XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Rating: 3 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)
Genre: Turn-based Strategy; Sub-genre: RPG
ESRB: M (cartoony gore)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): Infinite?/8
Developer: Firaxis Games
Wiki page

This was a real hard game to review. There's many reasons I should probably rate it lower since the rating represents a recommendation.  And I wouldn't recommend this game to a lot of people. It's different in enough ways that I'm not sure everyone will understand it. Also, it's kind of stressful at times: the game requires the player to accept loss. That's right, the player isn't an automatic badass who can never fail. Frequently, squad mates will die and you'll just have to replace them with rookies and move on. Also, countries will get angry if you don't pay attention to them and will abandon you. As far as I can tell, this is bound to happen eventually as I was forced to complete the game because more than one country was threatening to do so by the end of the month!

The strategy of "only giving a shit about America" caused me to lose quickly. What is this!?

The gameplay is remarkably simple for a strategy game as there's only 4 classes and they all have some key shared abilities (all use ranged attacks and can overwatch). There, of course, is added depth everywhere with items, talent point selection, different passives and penalties, etc. So it strangely makes the classes completely different while working the same. Whoa. It's that "easy to learn, tough to master" mentality that every game vies for. When you're not doing turn-based combat, you go through menus to buy upgrades and get research and read lore. Then it's back to combat, then menus, and back and forth. That's really all you do the whole time. But with the ability to save mid-mission, this gives it a "pick up and play" feel. I'm not going to penalize them here as not every game needs things like travel time and professions, but it is definitely noticeable.

Look! This is all one big menu! Click on stuff! Wooo!

The way I'd describe the story is "a better take on Call of Duty," or perhaps any military shooter out there. You are a faceless, nameless, voiceless protagonist who reports to three different people. They each have a face and personality and talk to you directly about what is going on in a professional and direct manner. This is because this is a military operation, obviously. Wow, though. So refreshing compared to watching a glitchy map flicker while some random voice tells you a name and to "take him out." Also much better than running around while helicopters explode out of the sky while people yell things like "Go go go!" It reminds me of Michael Crichton's "Sphere" or "Andromeda Strain", too, as the alien invasion is looked at from a scientific stand point. So this isn't the most investing story in the world since there's not a lot of humanization and personal struggles going on, but it's effective. XCOM gets a cookie!

This is what I imagine the player character looks like.

I tried the PvP only briefly, as it relies too heavily on scouting for me to become interested. You can just sit still and spam Overwatch until the enemy gets close and you get a free shot at them. I'm too impatient for a waiting game. But it is pretty interesting because you can piece together a small squad using any unit (including aliens but not the human unmanned drone, for some reason) so I can't help but wonder what people will piece together using the limited points allocated to spend on units.

Aliens versus aliens! Who needs humans?

So how did I decide on a lofty score of 3 stars? To be honest, I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I hoped I would. I wasn't entirely in to the stressful nature of worrying about losing things, and I found myself reloading old saves to avoid it (which you can disable by turning on Iron Man mode, if you're the type who plays things like Diablo 2's Hardcore mode). And going back and forth between menus and straight back to combat was streamlined and all, but I wanted a turn-based game to take me on a journey around the galaxy, man. But here's the thing: these were all conscious design decisions and they are work together. The game takes a lot of risks and it works perfectly at what it does. At the end of the day, those are two of the best things to reward in game-making. Also, turn-based combat is fucking awesome.

Conclusion:
Did you play turn-based (PC) games in the 90's? Then you'll love this! AND you can play it on modern consoles! Or maybe you didn't, but you want something very different from the usual shooters and action games that flood the markets today. If you're a big gamer and love numbers and tactics, this could tickle your Elmo just as well!

I forgot to name a member of my squad "Will Smith." Nuts!

Bonus notes!

It's fun to name your squad members. It's so odd that there's an instant attachment when you personally name something, so it certainly adds a lot of flavor to the game. Personally I found myself imagining the careers of these silent drones and how they perceived their life. Here's some of my crew and their stories:

Jeffu "KFC" Kriffhanga - Japanese male - world's greatest sniper. Promoted to Colonel before anyone else. Pretty nice of the aliens to let him shoot them in the head so he can retire as a colonel before 30, huh?

