#soycraticmethod

I haven’t stopped raving about Japanese adventure games from the 80′s for the last couple of days. The trail of this madness is littered all over my twitter right now (no doubt making people wonder “who is this person, what have they done to Soycrates, and why will they not shut up about old games?”) but I thought I should collect/edit it here, in one space, perhaps to contain the wild beast and put it to rest for good. Come down the rabbit hole of PC-88 era fiction with me!

There was a huge boom of sci-fi, cyberpunk and detective graphic adventure games in Japan on the PC-8800 series that deserve to be seen and experienced by a Western audience, and it kills me so few of these have translations. I’ve been cataloging a good dozen of these games this week to search for them later on (and leaving my criteria of what deserves to be on the list loose, hoping not to cut any secret gems from my search), though I am likely to find that the majority of the games on my list have not yet, nor ever will be, translated for an English audience.

Some of these games were lucky enough to make the PC-console jump over to the Nintendo Famicom. But as the NES gained popularity in North America, it seems games like these had died off, become fringe, were judged not profitable for a global market perhaps. The force behind narrative-based adventure games that featured science fiction, mystery, thriller, and cyberpunk had arguably migrated from the interactive platform and into a safer environment of animation and manga.

Worldwide, the gaming market was drifting away from welcoming story-telling as a viable form of mainstream, profitable interactive entertainment: technology had pushed the boundaries of gaming far enough to enable what would become some of the most beloved action-platformer and shooter games of all time, such as Contra, Super Mario Bros, and Metroid. The 90′s would see the steady progression of platformers and the palpable rise of the First Person Shooter.

Back before Enix merged with SquareSoft, they were a pretty prominent publisher of this discarded genre (I’ve even previously written about one of these! It was an Enix sci-fi adventure game named Jesus: Dreadful Bio-Monster) although their acknowledgement of these games today - especially for the global market - is basically non-existent as they grew to focus on the RPG format for their games with story elements. Stories had not necessarily left gaming, as many who have played early RPGs will attest - but they had taken on an altogether different form, one interspersed between tactical combat rounds and item fetch quests than trees of dialogue and point-and-click era detective work.

One of the most popular examples of this kind of early adventure game - taking more cues from film than from RPG storytelling methods - comes from outside of Enix: none other than Konami's cult classic Snatcher, written by Hideo Kojima. Snatcher - originally released in 1988 for the PC-8801 and MSX2 computers - was not released to an American audience until its port to the Sega CD in 1994, based on the 1992 remake for the TurboGrafx-16 SuperSystem.  Snatcher is beloved now, especially by Kojima fact-finders and superfans, but the sale of the NA-available Sega CD version is considered to be a commercial failure. It is only speculation, although entirely possible, that this failure could have in part contributed to the diminished production of sci-fi inspired adventure games, being taken as a sign of the West’s disinterest in the graphic adventure game format.

Which is a crying shame, because this is in my humble opinion one of the most imaginative and wild eras of gaming. Think of the weirdest story and you’ll get weirder when you dive into a pool of 80′s graphic adventure games. For example...

In 1986, a JP software house (that joined SquareSoft the same year) produced a mystery-adventure game filled with Casablanca references, time travel, and murder. It stars reporter Jerry Randolph, who uses a time machine to track down the killer of her old friend's scientist father. Pictured above in a field of green is Jerry herself, flanked by a time machine on her right and (what I presume is) the scientist on the left. The game is called Casablanca ni Ai o: Satsujin-sha wa Jikū o Koete, which with my best attempt tells me translates to Love of Casablanca: The Killer Across Space-Time or otherwise phrased Love of Casablanca: The Murderer Beyond Time and Space (While I have done translations of romanized japanese text from the 2015 FromSoft video game Bloodborne, I am very bad at this and bad at catching nuance).

