Pete: http://www.last.fm/user/BremXJones
I don’t listen to everything on my last.fm music player though. A load of CDs. A load of Myspace and Youtube pages too.

KG

Like Loughborough.

But that doesn’t explain why people responded to it.

That I started it?

KG

Though you do see a lot of Witch Hunters shooting their pistols in RVR quite a lot. But that’s because it slows down fleeing opponents (very important to stop fleeing casters and flag carriers) and sometimes because it’s all you can do at the moment (when your feet get stapled to the ground by one of those bastard spellcasters for example).

Concerning Warrior Priests: If there’s a problem with people not using the class’ potential to it’s fullest, it’s usually because they mistake themselves for tanks and forget to heal their party members and not the other way round..

But all in all, the article is spot on. I know that my first reaction when a Black Orc or Chosen comes charging at my Witch Hunter is to turn tail and run – “My puny blade will never be able to hurt this behemoth!”. It was a purely psychological reaction based on the sheer size and brutality of the model, not any logical thinking on my side.

During my last few RVR scenarios I’ve begun to actually stand my ground against tanks (but only if there are allies around – I still don’t take them on 1on1) and lo and behold, I can actually kill them every now and then.

Did you know she’s a bit of a gamer? Apparently she’s into Medal Of Honour 2: Heroes and good old Mario Kart, among other things. See here.

More importantly will the Singles Club feature the 30 page wank Undress Me Robot writers were waiting for?

Aside: Wank is unrecognised by my spell checker. I was sure it would have learnt it by now.

John Keefer of Crispy Gamer trying to start a debate on whether Embargos hold back games journalism in a harmful way. I’m not entirely on side with John with a couple of key points, but it’s worth thinking about what he’s saying.

I’d like to hear what you think, Kieron. Most of us (including myself) are still people standing on the outside looking in, so it’d be interesting to hear a different perspective from within the industry.

As a Member Of The Public I do find the whole ‘exclusive review’-thing more than slightly insane.

I mean, generally, when you encounter a line like: “What could possibly possess anyone to create such a game?” that’s usually a sign that the person doing the analysis “doesn’t get it,” almost, but not quite as compelling as guys with boobie-avatars declaring that they know what sexism is.

Uncharitable readings only serve to weaken the particular argument while circumstantially weakening all the others. For example,

He states that the things he finds interesting are things “that most people don’t talk about.” Imagery of the vagina/woman as a threat to the existence of the penis/man? That’s called misogyny, and people do talk about it. The fact that he can say that “most people don’t talk about” the themes evoked by the imagery in his game reveals that he is speaking from a position of male privilege. He can choose to be blind to misogyny because hatred towards women doesn’t affect his existence or identity.

What kind of response would we expect the game author to give from that? “# you. Don’t go visiting my intentions. Ever.”?

Here’s a more enlightening exegesis that reinforces the core thesis without the need to accuse the game designers of being a clueless yoniphobes and phallocrats:

The game itself is a commentary on the antifeminist subtext of “Boss battles” that has been structurally present since the beginning. Compare the repugnant depiction of the female pudenda with some of the collections of classic video game bosses. Cunt clearly has artistic ties to many of them. In fact, Cunt points out what’s been going on for nearly three decades, without discussion: that the “evil bosses” that trap the player, preventing him (for the player is masculinized in these neighborhoods) from going forward, is almost always vaginized. The Cunt boss is a dead ringer for the box-art depiction of Karateka’s Akuma, and it gets worse from there.

So, yes, the game Cunt, whether the creators intended to or not, points out to us that running underneath a transgenre videogame convention pulls a strong current of misogyny and gynophobia. Indeed, that’s what makes those encounters so emotionally powerful to the (males) they are targeted at.