice.

Needless to say, adding a woman protagonist into GTA VI does not inherently fix the series’ ongoing issues with misogyny – of which, might I add, would take an entire separate article to discuss. Indeed, many critics have noted that GTA V has serious problems with sexual objectification, transphobia, transmisogyny, shallow female characterization, male-dependent character relationships, and misogynistic humor that punches downwards onto marginalized genders. Among a plethora of other concerns.

Yet, a strong female character would be the right step for the series, and would demonstrate that the studio is working more towards creating satirical narratives that have an active role for women characters. Indeed, Rockstar’s writing team has constantly shown that they are capable of writing complex and nuanced male characters who deal with serious social, cultural, and political themes within the United States. So why not complex and nuanced women protagonists, too? Ultimately, a strong female protagonist is important for GTA’s future – the real question is whether Rockstar is up to the task.

by Giuseppe Nelva

With every generation of consoles, there’s always someone prophesying that it will be the last. At least according to Sony Copmputer Entertainment Executive Vice President Masayasu Ito, there will be a “next generation” for PlayStation, as he told to the online version of the Nikkei Shinbun.

“I think there will be a PS5. However, I don’t know what form it’ll have. It could be a physical console, or it could be in the cloud.”

“But even if the form might change, PS5 Games will be born. This is what we want.”

It’s reassuring to know that Ito-san is confident in the fact that this generation won’t be the last, even if it’s probably too early for Sony to know for sure what form it will have.

Personally, I definitely think that there will still be physical consoles in the next generation, including the next PlayStation. I seriously doubt even in ten years from now phone lines worldwide will be efficient enough to support major platforms fully based in the cloud, but the powers that be will ultimately be the ones making the final call. Gamers will vote with their wallet.

by Paul Tassi

In the next week or so, there will likely be many articles stacking up the three major consoles, the PS4, the Xbox One, and the Wii U, comparing price, features, graphics, games and so on as you try to understand which one to buy for someone (or yourself) this holiday season. I may even write a few of those articles myself.

And yet, I think there’s only one console that just really screams “Christmas morning” to me, and that’s Nintendo’s Wii U.

If we were doing one of those handy comparison charts, the Wii U has plenty of significant disadvantages when placed next to PS4 or Xbox One. It’s essentially a last generation system in terms of horsepower, with graphics matching what we’ve come to expect from the PS3 and Xbox 360, but lagging behind the newer versions of those systems. And recently the console has seen a nearly complete collapse in 3rd party, non-partner support. While Nintendo still have connections that lead to joint projects like Bayonetta, 3rd party staples like Call of Duty, Madden and Assassin’s Creed have fled the system for good, and new hits like Destiny or Dragon Age will likely never make it to the console.

It’s a combination of these factors that leads to continued speculation that Nintendo would be better off in the software business, putting their well-received first party games on other consoles, and becoming an enormous software powerhouse without console hardware on their mind.

While I’m not totally opposed to that notion (and have even supported it from time to time), this is the time of year when I remember why it’s important Nintendo’s hardware still does exist. The Wii U is the only gaming device on the market that directly encourages local multiplayer, and the best games for the system are ones played with friends or family sitting next to you, not playing on their own console across town or across the country.

As such, when millions of Wii Us are opened Christmas morning (or handed out for Hanukkah), it’s really the only console a family can get which can be set up and have the whole gang playing in practically minutes. Older games like Nintendoland and New Super Mario Bros. U, or newer hits like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U were all designed to be played in groups. On Christmas, parents can play with kids, siblings can play with each other, friends can come over for holiday parties and play the new system. At a time where everyone is together, the Wii U is effectively the only console that can facilitate that. The PS4 and Xbox One can be plug-and-played as well, but it’s largely going to be a solo experience depending on the game.

Split screen gaming and local co-op isn’t completely dead. There’s definite fun to be had with a few Kinect dancing titles, and games like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare have slid in split screen to at least one of its modes. And yet, that grand sense of local co-op community is inarguably the best on Wii U, where  everyone uses an assortment of increasingly ridiculous controllers from the Gamepad to the Wiimote to the Pro controller to now even decade-old Gamecube controllers.

Perhaps this is some amount of nostalgia talking, but it made me sad when I grew up and Sony and Microsoft MSFT -3.11% seemed determined to leave local co-op behind. Instead of having a friend over to play a game, I had to send him home to play on his own console over PSN or Xbox Live. When my gaming enthusiast friends would come over, there was little to actually do with the newest games we’d bought unless they’d brought their own console and TV with them. The only games we could actually play together were old ones like Halo 3 or one of the past Smash Bros. installments. Now that’s worse than ever, and local co-op is all but completely dead other than in a few multiplatform series like Borderlands, but most of the time its either stuck into a specific mode (COD’s Exo) or it simply doesn’t exist at all, even in games that encourage co-op (Dragon Age, Far Cry).

Obviously you don’t buy a console just for Christmas morning, so there’s plenty more to consider, but until Sony or Microsoft truly grasp the concept of family gaming and local co-op with friends, Nintendo is going to occupy a welcome niche in the console market, graphics and 3rd party support aside. I think it’s going to be a good holiday season for the Wii U, and its unique position in the market will help it stand out from nearly identical competition.