Tits "And Ass" O'Neil - Irish female - it's hard being female and being given the name "Tits." But she doesn't care. Her squad relies on her fast feet and medic skills to prevent them from dying in more than one way. You're welcome, boys.

Steve "AMERICA!" Rogers - American male - a brave soul. A proud motivator. A good friend. He can't shoot for shit, but he loves tearing up buildings with rockets. And in the end, he gave his life to save the entire human race. Good on you, soldier.

McAbraham "DJ" Rapmaster - Israeli male - the bravest mother fucker in the universe. Through sheer badassery (and rap skills?) he charges into EVERY battle. Most of the time he dodges bullets like he's from the damn Matrix, but he still gets shot up. And the tough son of a bitch made it in the end. The aliens are gone... get some rest, soldier. Psh. I doubt he will.

Boopity "Spumoni" Alfredo Sauce - Italian male - second greatest sniper. Between him and KFC, alien faces didn't stand a chance.

Adolf "I'm Belgian" Not-Hitler - Belgian male - so the Belgian flag and German flag use the same colors. Only one is vertical and the other is horizontal. This and wearing a Hitler 'stache will get people thinking you are Hitler. Good thing his name is "Not-Hitler!" Best buds with Rapmaster, so he can't be a Nazi leader, right?

Mustache Sanchez - Mexican male - the first officer to die in battle. You will be remembered, Mustache.

Børky "Sandvich" Flügenblügen - Norse female - bork bork! Vundi vundi vundi! Bork? Bork bork bork spaghetti bork bork! Bork bork vundi bork!

Fleuxfy "Frenchy" Fleuxiuss - French male - the first man to become a telepath. Whoa.

5 Stupid Things in Video Games That Are Stupid

There are a lot of stupid things in video games: bad writing, sexism, hyper violence, and so on. But those are not unique to video games. Think about that for a second; every single one of those things  can be applied to every form of media. Bad writing? Read "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (he's famous right? Whatever books!). Sexism? Try anything on TV that isn't WWE (everyone is a piece of meat! Equal!). Hyper violence? Go see "Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare (that is, if it were being performed any where). Also, some of those things can be fun (just switch the order to WWE, The Scarlet Letter, and Titus Andronicus, respectively).

So here I'm hitting the best medium in the face with some stupid things. And unlike Fox News and your parents, I actually play the damn things. Expect some really specific shit! Like...

5. Last Level is a Volcano

Looks stable enough to build an evil lair in, right?

Offenders: Resident Evil 5, Borderlands 2

Apparently someone in the video game industry saw a James Bond film 30 years ago and decided that this was the best place to have a duel to the death AND that it would never get old. And how deadly is lava if you can build catwalks over it and spend years carving out the mountainside like no one's business? Here's a tip: if you are close to lava, you will explode into flames. And everyone knows that. Also: inactive volcanoes are inactive, and active ones are to be avoided (see above picture).

When I get to a level where there's lava all around me, I instantly think, "Welp, guess it's time to fight the last boss." I get that it's a rather climactic scene, but by hell it's so cliche it's like "the chicken and the egg" now. Which came first? And is that phrase or this concept more cliche? I can't tell.

4. Exploding Barrels

I keep at least 4 of these in my bedroom, don't you?

Offenders: Half-Life, Doom, Uncharted, Every Shooter Ever

Dear Exploding Barrel Factory,

Why do you make these barrels? Who does your marketing to make such a useless product so very in-demand? I sincerely hope you advise your employees not to shoot guns at each other around the workplace, as such has proven to be so very popular by your consumers, because that would certainly ruin your entire business in one shot.

Whatever the case, you've killed far more bad guys than any one-man-army hero-type has ever done. So that makes you the world's greatest super hero. Good on you, buddy.

And what substance is it that explodes instantly on contact with bullets? We're all so very curious.

P.S. How do you convince your customers that these make great cover against gunfire? I mean, who else would tell them that?

3. Unnecessary Penalties for Death

Here's a picture of an unnecessary death penalty, waka waka! Please no political commentary.

