I was wondering how many of the girls around here are gamers. I am a big gamer and I'm proud of it. I'm very fond of console RPGs, platformers, puzzlers and fighting games, as well as pen and paper games like Dungeons & Dragons and BESM. I even had a point in time in which I was addicted to the ever popular World of Warcraft. lol.
I know I get the finger pointed at me by friends and family for being a MTF gamer. They like to question how I could say that I am a female and still enjoy video games. This makes me giggle since I know so many GG gamers. Personally, I have never considered games to be a masculine or feminine hobby, but rather something in between. What are your thoughts, everyone?
First person shooter. Big Red 1, hunting games. Ghost Recon. I was doing WoW till my free trial ran out.
And I use to be a Dungeon Master. Girl Gamers rock. ;D
I'm still into gaming, but my rig sucks (2ghz dual core, 1gb ram, 6800 ultra)
I can still try older ones (Penumbra Collection) but I have to get off my lazy butt and get gaming again first.
>.>
edit: ok I lied a little, I have a PS3 to game with too, although a slim budget for games :(
I played a lot more pre-transition but I don't think my lack of playing has anything to do with transition or estrogen or that "omg-I'm-more-girly-now-and-girls-don't-play-icky-video-games" mentality or anything. I still enjoy fps like GRAW, cod, and stuff like that, I just have about a hundred other things I'd rather do than play video games. I despise rpg and wow and things like that. I don't like science fiction or those future/past universe type games. My favorite games of all time were those Oddworld games like Munch's Odyssey :) Meghan
PS, don't worry about what your friends or family say, hobbies don't make you or define you!
Totally into gaming still, especially strategy games like command and conquer
My ex and I used to play WoW together for hours on end. I'm pretty sure she still plays and she has a larger game collection then I do. nothing wrong with girl gamers.
I like Resident Evil...But mainly the remix for the first one and the 4th and 5th one.
I also like Halo...I've never been a fan of GTA...I don't know--Too graphic and over the top for me.
But I also like The Legend of Zelda, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess being my favorites.
But I do also like games like: Crash Bandicoot, Beyond Good And Evil, Dead to Rights, Clock Tower 3, Enchanted Arms, Haunting Ground and such.
So all in all...I love games besides sports and repetitive grinding games like WoW! :laugh:
I can see games like Call of Duty being inherently masculine, but I've been shot up by girls playing that very game online. :icon_2gun:
Then again, I make an easy target because I'm probably just walking around looking at the pretty map, especially in Halo ("This Covenant ship is so purple and shiny!"). ;D
Anyone here even play Metin2?
WOW if I ever get time to logon :(
What don't I play? Core gamer here I have to play a game everyday. From Demon's Souls to Final Fantasy Series, From Zelda to Mega Man (MM10 rocks) From Soul Calibur to Halo, From BioShock to Ninja Gaiden, I could go on and on, so yea, My PSN name is GoddessCarolyn, and my XBL name is also Goddess Carolyn.
Represent.
I've been playing DnD since I was thirteen and am an avid fan of old school video games. Megaman is the best ever, Metroid, Zelda, Mario Bros., Punch Out, River City Ransom. And, of course I keep up with current games which are really good for a lot of reasons, but generally not as memorable as old games. Except God of War, which comes out tomorrow.
On pc Morrowind, Oblivion, Far Cry 2 ..
On PS3 : Metal Gear Solid 4, Batman Arkham Asylum, inFamous, GTA4, Rock Band and Uncharted 2.
The Uncharted 2 is absolutely awesome, fantastic, the best etc. etc
So nice with 40" led tv and 5+1 good audio system ;D ;D
And I tried to play Assassins Greed 2 on ps3 and hated those controls :eusa_sick: :icon_userfriendly:
every other week I play D&D 3.5ed (I prefer 2nd) and that is a nice escape.
I used to play Eve Online but, now that I have dial-up that is pretty much a no-go. I also play Neverwinter Nights for the PC.
I have a ps2, a Wii and an Xbox 360 but, I only have a couple of games for the Xbox and Wii. I have found the xbox makes a decent media player for my anime (no MKV though). I use it like that far more often then for games
The vast majority of my game time is spent playing ps1 and SNES titles through emulators. I am currently working my way through Final Fantasy 8 again and I am also working my way through Super Metroid again.
Honestly there are only 2 games I am interested in getting, Final Fantasy 13 and Dynasty warriors Gundam 2. I don't know when I will get them though I spend less than 5 hours a week on games so it is a bit hard to justify such a purchase.
