Whaddya mean there’s no She-Hulk?

Thanks to a close friend, I managed to play through some of the Xbox 360 version of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. We had fun—some of the best parts were smashing our way through and listening to the throaty calls of the Hulk: “Hulk always wins!”

I was petty happy with the variety of characters—the most comical team that we put together consisted of Venom, The Thing, Hulk, and Ms. Marvel. But I do have some nitpicks:

--First of all, why were the starter characters specifically chosen? I understand the need to keep the pool small in the beginning as there is a slight learning curve, but I still think they could have given some leeway. I really wasn’t feeling it with the Thor, Spidey, Captain America and Wolverine team up.

--I’ve said this before with X-Men Legends II and I’m saying it again. I think there could be more female characters. I don’t see why there can’t be some gender parity. Moon Knight is in there, but no She-Hulk? Raven, you break my heart. (We have history.) With characters such as the ones I mentioned above, it’s not like they’re hurting for some character recognition. And I say this because it’s often argued that women characters are not used because they’re not as well known by the general public.

--That said, I think it would be fun to have some more B-List and obscure characters. Perhaps as unlockables?

--The storyline, though specifically different from X-Men Legends II, felt exactly like X-Men Legends II. I enjoyed the first X-Men Legends because it focused on a specific character; it didn’t feel too large or generic.

--The character animations are still awkward, and this same problem has plagued this franchise since the beginning. Though small, and not integral to the overall enjoyment factor of the game, I thought it’d be addressed, seeing that I was playing this on a 360.

--Last but not least, for whatever reason, I had trouble distinguishing between friend and foe while fighting. I might need to sit closer to the TV screen.

MiPOesias: The David Trinidad Issue #2

For those of you interested, MiPOesias, an online literary magazine, has published some of my poems. For you geeks out there, two of the three published poems consider super heroics, identity and feminism.

50 Things I Love About Video Games

I'm swiping this from kalinara:

It's been argued before and it'll undoubtedly be argued again, that girls don't read superhero comics. [...] I don't think it should surprise anyone that I disagree with this wholeheartedly. Instead of going on a long, angry rant explaining why, I figured I'd explain what I, a girl and a feminist, personally love about superhero comics.

Her list is wonderful. If you also love comics, you should read the whole list.

In all corners of geek culture, there's a lot of animosity towards women. It can get difficult at times to remember why I'm fighting so hard--I mean, if so much pisses me off about video games and video game culture, isn't it a bit masochistic to be going off about it all the time? When I read kalinara's list, I instantly knew that I had to do one for myself, so that I can reclaim some of my love for gaming. Without further ado, 50 things that I love about video games:

1. Puzzles that hurt my brain
2. Nostalgia
3. Soap operas in outer space
4. Beating stuff up
5. Magic & melee
6. Farming sims for the city girl
7. Playing Wii Sports with the parents
8. Making Miis that resemble pets
9. Brother/sister rivalry
10. Significant other rivalry
11. Raising Pokemon
12. Combos
13. Zombie dogs scare the crap out of me
14. Kirby is damn cute
15. Character customization
16. Old gaming consoles aka I still love the Sega CD
17. Dungeon crawling with a friend
18. Entertainment during unemployment
19. Staying up until 3 am just to beat Baten Kaitos, only to have to work at 8 the next day
20. Sneaking in some DS during work (bathroom stalls: ftw)
21. Voice acting: good and awful
22. Rhythm games and J-Pop
23. Epic boss bottles
24. Falling asleep while leveling
25. Androgynous men
26. Strong women
27. Cyborgs and robots
28. Partaking in a feedback loop
29. Sad endings
30. Cell-shaded graphics
31. Sprites
32. Mario mushrooms
33. Sega vs Nintendo vs Microsoft vs Sony
34. Being a doctor, lawyer, mercenary
35. Item management
36. Seeking out every single piece of hidden treasure
37. Bonding with a frienemy after beating a game together
38. Jade
39. The original versions of Lunar and Lunar 2
40. Pikmin
41. Swords
42. Umbrellas as weapons
43. Dynasty/Samurai Warriors will always be the same
44. Leon styled after a French underwear model
45. Thumb cramp
46. Plot twists
47. Tales of, Dragon Quest, Xeno
48. “Don't get cocky, cause it's gonna get rocky”
49. Hold on, just one more level…
50. Saving the world

Depression and Art

I’ve been enjoying Planet Karen for quite awhile now and this comic was no exception:

In fact, this comic really affected me, for a lot of reasons.

I felt prompted to say something, so I clicked over to the Girl-wonder.org boards and wrote

Today's comic is heart wrenchingly beautiful. I'm going through something
similar right now. Depression is simply awful.

And Betty hit it all right on the head:

I'm really impressed that you could use that to make a comic, Karen. When I'm
like that it's usually a battle to brush my teeth. I really appreciate that you
don't flinch back from talking about mental health. I think it's a bit of a
taboo, which doesn't really help you when you're already feeling like you're
alone and isolated.

Depression is hard to discuss, and is even more difficult to capture in art. There are not enough heartfelt attempts out there, and god knows I can’t write about it. Depression is even more difficult to respond to. I was taken aback by some of the other comments in the forum that “there’s nothing beautiful about depression” (I understand the sentiment, but who was saying that it is?) and that all that depressed folks need to do is to add some omega-3 to their diets. As though, for many of us, we haven’t tried everything imaginable: drastic diet changes, yoga, St. John’s Wort, anti-depressants, therapy. I’m not saying that any of those options aren’t helpful--they are. It’s just that treating depression is a process; there’s no quick fix available. Suffering from it is hard enough, but it’s exacerbated because depression is taboo, and too often those who haven’t or aren’t dealing with it make flippant (though well meaning) comments that add insult to injury.

We need more people to unflinchingly address this issue. We need people like Karen.