Offenders: World of Warcraft, Too Human, Every Sandbox Game Ever

Very few games treat death in a realistic sense. I don't want to get into the whole conundrum of infinite henchmen who throw their lives away for pennies on the dollar. Rather, I'm talking about the player character specifically. Diablo 2 has a hardcore mode where death is permanent and if a player wants to keep playing he or she will need to start from the beginning. XCOM: Enemy Unknown has an iron man mode where the player is forced to rely on auto-saves and cannot save manually; thus any mistakes made in the game are not correctable. But every game is forced during the design stages to consider how to make players understand- nay- FEEL the fact that they have truly failed when they die. In the old days, the cost was very real: 25 cents straight out of your real life pocket. Because of laziness, this carried over into home gaming systems by giving players a limited number of lives. In fact, Nintendo still does this in many games because they're old fogies who don't know what the hell they're doing.

Here's another free tip, gaming industry: you don't have to do anything. Look at games with manual saves, like The Elder Scrolls. In such games, the player is told he or she is now dead and will have to revert to a previous save. That's it. Take a game like World of Warcraft, where there is no manual save, and the developers are forced to get creative: the fight resets, the player is sent miles away to a graveyard, their gear takes damage that costs in-game money to repair, and enemies respawn. Holy shit! That's easily two extra things, if not three. Players are more afraid of death in WoW than real life. Just watch them chug Mountain Dew and Cheetoes dust, you know I'm right. When I used to play, everyone constantly complained about it and the fear of failure shaped what players were willing to even attempt.

It's like developers have some sort of existential crisis when pondering the meaning of death in their game. Like, they get high and start saying things like "far out" and "whoa" for that design meeting. Seriously, guys. Figure it out. When you tell us that we've lost... WE GET IT. Just let us get back to having some Goddamn fun already.

2. Patience Equals Difficulty

The next "Ninja Gaiden", folks.

Offenders: World of Warcraft, God of War, Fight Night

Pacing is a big deal to me. It's a big deal to video games, as well, being founded on the concept of instant gratification. But I'm not even talking about that. Games that are slow like Lords of Shadow and every-JRPG-ever are fine and understandable to me. I'm not talking about that. No, these are games that make the player wait in various ways as part of the actual freaking gameplay.

In WoW, everything is a time commitment. See an item you want? A good player can figure out how many times they have to do X to get Y before Z can happen. And sometimes there are many more steps than that! In games like God of War, the game will just abruptly stop. And you're forced to figure out what can be clicked and where before you can continue. Fight Night furthers something that occurs in every game by requiring the player to wait on an opening to make their move. Which is like boxing, sure, but it penalizes the aggressive too heavily. Land 100 clean and mean hooks on your opponent? That's nice, try landing ONE counter-punch some time. It'll win you the fight.

Put it this way: if Grand Theft Auto made the cops chase after you for running a red light, getting in a collision, or driving on the sidewalk would you play it? Probably not since at that point you'd have to drive safely. And who the hell would want to do that in a video game? No one. Because patience is for dealing with real life, and video games are for going nuts in pretend land.

1. The Silent Protagonist

Thank you, Cast Away, for not featuring an hour and a half or more of solid silence.

Offenders: Fallout 3, Crisis 2, Borderlands 2

I'm referencing "Cast Away" because the makers of that film must have come to the realization at some point that no one would watch a movie where a guy just silently lives on an island by himself for a few years. So they gave him lines of dialogue and a beach ball named "Wilson." What'd they get for it? Several Oscars. Or maybe zero Oscars, I don't remember. Look it up if you're so curious.

The people who make video games, conversely, seem to think having the player being some kind of mute person is a good idea. The idea behind it is that the player will more easily think of themselves being in the game or some stupid shit. I'm actually curious: does ANYONE like or prefer this? When everyone around you talks and asks you to do shit and you just idly stand there and accept what you're told without a word? It's not like you can yell at your TV and have them hear you (maybe Kinect can bring this feature to life, eh?). So for me, I don't feel like I'm imagining myself as actually in the game. No, what I imagine is some dopey guy standing there with his mouth agape who simply nods his head when the smart people are talking. Or Harpo Marx. Either way, my character seems kinda goofy.

Seriously, what is this shit? In the old days, it was just limitations in the hardware and software. Or limitations in the narrative. When I was a kid, a "cutscene" consisted of seeing a girl getting punched in the stomach and then the two playable characters chased after her (Double Dragon). Nowadays, you got games like Metal Gear Solid 4 that have like 93 hours of cutscene footage where people only speak in weird, incoherent sentence fragments.

