My biggest issue was not even Heller. As much as I find him kind of "basic" he's fine. My issue is the fact that prototype 1 was building up to something. After defeating the absurdly powerful Elizabeth green we learn that she (and Mercer) where merely imperfect incarnations of the virus. But Elizabeth had a son PARIAH who was a perfect incarnation of the virus. I remember being so exited to learn more. I even thought that you would be PARIAH in Prototype 2 or at least that it would be a part of the game. But no, everything that the first game was building up to was replaced with the most basic "good old American soldier fights monster to save his daughter" In a vacuum i don't hate Heller, but in considering what could have been explored I hate him for the space he took. Specially because that's the last prototype we ever got. Super disappointing. "But the effects where decent"
On the fanservice, i asked a bunch of anime fans that very question (regarding some scenes added into an adaptation)- and most guys said that if they like it, they don't care, and i've seen the same response from grown adult men even into their 40s, groups of men can get very animalistic in that sense. The other response i saw was my own, and like others have said i maybe cared for it when i was a teen (that was when i played this game anyway, so) but over time and after getting to know more ways to express and enjoy sexuality than "look at sexy body", it's just not enough- if i was horny enough then i'd just handle it, instead of walking on the line bc i felt gross about my own body. I do remember back then thinking about these kinds of scenes that it was weird, but if i liked it enough then horniness took over thinking. Iirc the moment i started thinking more about it was when i learned that there was such a thing as "female gaze", and the differences between what self-serving stories made for men and women look like, made me feel embarassed about how little i'd thought about it. Your commentary is great it feels almost as what me or a friend would say when replaying the game, but more thought out.
Honestly think they should've made the main story about Alex Mercer genuinely wanting to end Blackwatch and Gentech but being secretive about it having "Evolved" infiltrating Blackwatch, Blackwatch doctoring video of the Alex releasing the second outbreak and listing it as something very classified to throw off any spies within the organizations and maybe getting them to join their side in it. This leading to James Heller being very very mistrusting of Alex because of this. This goes on for a while with back and forth of Alex trying to convince James he's trying to do good while Blackwatch and Rooks plants seeds of doubt, eventually having Mercer and Heller getting into a fight and the player being given the choice of killing Mercer or letting him live. If you kill him his memories turn out that he was telling the truth the entire time. If you don't kill him he tells you everything he kept secret. What that is I'd just leave up to better writers than I. Maybe all the agents he has, his exact plans for taking down blackwatch, or even just that his plan isn't fully thought out. But either choice having the same ending of finding out Colonel Rook to be the first of the "Evolved" Mercer made and wanting to release the virus globally, with depending on your choice having Mercer aiding you in the fight, or being much more powerful for consuming Mercer.
I wish my goat Alex stayed good. Made me immediately switch up when he went down the: “I can cure the world and remake it in my much better image after I completely tear it down” path
To defend Heller statement about Galloway being "clearly crazy". Galloway on first meeting have so many red flags that I kinda agree with Heller here. So Galloway knowing Heller is an super powered human who could literally eat her to get the infomation he wanted, but decided instead of being afraid and bargain him for her usefulness alive, tried to seduce him and with a hint of trying to use him instead? Heller made the right call, heck I would even call that a plus point for Heller as a character. Dude got enough emotional intelligence to know who is using him and who is on his side without eating them.
To comment on the sexualized "check out my ass" pose type stuff. The answer, I'd say, not surprisingly is "It depends." Overly sexualized characters do work and can be both fun and effective, but it's often more about the setting they are placed in than the character itself. I.e. A character like Bayonetta or Catwoman blatantly posing sexually and making constant sexual innuendos actually does work quite well because with both of those examples they are present in worlds that are already presented as over the top and unrealistic. In the case of Bayonetta she is presented as a seductress character who uses sex appeal alongside her magical powers in order to defeat angels (many of which also have a sexual overtone). She also uses said behavior to mask her personal insecurities throughout the series as a sort of pseudo-persona that over the course of the series does in fact sort of fuse with her more venerable sides into her true character. Catwoman, especially from the Arkham Games or some of the comics is likewise a great example of this trope being done right (at least most of the time, let's not get into the whole topic of comics inevitably being messed up by bad artists who don't understand the characters). Said behavior seems much less out of place in a world where said main character is not only a superhero, but is surrounded by an entire rogues gallery, most of whom all represent aspects of said character. In the case of Catwoman, she is supposed to represent (at least in comparison to Batman, her character has other traits in respect to other characters) she is supposed to represent the concept of freedom, passion, and not caring about responsibilities. Essentially things Batman is well known to try and keep in check as he doesn't wish to lose control of himself. Now, we could discuss whether the trope of "emotionally damaged sexy woman with self-control issues and self-destructive habits" is an inherently problematic archetype (I would argue it's not at least as a starting point), but that's a whole other topic than the question posed regarding sex appeal. To hark back to the original question, it's more about execution and worldbuilding than just does a character pose and look all sexy. For me it's about whether or not it fits the world and does it make sense for said character to be sexualized. Though milage may vary for others.