Nevertheless, it does not follow any of the events of the film Casablanca despite so prominently featuring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman on the cover and in the title sequence. It's genuinely just a time-travel murder mystery starring a female reporter as its protagonist. The game may even have its spot in progressive/feminist video game history annals: it released the same year as the very first Metroid game, often touted as one of the first playable female lead/protagonists in video games alongside Toby Masuyo (nicknamed ”Kissy”) from the 1985 shooter Baraduke. Jerry may easily be the first female protagonist outside of the sidescrolling platformer.

Oh, So You Like Women? Name 5 of Their Interests

Men having female friends isn’t a sign of a pro-woman progressive attitude. Men having female friends and knowing about their interests, personalities, beliefs, etc. is a sign. 

Women who are into gaming routinely encounter men who say something like “I wish there were more girls interested in gaming!”, “Gotta find me a girl who likes video games!”, “Maybe I’m just unlucky, but I don’t know any girls who share my passion for gaming!”

When these sorts of comments come up online, or at events, I am never left wanting the female response to it. This response is never absent. There are droves of women who will come forward to say “Plenty of my girlfriends like gaming” or “We’re not really as rare as you think”. Sometimes I am part of that response, and sometimes I just sit back and watch other women say what I am thinking.

If they’ve ever met a woman, or if they have even the smallest number of female friends, chances are they do in fact know a woman who enjoys video games. They just haven’t bothered to ask her anything about it. She may have even mentioned it on multiple occasions only for it to slip their male friends’ minds. Because unless you are extremely zealous about your hobbies to the point of practically walking out of the house dressed like an NES cartridge, you’re not making it “obvious” enough for men hunting down that rare, pedestal-worthy “gamer girl”. This is a level of zealotry for a hobby that men do not have to express in order to be considered someone who enjoys video games.

Men don’t have to be nerd stereotypes for people to know what they like, or to take their interests at face value and not doubt the “validity” of that interest.

I find that a lot of guys who brag about having “tons of female friends” - wow so feminist - don’t know much about the hobbies or interests of their female friends, or subconsciously curate a view of their female friends that fits their narrative of “I’ve literally never met a female gamer in my life!” Male friends of mine in the past have seemed to know more about me if it fits a stereotypical view of “female interests” and less about me if it doesn’t. An example: after I went to an alpha event for the game Bloodborne, I practically told everyone I knew how much fun I had. When I tell people about my “college experience”, I usually just mention the nights I spent playing Dark Souls and Demon Souls in my underwear. I have literally never shut up about how the release of DS2 made me feel. Despite this, the same people have continuously acted surprised if I mention that I happen to like the Souls series (or have for like, more than half a decade).

Men I’ve met only because I borrowed a copy of Call of Duty from them. Men I’ve gotten to become friends with only because I invited them to my game of Dungeons and Dragons. Men I’ve met because I stream video games online.

I am not the kind of person who likes to make a big fuss and I don’t get visibly excited often. I enjoy what I enjoy casually, slowly, with a quiet sense of vigour and resolve. I do not wear my interests on my sleeve like others might. I guess I just dress like a person instead of a walking Zelda advertisement (no offense to those who wear their interests loud and proud). But I’m not quiet about it, I don’t lie about what I like. I don’t misdirect people in attempts to keep them from the sordid secret of *gasp* liking a bunch o’ nerd shit.

I encourage women with self-professed progressive male friends to take note of what they forget that you like and what they don’t forget you like. And if you really REALLY enjoy gaming, take note of when your male friends say they don’t know any female gamers, because they are confessing they either don’t see you as a “gamer” - you don’t fit their curated image - or just never bothered to learn anything about their “friends”. People who actually see women as their equals view them as subjects, with autonomy and personal interests.

I trust people who can say nice, encouraging things about their friends and what their friends like. I admire when a man can speak candidly about the lives and interests of his female friends. It is important I know that my friends see me as a person and not a thing.

So Pinnacle foods (which makes most of its sales from TV dinners like Hungryman and various frozen fish brands) bought out Gardein back in 2014, and perhaps at the worst time of all - 2016 has been pretty much the shittiest year for everyone I know - they're finally making major changes to the company. 