I like hunting games, BUT what I have are old, original Duck Hunt and some other game for Nintentdo 64. Was only good at duck hunt. i suppose i am dating my gaming experience.
I play games a lot less now, not sure why just find it more as a waste of time or not in the mood for it.
But I still play World of Warcraft with my boyfriend and I grew on games like Command & Conquer and Warcraft (the strategy ones).
I never liked shooters much, now I rarely play any.. I liked D&D and stuff but I don't get to play it (no one to play with) and I am not sure if I will be as excited anymore.
But I do like to play something every now and then, just not to play alone much.
My bf grrs at the hormones if they are the case for it :D but we still play sometimes so it's ok :)
I want to play the new C&C when it comes out for sure! but probably not as much as I would before.
Favorite games of mine in the last year included Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Mass Effect, Fable 2 Fallout 3 and BioShock 2. Once I move out of this house, though, my roommate's taking the consoles with him, and I'm not buying any systems of my own. There goes that. :-/
@laura91 Usually I just use Pcsx-df from the Ubuntu repositories to rip the games from my and my friends PS1 CDs into .iso files. Then I used PCSX-reloaded (they have a Codeplex page) to play them with my 360 controller. This allowed me to play all of my old copied games (my ps1 had a mod-chip) and all of the games my friends have.
Now for those rare games that I want and neither I nor my friends have such as Castlevania: SOTN (What happened to my old copy!?!) I usually just do a google search for 'game title .iso torrent' and after a few pages I usually find a decent torrent to download from. Fulldls.com is also a decent place to look for torrents.
Unfortunately I only have dial-up right now, so I am not downloading any new games right now unless I goto borders with my netbook.
Like everybody, I used to play WoW. I was actually majorly into it years ago, but I've had zero interest in playing it for a couple of years now. I have never been too much into games besides that one.
Well, Facebook games and Bejeweled being the exceptions =P.
Well, I'm a female-bodied and a gamer, but not exactly a girl. I love pen and paper RPGs and video games. I first started on Vampire: the Masquerade (ha ha I know, I actually still play it) when I was 13, and I've been rolling dice ever since.
As a transgender guy who right now presents as a girl, one of my favorite things about my (otherwise all biomale) gaming group is that they treat me like one of the guys. I don't think they'll be that surprised when I come out to them. They occasionally make fun of me for being masculine as a female, but that makes me feel good because they also accept and even like that about me. Another great thing about them is that it's very common for group members to play characters of the opposite gender-- something which more 'conservative' (i.e. NO GIRLS ALLOWED) gaming groups apparently don't allow. I usually play male characters, but also play females occasionally.
There's still a lot of sexism in the gaming community (you wouldn't believe how many guys I've talked to who put women on a pedestal and simultaneously bash 'slutty girls'), but I hope that as gaming becomes more accessible to girls over the years, more girls will get involved and break down assumptions. :)
Honestly, while roleplaying can be a great way to have silly and/or dramatic fun, I think that it's a real relief for some transpeople to be able to play their real gender with no discrimination. At least for me it is-- since I never pass as male, it's an opportunity to be seen and treated as male, even if it's only in a fictional setting.
I only play computer games if my friends play them I see it as a way to spend time with them. I'm not great at computer games and am abit of a slow learner and won't play or practice by myself but it dose embarrass my friends when I eventually surpass them, Usually we stop playing that game then. ^_^ I don't mind.
Well lets see... on steam alone:
Valve's entire library, crysis, crysis warhead, Civ4, unreal 1, 2, 2004, 3, unreal gold, several HL2 mods, dragon age origins, KotoR 1&2, jedi knight/outcast/academy Then outside of steam Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Starcraft 2 beta, Age of Empires 1/2/3 Age of Mythology and it continues for another 20 gigs or so :P
Yeah I guess I would count as a girl gamer :angel:
Quote from: brainiac on March 16, 2010, 08:56:41 PM
Well, I'm a female-bodied and a gamer, but not exactly a girl. I love pen and paper RPGs and video games. I first started on Vampire: the Masquerade (ha ha I know, I actually still play it) when I was 13, and I've been rolling dice ever since.
As a transgender guy who right now presents as a girl, one of my favorite things about my (otherwise all biomale) gaming group is that they treat me like one of the guys. I don't think they'll be that surprised when I come out to them. They occasionally make fun of me for being masculine as a female, but that makes me feel good because they also accept and even like that about me. Another great thing about them is that it's very common for group members to play characters of the opposite gender-- something which more 'conservative' (i.e. NO GIRLS ALLOWED) gaming groups apparently don't allow. I usually play male characters, but also play females occasionally.