We have games like Mass Effect and Uncharted now where players get to enjoy actual conversations. I know video games are pretty far behind in terms of quality writing. Those two examples have some of the best the medium has to offer, and they're still on par with B movies... or "dumb action" movies at best. But look at Halo and Gears of War: the first one stars a faceless, bio-engineered mutant man and the second is a cast of men made of blocks of meat. But they all still talk. Those games made money, right? No more silent protagonists! Say something!

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

Rating: 3 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)
Genre: Puzzle; Sub-genre: Turn-based RPG
ESRB: E10
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 40/30
Developer: Capybara Games
Wiki page

As far as I know, the only people who use handhelds are women, children, and Japanese people. So I had no idea this game even existed until it one day was being advertised on XBox Live Arcade as it had just been ported over (it has since also been ported to Steam). I'm not really sure how I even came to take a gamble on this game. I guess I just felt like I was ignoring the potential of XBLA or something. But I downloaded the trial, and that sold me enough to immediately get the whole game. That felt like an especially good decision since I was giving my money towards a game that is both out of the spotlight AND gave them encouragement to not just settle on being a handheld title. Those of you who love JRPG's probably know the feeling all too well that the genre just doesn't feel alive when it's hidden away on tiny screens.

Who does this? This is almost as painful as reading a book! Jesus!

The game itself is hard to define. I chose to describe it as a Puzzle game first, since that aspect stands out the most and RPG fans will immediately notice it. But the framing of the game is that of an RPG, and the "combat" is turn-based. This can lend itself to having qualities that would offend fans of each genre, but if it clicks for you then it will click HARD. Now I'm not a frequent puzzle game player, but there have been a few in the past I've enjoyed: Portal, Tetris, Bust-a-Move... the big ones, basically. And I respect them as a valid genre. So much so that I refer to the puzzles in games like God of War, Resident Evil, and all point-and-click adventure games as "non-puzzles." So I get the appeal, unlike things like sports games or racing games. And obviously I enjoy RPG's... who doesn't? I drool over turn-based strategy, too, but I'll try to avoid talking about that too much.

Fuck reaction time. Taking 40 minutes to analyze a single move is hot.

The gameplay is kept incredibly basic: you move the avatar along set tiles like some kind of board game and run into assholes to destroy. It really doesn't deviate from that. There's some minor ways you can explore, and there's bonus puzzles (these have no combat) as well. This game focuses on story and combat. The beefy gameplay hours come from the fact that combat can last a pretty long time. I'd wager something like 30 minutes for a long match. A short match is probably like five to ten minutes. The puzzle nature of the combat is simply matching colors of units together, but there are many types of units to choose from and different combo's and items to use. It's very high on the idea of being easy to learn but difficult to master. It's very rewarding for that OCD/Autistic mentality of RPG gaming. You know? Cuz it's like: "You matched the colors! You get to fuck shit up!" All it needs is some kind of inventory management and a bonus for making a symmetrical attack pattern and it'll probably GIVE people these mental issues.

I MATCHED ALL THE THINGS TO THE OTHER THINGS. I AM NOW GOD.

The story is surprisingly effective. I mean, it's stupidly simplistic. It has this feel of: Gryphons come from Gryphonland, bad guys from from Demontown, you should fight bad guys because you're good and they are bad. Everything is so blunt and obvious. But it works! The voice acting is there and there's an inkling of personality to the characters and the story has a logical arc to follow. So I give it a thumbs up. And the factions have a good variety to them: humans, elves, undead, demons, desert people. All straight-forward, yes, but each one has a different visual style, fighting strategy, and personality so they become investing if you want to try to pick a favorite.

There's also hot anime chicks. Ha ha! Her hair is made of fire... *cough*

I tried playing the online head-to-head and I don't believe the game is totally balanced. I found myself running into the same unstoppable strategy a couple of times. Maybe I'm not the best at it, though. Plus I'm one of those people who uses an underdog character and then complains when I lose. So there's that. But even then, it boils down to luck; getting the right units and the right colors to come to you at the right time since it's all randomized. That ultimately caused me to stop playing. That and the long time to find a match that started occurring (which is likely much worse now). At the same time, I do feel it is a strongly designed combat system. It's at least way better than any card game out there.

1. Buy a powerful card no one has. 2. Lose before seeing card in hand. 3. Sadness.

Conclusion:
If you like matching things to other things, strategy, and a simple but effective story then this game is a lot of fun! If you need realistic graphics, gore, and machine guns then you'll probably hate it, heh.