Most people have already heard the sad news, but Gardein is discontinuing 17 different products in Canada starting 2017. The only Gardein products that will be restocked in Canada next year are the Beefless Ground, Fish Filets, Mandarin Orange Chicken and 7 Grain Tenders. 

And if you missed the update, not only are they pulling out 17 different products from Canada (some of which might also be discontinued within the US, but they haven’t said which yet - only that “this will affect the US as well”), they're planning on introducing a 12.5% price increase on the remaining products come next February - an increase that will likely be seen in both countries.

In which case... OK, correct me if I'm wrong. but Gardein is THE best selling meat alternative brand in Canada. It's in over 22,000 grocery stores and I don't know a single person who avoids meat and DOESN'T love Gardein. Some of my friends would marry Gardein if they were a person. The original CEO reported that they pulled in 100 MILLION dollars in sales every year. Every news source has reported a gradual but prevalent decrease in consumer interest towards meat and dairy in general. And those companies have even come out with their own animal-free alternatives in response to this, like when Hellman’s introduced a vegan mayo after their recent embarrassing hissy-fit with Hampton Creek about what constituted as “mayonnaise”.

So why the Fishless fuck is their parent company claiming they need to increase prices and discontinue 80% of their products in order to "balance sustainability" of the brand? To me, this just seems like a meat-based food conglomerate once again realizing that the plant-based market is growing, using their millions to buy out the competition, and then SHRINKING that competition in hopes that consumers will go back to eating animals.

When are they going to realize that the plant-based market is going to continue growing no matter how many brands they cripple? Meat production supergiants keep treating meat-alternative companies as if they’re simply part of a health food trend instead of a huge consumer shift away from animal products. It’s getting harder and harder to find companies out there stocking vegan food up in supermarkets because meat producers are getting salty that it sells, and are willing to increase prices exponentially to kill the meat analogue market.

I guess I’m mostly angry because I was really hoping the CLEAR increase in demand for vegan and vegetarian foods would result in a gradual decrease in cost across the board. Being interested in meat free alternatives doesn’t mean you’re middle class. If you’re like me, you’re a poor as fuck vegan, and it’s really easy to get your jimmies rustled when people assume you will - or even can - pay more just because you have ethical boundaries on what you’re willing to eat.

There is a never-ending debate on whether or not animals should continue to be used by humankind the way they are now. But what does this debate rest on?

In experiments to detect signs of self-awareness in animals, more often than not we find that they do experience a complex form of self-awareness. One example: a recent study by the University of Warwick proposes that any animal that can "simulate choices and their potential outcomes" - display a predictive model of problem solving - require a sense of self to do so. This kind of problem solving requires imagining the self taking possible routes before acting on them, and is used commonly by humans and non-humans alike for a multitude of tasks. 

Rats, mice, and other vertebrates often ranked low on the list of animal welfare concerns showed activity in regions of their hippocampus that responded to the predictive reasoning used to complete tasks. This is one of many studies - around 2,500 peer reviewed, widely accepted ones - that builds a strong case for animals' self-awareness as the norm rather than the exception. It is also a case that goes ignored by the majority of those who comment on animal rights and the responsibilities humans may have in dealing with them.

It seems that few can or even should deny that animals are conscious, form bonds, feel physical and psychological pleasures and pains. It is a wonder why this is not our foundation for whether or not animals deserve ethical treatment as opposed to quarreling over whether they have an abstract sense of self-awareness similar enough to humans to warrant respect. It is hard enough to prove that even all human beings, at every stage of development in life, experience this level of self-awareness - and yet we take it for granted that humans DO experience it beyond a doubt in almost every scenario, simply for the sake of convenience. 

Though Overwatch has had some trouble with character design in the past, I heartily thank them for making the cast of the game overall very women-friendly. They’ve managed to show that a game can include a large and very diverse cast of playable female characters - and that such game can be fun for casual and competitive players. 