15:24 I, as a straight male, have played this game and have observed that scene twice (because I replayed it) and the scene just kinda didn't register, like I knew she was seducing, or trying to seduce Heller but it just didn't matter to me, like I saw that there was booty and I just went "Oh booty, Anyway..." and just kinda moved on because I was extremely more interested in acting out my power fantasy of murdering terrible people with a variety of viral superpowers, I also knew she didn't mean for any emotional connection and I knew this wasn't that kind of game so just inherently not concerned with it in the first place. Tl;dr No horny, only murder.
The devs clearly didn't understand subtlety. It's honestly painful how heavy-handed Galloway's character is a walking, talking stereotypical femme fatale but without any of the charisma you expect from one.
@@hedgehog3180 one could write a character that’s charismatic to a character without being relatable to real people. They could be unrealistically dumb for instance.
15:32 Yeah, "patronizing" feels like a good way to describe it. It's often very tedious and immediately makes it hard to care about what's happening with the character.
Coming from your first [PROTOTYPE] video I have to say, your alliterations are unhinged - and I love it. Keep going! Well produced overviews and recaps, tight presentation of personal opinion with a lot of humor and wonderful narration. Greatly enjoyable content.
Dude speaking here, regarding your question about how we/I view booty in games... it is distracting, as in it pulls me out of the game usually. I loved Miranda in Mass Effect, but the camera focusing on her booty while she is describing her childhood traumas is insane. These thing have their time and space.
A straight man here: I fucking hate it when "look at the sexy. Look over there. THERES A BOOOOOOB!" happens in entertainment that isnt porn. There is a time and a place and if the sexual scenes arent fundamental to the story, it just feels reductive.
I'm a lesbian and it often almost feels insulting. Like do the writers really think that's all there is to making a character attractive? It might work for teenagers but I feel like to make a character attractive to adults you need to actually give them an attractive personality as well. That's harder because no two people find the exact same character traits attractive and expressing that requires way more writing but I don't think anyone finds it attractive when a character acts like they're starring in a porno. Really that just kills whatever immersion I might have that actually could make a character seem attractive.
I agree on the blackwatch part. In the first game they were clearly evil sure but it always seemed more like a necessary evil. In 2 they are cartoonistly evil.
As a teenager, I thought these games were metal as hell, and Alex becoming a villain was awesome. As an adult, its character assassination and just plain crap writing. Prototype 2 wouldve been so much better if it had taken a similar route as DMC4. The previous protagonist is broken as shit, nothing is a real threat to him anymore, so heres someone new. Go nuts.
@aliciagrayson4203 Same, I was already aware about the comic at the time. But my young monke brain was just stoked for more Prototype back then. But after my D&D phase and analyzing good storytelling... They just made Mercer an edgelord all because his Feefee's got hurt from two people that betrayed him... (It was stated after the first game, that he rid the world of crime and removed the worst people in existence. You're telling me the dude didn't see the worst of humanity before that?!) Seeing this vid has also made me realize that both games are edgy in tone and story. The setting sucks and most people are shitty, for the sake of being shitty... Even 40K being the Grimderp it is, is tame on it's edge 🤣
As a straight man, I just find the arse scene comical. It looks detached from her body somehow and the cheeks don't even deform with her posture. Sorry to get (possibly) over analytical about a cgi bum but that's just my personal take. In general though, no it doesn't bother me if there's a reason for it. It can be pleasant but there's no real context in this case and so I'd just roll my eyes and maybe laugh.
I would have loved the story more if Heller turned into a complete softy when his daughter was around, it would have also been nice if she was involved sooner.
8:47 SO THATS WHY YOU ADDED THE ABLEISM! Im an autistic young man and although I am verbal, that shit hit me like a fully loaded train going 300mph. I physically lept out of my seat.
