Tag Archives: Ubisoft

Weekend Reading List: Night witches and world-changing kisses

assasins-creed-unity-release-date-ps4-xbox-one-578-80 copy copy

And the almost requisite video game content!

  • Lesbian kisses change the world, you guys! The New Yorker has the story of how an unplanned lady kiss got The Sims made, and it’s such a fun idea that I’m not even going to let “I guess straight guys that make sports games loved the idea of controlling two lesbians” ruin my mood.
  • Final Fantasy XIV will also be allowing same-sex relationships in the game. [Kotaku]
  • There’s a new Feminist Frequency video out! This time the incomparable Anita Sarkeesian takes on “Women as Background Decoration” in her “Tropes vs. Women in Games” series.
  • There’s a Bea Arthur game. THERE’S A BEA ARTHUR GAME. (And no, my excitement doesn’t stem from the fact that I just watched the Golden Girls series finale and sobbed like a little child. Don’t be absurd.) [NewNowNext]
  • In a super disappointing, eyestrain-causing (due to the overzealous rolling of said eyes) move, Ubisoft won’t be including any female protagonists in Assassin’s Creed Unity because “women are too difficult to animate.” Autostraddle has info about the initial shitshow, GameSpot talks about a former Ubisoft developer who’s poking major holes in the company’s excuse that adding playable women would have added a significant amount of work, The Escapist explores the game’s French Revolution setting and why, historically-speaking, women should actually be included, and #WomenAreTooHardToAnimate over on Twitter is great.
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Weekend Reading List: Subverted damsels and DC stupidity

it implies an actual marriage

  • Legend of Korra season two premieres today! At 7pm! Here is a trailer to get you properly excited.
  • Please for the love of god read Princess Princess, a 44-page webcomic about, well, a princess saving another princess.
  • The Mary Sue has a great review of The Gamers: Hands of Fate, a movie about a collectible card game tournament that is delightful. It’s the third instalment of what is now a trilogy, though the other two films (Dorkness Rising and JourneyQuest) focus on RPGs. I loved it a lot for its geekiness (I may or may not have watched all three in one day) but also because Hands of Fate deals with geek misogyny in a really refreshing way. Watch it here!
  • Assassin’s Creed: Liberation is being revamped for Xbox, Playstation and PC, and will be available next year. Main character Aveline de Grandpré (holy intersections Batman! A woman of colour!) was originally the star of some downloadable content for Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, before becoming the protagonist of Liberation. The problem was that Liberation was only available on the PS Vita, and was barely marketed. So it’s amazing that fans managed to show enough support to compel Ubisoft to rerelease the game on more popular platforms, and with additional content. And here’s an interview with Jill Murray, who worked on both titles, where she talks about scriptwriting for games. [The Mary Sue/The Border House]
  • This week I’ve somehow found my way back to some older articles that are still very relevant, chief among them Polygon’s feature on queer indie games. They go into a lot of detail about everything from the history of queer games to the Twine subculture. It’s really great.
  • Another oldie but goodie is this piece on the history of women warriors. It’s a beautifully written article that challenges the idea that women are always either the victims or the spoils of war. There is also a llama analogy. [A Dribble of Ink]
  • You didn’t think I wouldn’t mention Batwomangate, did you? Of course not. DC has had a bad time of it this past little while. And by “bad” I mean “it doesn’t seem like anyone over there has two braincells to rub together.” First, the writers of Batwoman left the company, citing constant editorial changes and DC’s unwillingness to let Batwoman marry Maggie Sawyer (despite two separate proposals) as the reason for their departure. Publisher Dan DiDio tried to backpedal, but io9 lays out exactly why his excuses are rubbish. Second, the company announced a contest in which one lucky artist will win a job at DC by drawing supervillain Harley Quinn essentially killing herself by sitting naked in a bathtub surrounded by electric appliances (happy National Suicide Prevention Week, by the way). Head over to the Daily Dot for more details. ThinkProgress has a good breakdown of how tone-deaf these decisions make DC look, and Bitch also reminds us about a recent incident at FanExpo, and the sore spot that is DC’s hiring of Orson Scott Card. There’s a reason that Has DC Comics Done Something Stupid Today is a website that exists.
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