Overwatch is one of the few games on the market that fits a competitive brawler niche to have a cast of women characters that differ in body type, ethnicity, and even age to such a wide degree. They’ve made it clear that women can and will be anything, that not all women characters need to have their personality modeled around their sexuality (but that some can), that having a clear ethnicity does not mean you have to become a stereotype, and that, contrary to popular myth, we only get better with age! I think this last point is so important and so often overlooked; in the course of modern media, be it video games, movies, or TV, there are very few depictions of older women compared to the myriad (positive, strong, or otherwise prominent) depictions of older men. 

Games like Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us have you playing an aging male protagonist partnered with a youthful (and often naive) young woman, and yet if the roles were reversed we would see the game in a very different light, and I think chances are a game like that would receive higher criticism or at least be discussed as if it fills a specific niche. Games with older men, on the other hand, are often taken to be the “everyman” protagonist - something that doesn’t appeal to a niche audience and is intended for all viewers. Over the course of this pattern in media we’re being sent a message: older women can’t be interesting. Older women don’t have adventures. Older women can’t be heroes.

We’re all going to age. It’s inevitable. But the exclusion of positive and inspiring older women characters in media can create an air of fear around the concept of female aging - that we as women can’t live a passionate, exciting life the closer we get to the end of our journey.

The new Overwatch character - Ana Amari - is 60 years old. She’s a bounty hunter from Cairo and was once a founding member of Overwatch. She served in combat to protect her country up until her 50′s, when she was believed to be killed in action. She is a mother. She is a leader. She is one of the world’s greatest snipers. She is a hero.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

Please, don’t call shit “playing victim” though. Because “playing victim” is too often used to get people who are legitimately victimized or abused to stay silent about what they’re experiencing. When what we really mean is that someone is appealing to their own sensitive mental health as a way to leverage themselves above others.

if you wanna call it something call it “defending their shitty behaviour with mental gymnastics” or just point out that they’re placing their own self-care so high above others that they’re actually causing harm to people without realizing it. Victims aren’t placing their mental health ABOVE others. They’re placing their mental health on par with the needs of others.

If someone is saying “It’s not my fault I beat her, I have debilitating anger issues and they really affect ME” they’re saying that “My mental health is more important than her physical health”. That’s not calling yourself a victim at all - victims rarely feel that their needs and wants are more important than the needs and wants of others. Victimhood is not a lack of empathy for others. Lacking empathy for others is not “playing victim”. It’s playing ignorant.

What you’re referring to when you say “playing victim” is self-aggrandizing, self-important and downright selfish behaviour and you’re just conflating that with victims asking to be treated like a person. We don’t need to go spreading the myth that “victimhood” is synonymous with demanding, selfish, inconsiderate and ignorant attitudes.

The problem with talking about organic produce is that some people support its purchase because they are against genetically modified foods, whereas others support its purchase because they are against the use of pesticides and herbicides. My own view on the matter is that I am against the use of pesticides and herbicides, which have a known detrimental effect on our environment (particularly major pollinators such as bees), but my concern about organic food does not fully extend to GMOs - the most common arguments against GMOs simply being “we don’t know enough about them”. I think our research in GE agriculture should continue so that, if it can be a positive use to us without negative effects on our environment and our health, it should be used. To avoid it and fear it simply because it is unknown is too alarmist. 

Aside from the controversy of GMO foods, I think our first address towards the use of pesticides and herbicides should be a legal matter, not an individual consumer matter. We should be working to ban pesticides still in use despite their known negative impact, as this will have a much more lasting effect than simply buying organic labelled products. Opting for organic products simply hasn’t had the same supply-and-demand effect that other consumer boycotts have, such as the sharp decrease in dairy consumption, nor does it speak directly to the heart of the issue - that harmful pesticides should not be used.

That’s not to say I oppose the purchase of organic labelled foods, but that the argument to buy organic labelled foods “whenever possible” isn’t a particularly strong one, especially when considering those on a low-income budget.