These days, the butt is, "Ah, a well-crafted butt. Moving on." As a stereotypically hormonal teenager, "Fuck yeah. Booty." In both time periods, I get annoyed if it's really ham-fisted into the scene or moment. Nonsense posing, in particular, will piss me off.
My head canon is that Mercer WANTED someone to become strong to kill as a Hero with unwavering conviction, then go after Gentec out of sheer spite. Mercer knew he had gone too far and pretended to be the biggest bad after the comics so he could potentially unite humanity against him. Then Heller as an X factor came into his plan who turned out to be resistant to the Virus (to some degree) making him the ideal candidate to antagonize and have Heller consume him to end it once and for all then going after Gentec. Mercer knew Heller wouldn't be corrupted with all that power and just LET HELLER CONSUME HIM and the line "Welcome to the top of the food chain" in a stereotypical villain tone so Heller could really stop it from getting more worse. He wanted Heller to take his Patient Zero powers and him use it to save humanity. Lets just hope Prototype 3 comes soon and Heller isn't big bad or Mercer gets retconned and somehow revived.
At the very least Heller's origin of the government knowingly sending a decorated soldier suffering from PTSD and delusions into a suicide mission instead of getting him help is at least an accurate depiction of standard VA practice
One thing that I think would successfully retcon/improve Alex Mercer in this game, is that in a potential Prototype 3 it would be revealed that in Prototype 1 when Alex Mercer regenerated from the nuke, it wasn't just ONE Alex/Backlight that regenerated, but multiple, or at least two. Then the Mercer fought in Prototype 2 could have just been a shard of Mercer that had more memories from evil Black Watch assholes, which is why P2 Mercer was so evil. Then we could find out that the MAIN portion of Alex was actually doing something against Black Watch in other parts of the country while Small pp Alex in New York was being stupid. It would also explain why P2 Mercer is lacking some of his powers from P1, he literally regenerated from so small of a fragment that he didn't have that genetic info anymore. Then we could play as another rando protag (preferably a semi-custom character like Shepard or V are), and eventually Who gets turned into a Blacklight human through maybe some fight between any number of Blacklighters, and we accidentally become infected. Then we could eventually meet older Blacklight humans like Mercer, Heller, and Pariah. Then our CC could go through similar existential crises, but then could be helped by Mercer or Heller who have already gone through shit like that. Edit 1* 11:37 I mean... if Heller's D.N.A. (which is shown the be "dominant", whatever that technically means) dominated the guy's vocal cords who was injected with his D.N.A., then yeah, it's "bullshit anime/videogame science" plausible that he'd have Heller's voice. Edit 2* 24:27 - 25:17 To be fair, if Maya was white, you likely wouldn't be having this opinion because of your added "context". So when exactly will it be okay to depict black or white characters in equally bad situations? 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? I hear people making 9/11 jokes as though it were a distant memory despite it only being about 23 years ago, meanwhile the vast majority of the unethical experiments that black Americans were subjected to took place around 50 years ago or longer. Sure, you could look at it from the angle of continued racial prejudice in "inseret current year", but I honestly don't think it's as big of an issue as you're making it out to be. Hell, when I first played Prototype 2, I had literally *ZERO* knowledge of that heinous shit (and if I did, I was young enough to not connect the dots), so I didn't even notice it. Though since I also didn't play Prototype 1, I didn't have the context of Redlight being and "anti-race" virus. Actually, I think it's a bit fucked-up irony that Mercer wanted Maya (a character who's Black) to be the "mother" of the new Blacklight age, when Redlight was developed to "kill people like her". I won't deny it's really fucking twisted, but it's also kinda funny. Dark humor hits people differently. Edit 3* I'm just going to assume that all likes on my comment are for the first section that talks about the Mercer problem rather than my Edit* timestamps... maybe I should have mad emultiple comments... Edit 4* Some spelling corrections
Really enjoyed your comment. The difficulty depicting poc in fucked up situations is due to society refusing to collectively acknowledge the ramifications psychologically financially and mentally/emotionally until it can really be acknowledged for what it was and still is to this day we won’t be able to truly see black and white people In the same light. (Though I don’t think you meant to be obtuse or ignorant here so don’t think this is an attack just a hope that I gave you something to consider)
15:36 Eh, it never really bothered me. The most these kind of scenes get outta of me is "oh that's kinda sexy" and then my focus goes back to whatever the game is supposed to be about. Fanservice is something I only really notice as its happening but it never really lingers in my mind long enough for me to form an opinion.