Because it has a start and end, it'll give you less nightmares than this game. Seriously, this game gives me nightmares.

Borderlands 2

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)
Genre: First Person Shooter; Sub-genre: RPG
ESRB: M (For a lot of blood and innuendos)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 40/20
Developer: Gearbox Software
Wiki page

I was looking forward to this game all year. And it is great. But I've chosen to ding it for several reasons. I could argue that most of these stem from things that I wanted to see improved from the first game, but they all affect the overall game. The big issues I have are going to ring true for everyone. It hurts me to give this game less than three stars, but as I am closing in on finishing my second playthrough I feel strongly about it. If I had to pick one central reason that forced me to give this lower rating it would be this: enemy design. I'll try to touch on as many things as I can, but this one thing sours the whole experience. Basically, the game whittles down to sniping. Like... all the time. Any time you are not sniping? Your ability needs to be off cooldown or you're going to use "consumables" (rockets and grenades, there are no health potions). Failing that, you'll have to exploit the "Fight for your life" game mechanic. Just pray that your enemies don't arbitrarily run away from you the SECOND you get downed. This could potentially be fixed in future patches... sorta. Tweaking numbers and such. But even then the AI would not be well executed. Let's get down to why.

This should probably be "another wind" or something. How many "seconds" can you have?

So here's how shooters work: either projectiles are slow and clumsy so the player can dodge them (think old school games like Contra or maybe some of Doom) or they are fast and deadly, turning the game into a semi-realistic firefight relying on cover (like Call of Duty). In Borderlands you can FEEL that the game wants you to get in there and fight toe-to-toe with stuff, but bullets hurt a hell of a lot and there are always a ton of bad guys with a ton of health. Also, these bad guys move really Goddamn fast and lose none of their accuracy while dancing around. BUT if you run away from everything to sniping distance? They take cover and stay nice and still for ya. And guess what? Their aim is just as good when using cover. However, their artificial inaccuracy (that is, the statistic given to them to make their shots have randomized trajectories as they otherwise can instantly lock on to you visually) renders them completely ineffective at range. What does this mean? It means you're invincible when you snipe, but made of paper when you get any where near them. Enemies don't flinch reliably when hit with damage either.

It's hard to focus when things hit you in the face as this album cover shows.

Now listen: I'm not complaining that the game is too hard. It's actually relatively easy... so long as you use sniper rifles a lot. But my point is that enemies don't seem to have logical design to them. In all of these previous sentences, I've basically been talking about the "Marauder". It's like the most basic bad guy. He just has a dinky little gun, low health, and runs around like a normal guy. And he's pretty damn threatening if he gets up close to you. I upgraded my shields from about 5000 to 16000 at some point and STILL found myself dying in a split second up close with this guy. But that was during my second playthrough, which is supposed to be harder. The last boss, who is built up as an unstoppable death machine (this isn't a spoiler, just common sense as far as bosses go), is kind of a push over. It took me a lot of effort to beat him, but he was kind of a weakling. I think I could say that about all the bosses. Without analyzing every unit in the game, I'll just talk about one more: Hyperion Sniper. The name suggests he'd be good at range and maybe bad at melee, right? Wrong! This mother fucker is so good at hipfire and combat rolling you will be long dead by the time you realize you're surprised! And at range? He misses all the time, especially if you strafe side to side. It just feels to me like every enemy was approached with zero thought on playability and fun. Watch out for Stalkers and Constructors!

It never stops shooting. Never. After it's dead you'll still hear missiles exploding for like ten seconds.

The weapons are improved from the first game, sure, but... not enough. The weapon tooltips are more detailed, but important stats like recoil and stability are still a mystery. Hell, you can't even tell if something has a scope now unless you look at the actual gun while it's in your hands. That's just clumsy, man. And they went out of their way to give every brand a flavor. It's a nice touch, but it means you'll instantly hate weapons just by seeing the brand. Typically I avoid Hyperion and Dahl guns at all times. I love Vladof, but good stats are hard to come by and the spinny assault rifles suck. Jacobs is only good for sniper rifles. Tediore is only good for shotguns (personal taste). Torgue is terrible for everything except launchers. And Maliwan is pretty damn awesome. Their guns are designed around the elements, and elements are fucking useful! Except shock. Shock is still pretty lame. Although in the second playthrough you'll find enemies with shields more frequently, but you need another gun once their shields are down. Why does the bonus only apply when their shields are up? Why not always get a bonus against enemies with shield capabilities? And why did they introduce a new element (slag) when they still had a lame one? In the previous game, you eventually ran into Eridians who had high shields but low health. There is no such enemy in this game. So again: enemy design.

