Mass Effect
2010 in review
Floating around somewhere is a post I did early last year saying what I wanted to acheive in gaming in 2010. I would link to it, but I can’t seem to find it. Regardless I thought I would sum it up here:
- I spent the better part of 2010 writing, in collaboration with two others, a 66 person LARP called Al Shir-Ma. It’s set in an Arabian Night-esque world which borrows from Al-Qadim. It was done for the yearly KapCon gaming convention here in Wellington, and it’s first run through is happening next weekend. It’s been a really interesting experience and has I think made me a better scenario writer. But man, has it been a lot of work.
- I wrapped up my campaign, using the Green Ronin A Song of Ice and Fire rules, in a not hugely satisfiying way. By the end I’d kind of lost interest and time, and it all got a bit too railroady. It showed me that I really want to run long term games that leverage off character backgrounds and story rather than some over arching plot I’ve come up with. Means less work for me too.
- I ran Peril in King’s Landing a pre-written scenario for ASoIFRP. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually run a pre-written scenario and while I liked the low prep of it all, I found that I had the most fun when I was adding in new elements passed on player actions.
- I played a lot of Xbox 360. Notably Alpha Protocol, Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout New Vegas. Some of these games, like Mass Effect, I played through for a third time so I could carry my character into the new game. Yes I am that much of a geek.
- I played a lot of table top and LARP games. For the first time I played more than I GM’d and it was great.
- I discovered some great new table top games like Prime Time Adventures and Apocolypse World.
So from a gaming perspective 2010 was great. Though as the silence from June on might have told you, other stuff wasn’t. Now though it’s time to look forward to 2011!
All video game characters are all the same!!!
Apparently someone has done some research which shows that ‘Video Game Characters Lack Ethnic & Gender Diversity‘
This was news to who exactly?
One of the things I like about increased customisability of game characters is that you can make a character that looks like you, regardless of what you look like. Story lines still don’t always allow for diversity however, even if you do look different. That seems to be changing as well – Bully, Mass Effect, Fable II and a whole heap of other games allow same sex relationships. But the vast majority of games still feature hyper-masculine white dudes with guns.
I’m a white dude and I know that games are largely wish fulfilment. But it’s interesting to play other people as well. And if I can play an elf, I’m sure I can play a black woman or a gay Asian man or whatever else.