There's still a lot of sexism in the gaming community (you wouldn't believe how many guys I've talked to who put women on a pedestal and simultaneously bash 'slutty girls'), but I hope that as gaming becomes more accessible to girls over the years, more girls will get involved and break down assumptions. :)
Honestly, while roleplaying can be a great way to have silly and/or dramatic fun, I think that it's a real relief for some transpeople to be able to play their real gender with no discrimination. At least for me it is-- since I never pass as male, it's an opportunity to be seen and treated as male, even if it's only in a fictional setting.
Yeah, Brain - the situation in the comics world is similar. Lots of extremely unrealistic depictions of women, lots of sexism, amd female collectors and creators tend not to be taken as seriously. That's been starting to change over time, though; creators like Terry Moore and Neil Gaiman, among others, have led a trend towards more realistic depictions of women, partially by showing that female characters can be attractive without looking or acting like Lara Croft/Tarot/whathaveyou. Of course, indie creators have always been further along on that path - Los Bros Hernandez come to mind - but it's still mostly indie creators who create female characters for their personality and history, not for their bodies.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.comicvine.com%2Fuploads%2F1%2F12878%2F285488-19691-121781-2-tarot--witch-of-the_super.jpg&hash=34c516225598e0b778ec76f2a29434200214a6fc)
And guys
still ask me why I think it is that there are so few women in comics. ::)
I read a really good article by a guy who pointed out that the depictions of men in these things isn't exactly realistic either. It's just that men are generally less inclined to work towards being an uber-muscled extra-macho guy because a comic book or a movie implies that they'd be more awesome if they were because they lack the childhood emotional scarring required for that kind of low self-esteem.
That's a fair point. However, I'd go so far as to say that the exaggeration of female archetypes in mainstream American comics (Marvel, DC, Image etc.) takes on a few dimensions that the exaggerated male archetypes don't:
-Sexualization, particularly when it is a primary trait and especially when personality traits and other non-physical attributes are molded to fit a sexy archetype (badass girl fighter, sexy big-bosomed sorceress, innocent girl next door who's actually a superheroine, etc.).
-Exoticisation, and the general tendency to depict women as an unfathomable "other." I've noticed that many mainstream American comics featuring female main characters make little effort to get into the female lead's head, to get the reader to put themselves in her shoes. Compare this to, say, Batman or Spider-Man, in which the whole point is that the reader is in on the superhero's secrets: Spidey is really just dweeby Peter Parker, constantly lorded over by his tyrant of a boss. Batman is really Bruce Wayne, a man who can afford to buy anything but is perpetually self-isolated, stunted in his emotional communication, trapped in his own fame and wealth. Lara Croft gets closer to this than other heroine leads, but in the end she's still just an Ass-Kicking Woman; other characters, like Brian Pulido's Lady Death and War Angel, don't seem to have any personality or dimension at all, and we're certainly not supposed to get inside their heads. We're supposed to stare at them, and salivate; that's what they're there for.
-Male gaze. The exaggerated archetypes of maleness are men's own archetypes, coming out of male culture and made by and for men. The exaggerated archetypes of femaleness are also men's, also come out of male culture, and are also made by and for men. These aren't exaggerated archetypes of women's ideas of what it means to be a woman. In fact, they have very little to do with female self-image as far as I can tell.
Of course, these characteristics by no means describe all major female characters in the mainstream American comics world, but they describe so many of them that it just turns me off from the whole thing.
I definitely agree with your points, PanoramaIsland, and I've seen the same things happen in video games.
Another point is that in our society, women are supposed to be objects and men are supposed to be subjects. Like you said about the male gaze, the male characters are to be identified with, not for the presumed male reader to compare himself to.
And there's always the idea that women should be judged primarily on their appearance, while men can be judged by other things too, like money, job, intelligence. If people think a baby is a girl, they'll praise it as pretty; they'll praise the same baby doing exactly the same things as smart if they think it's a boy. Hell, remember how much the media focused on the female candidates' appearance (and that of the male ones' wives) compared to the male ones in the 2008 election in the US?
(And I'm not trying to argue that men don't face discrimination or that men aren't judged by their appearance. Pleaaaase don't interpret it that way.)
This stuff is so depressing sometimes.