They give you a handy tutorial to explain how totally useful shock is!

Another "big improvement" is the story. This is actually a really funny thing to comment on. Not because the game is full of humor, but from like an intellectual examination perspective. For a game that relies so heavily on "dick and fart" type humor, it handles story less clumsily than a lot of games. Like every Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, Resistance... just to name a few. I point this out because there's characters, goals, arcs, and twists. It's still stupid as hell, but many games don't even attempt these things. Although there are enemies with no explanation (like the bandit Goliaths who randomly have Resident Evil 4 powers... is there an infection and only they got it? Huh?), I think I'll blame the enemy design team for that since they suck. Unfortunately I can't actually praise this as a fully positive mark in the game. Not because the plot is stupid. It's totally fine that it's stupid. But it doesn't fit the tone of the game. Too much melodrama, anger, desperation, and such. I get that it's a planet filled with psychopaths, bandits, and unscrupulous corporations but it's shown as such a fun adventure that none of that stuff feels good at all. Plus they made the old characters into important NPC's so we could learn about them or something. But the new characters are silent while everyone else now talks. What the hell! So then maybe in the NEXT game will these characters get to talk? Just give the character we control a damn voice!

My commando, Super Fucker, likes to listen. That is what I have derived of his personality.

I'm sorry I'm complaining so much. It's not making sense that I gave this game two stars instead of one, is it? Well, there is a reason I've pumped so many hours into this game: it's still pretty fun. And it's clear they did a lot of work in a short development cycle for a game with so much stuff in it. I'm just... so tired of sniping, man. I've been forcing myself to not use sniper rifles lately. It's harsh. I die a lot to stupid bullshit, which is frustrating. I've been studying the terrible enemy design to see how terrible it is since everything acts similarly stupid to sniper rifles. Ugh. There's so many little things I'd do differently. Like the Y button! It's useless! Use the D-pad to switch weapons, the Y button is just going to slow you down! And why are shotguns so crappy? They should provide a definitive advantage at close range over other weapons, not provide marginally better DPS if you find something big enough that all the pellets will hit! Jesus. I can't review this game. I've become too close. Call it a wash.

I'm off the case! Other cop drama cliches!

Conclusion:
You probably already own this game and love it. You also know I'm right. Think about it! But there's a shit load of DLC coming out. I'll continue playing then, but XCOM: Enemy Unknown is coming out very soon. Wooo-wee!

If my "censor gore" is off how come there's no dismemberment in this game? Agh! Can't stop complaining!

Extra Note!

Here's a little something I wanted to point out that's nifty about this game series that I don't think people have really noticed: female characters. It goes without saying that video games have real trouble with female characters. Being that the industry takes so much profit from the male population, it's more concerned with making them into hood ornaments than living, breathing people. You'd think a game series like Borderlands would be a big offender with all it's inappropriate humor, but no! Not really, anyway. There are actually quite a few female characters in the story, and a lot of them are kinda cool for reasons other than "having tits". Here's a list of girls who are important, not whorishly dolled up, and have as much complexity as a game about shooting retards can afford:

-Helena Pierce
-Athena
-Ellie
-Tiny Tina
-Patricia Tannis
-Gaige

Here's three more who fit that bill, but are made out to be more attractive than maybe necessary (although these can be tied to lore reasons, I guess):
-Lilith
-Maya
-Angel

And here's the list of whores:
-Moxxie

Mind you, she's an actual whore. Even then, she's a mother of two (perhaps more?) and arguably has layers.

You also run into NPC's from time to time who seem to fit the atmosphere more realistically than one would expect from a video game (like T.K. Baha's daughter). And remember: I'm not saying these characters are like... super feminist ideals or anything. Just that they're not total trash.

Sorry this is such a weird thing to bring up. Felt compelled to ... probably because I'm still in the process of playing Kingdoms of Amalur where the average female NPC looks like this:

5 Video Games I Wish Existed

In lieu of XCOM: Enemy Unknown coming out next week, I've been given the power to dream. If such an old-school piece of work can come out seemingly just for me, what else is the industry holding out on me? Or for others? I don't know about you, but I got a billion ideas already I wish would come into existence. Here's five of 'em. I put them in ascending order according to how much money they'd bring you, video game industry. What's great is that these are all already pre-established things. So you can just take 'em and rake in the dough!

You're welcome.

5. American Warriors (or Dynasty Warriors USA)

Dynasty Warriors grew stale about five or ten sequels ago. But it never fully captured a perfect iteration for me. What better way to re-introduce the franchise than to tackle a new country! Just use everyone's favorite: America! From George Washington winning the American Revolution single-handedly, to Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves single-handedly, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt winning all of World War II... still single-handedly. It's Dynasty Warriors, people. Armies are useless compared to a single hero!

The vast changes to the world during the short 236 year history would provide some great set pieces, too. From the cold shores of the Colonies in 1776 to the dense jungles of Vietnam and then to the mean streets of the city where Ronald Reagan would fight the war on drugs with his fists.

KOEI/Omega Force could even spice things up with the added attention from the controversy of using Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a playable character (despite his being a pacifist). He'd be great! He'd use the power of his voice and be like, "I HAVE A DREAM!" and then the racists would collapse and cry, "I'm swayed to your point of view!"... and then they'd die for no reason from it. Cuz it's a video game.

4. Mass Effect Turn Style RPG

Alright, so this entry is a lot less funny. But think about it! BioWare made Baldur's Gate back in the day. While that used "pausable realtime" combat and not turn-based... they could do it! And you know it!

Also, XCOM triggers me to think about this possibility. Whatever, I'll just leave it at this.

3. Silver Surfer: Ace Philosopher

Phoenix Wright found his way into American handheld devices, but over in Japan these talking games are a much bigger deal. They're fucking all over the place. They involve things ranging from dating sims, to gay dating sims, to pornographic dating sims. The possibilities of this genre are endless!

And anyone who knows Silver Surfer knows that he's ridiculously powerful. Like, almost as powerful as Superman was in the 70's. Naturally, he uses those powers the best way he can: by talking. All we need is to bring back Tim Follin to do the soundtrack and we've got ourselves the next Ace Attorney!

2. Fallout-esque Walking Dead

This one is like... too obvious, man. Enough of those bullshit point-and-click adventures. Let us explore the world on foot, scavenge for food, do quests, and make decisions. Decisions like "help this family or murder the father and take the women." Oh, I should probably mention that the comic is pretty Goddamn gritty. A large part of it is seeing just how depraved mankind can become given such a circumstance. So that's what we should go through, too!

Hell, in the Fable series you could marry a dozen people and then go pay for sex from hookers while they watch. Granted, it was all left as "implied" by having the screen fade out... but you could still do it! I think I'm getting a little side tracked, um... oh, yeah! There's like, zombies and stuff! So you'd have to deal with those from time to time, too.

I think anyone who's both read the comic and played any game in the Fallout series can see what I'm talking about, though. The little towns of survivors, exploring ruins and wastelands of a dead society, etc. Come on, people. This is easy.

1. Sim Nick Cage

There was this movie called "Being John Malkovich" that came out years ago. One could argue this concept had striking similarities to being a video game: the idea of getting to live the life of another man. It was a good movie, but I think I'd prefer it as an actual video game. Also, I'd prefer it to be about an actor who is actually interesting.

Enter Nick Cage: professional mad man. Some people describe his work as "acting", while others know better. Just think about the Sims franchise. Why be a regular asshole when you could be a SUPER asshole?

Follow Nick on his day-to-day activities of fucking up already bad movies, doing copious amounts of coke, and screaming at the sun. The thing I'd look forward to the most would be decision making. See, most games give you choices like "good" and "evil" paths. And some games force you to decide what you think is best in a situation that's bad either way. This game would be like a roulette wheel of crazy. Here is an example:

The director refers you to page 23 of the script for dialogue. Do you:

A: Scream the lines at the top of your lungs regardless of their inflection?
B: Speak them softly regardless of inflection, but in contrast to your words flail your arms around?

And choosing either one would result in the director informing you, "Nick, calm the hell down." From there the spiral could continue: punch the director or run back to your trailer and do more coke? This man is already your fucked up create-a-character from the Sims, folks.