A funny thing you didn't mention even tho you pronounce Father Guerra's name as "gu-e-ra" it's actually "geh-rra" and Guerra in spanish means "War" so his name is pretty much "Father War" lmao.
The Galloway shot flew over my head when I was younger but that's only speaking for me as I mainly played and watched movies to do and see cool stuff and have fun. gripes I have though is that I recall the audiolog about the gangrape as being said soldier policing other civilians but I haven't played the game in a while so I will have to check that for myself And the brothel I do not recall at all, but my main issue is that it feels out of place for blackwatch, they went from cold and surgical to cartoonishly evil. Even the suit reflects this it went from simple and practical to edgy rendition of a combine metrocop with a hoodie and arm blade to boot, like... Why?
I remember somebody made a video of a what-if scenario for a Prototype 3. Can't remember it all, just the idea that the Mercer we witnessed in this game wasn't the actual one from the first game, and somehow returns as an antagonist with the first game's Mercer returning to be the main focus of the game. Honestly, it probably wouldn't have helped fix the issues of this game's story, but it would at least fix the issue of this game causing character assassination. And somehow, I doubt we'll ever get a follow up to this anytime soon.
So this isn't what *i* feel(I am un sure of that myself) I like to think heller calling Galloway crazy was bc she was being so damn forward that it gave *him* the ick
In response to the question about the painfully hamfisted "evil seductress" bit; Yeah, it is *very* patronizing. I would much rather have some genuinely interesting characters instead of the barrage of sexy lamps we're typically given. Can an interesting female character also be highly attractive? Sure. But why sacrifice the former just to fixate on the latter? One trait is essential while the other is entirely extra.
Personally as a straight man with autism and ADHD scenes like that have always made me feel uncomfortable. Especially in cases where yhe camera oggles a character that believes they are alone/in a safe space or any situation where the person in question is not showing direct interest.
Tbh I just like the eye-candy, I don't think too much about it, to me any scene with Galloway was just a glorified loading screen with a bit of eye-candy. I did hope for Heller and Galloway to end up together during my first playthrough, I mean she obviously kind of likes Heller, she looks good and she gives good support to Heller, without her help, Heller would not really have gotten as far as he did, or maybe he would, it would just have taken much longer.
I've never played this game, but watching this video, it truly does feel like Galloway was only tacked on for you know what, especially given that her in game model does not fit with the rest of the game. It stands out like a sore thumb. They really did just make her for that.
To answer the Sabrina Galloway "gay to straight men" question: Generally we don't even notice it. Or at least I don't. Full on a woman has to out right tell me she's into me or I'll not act. Partly due to fear of getting an SA charge but mostly due to just *not noticing* any sort of subtle signs like this.
Prototype 1's story wasn't that great. But it had good twists, and a cool idea for an anti-hero who COULD take over the world but ended up more human than the humans he killed. Prototype 2 feels like some edgy middle schooler to high schooler's fanfiction after they played 1/3rd of the first game and assumed they knew how it ended.
15:31 it's kind of funny how hard they try to make it alluring but it's still kind of awkard. Awkward in a "this is why I don't play games in the living room" type of awkward, specially in scenes that are meant to be for exposition or trauma dumping like in Miranda's case.
i first thought that mercer was just killed by that nuke and the little biomass that remained lost all of its personhood, basically meaning the mercer in 2 had the core personality of that crow it ate in the final cutscene. when i found out it was the exact same mercer having a meltdown over a stupid tiny little thing that happened in a spin off comic that literally no one would read i was super upset. that was both a god awful plot point to ruin a character over and such an awful trend that whoever started it should have never gotten work in the industry again.
IT made even less sense cause Mercer ate over a hundred people. He has the perspectives of hundreds, their memories, their thoughts, and we saw him develop a sense of right and wrong. A far better idea I heard was to make it so that Alex was trying to protect and uplift humanity, but he thought his morality was in the way, so he put it somewhere else so he could do his "uplift humanity" thing then grab it back later - into Heller. That the evolved who betrayed Alex weren't random people, that they were just multiple copies of Alex, and they had eaten people and developed morality, so they betrayed "Mercer Prime" and wanted to get Heller to fight him.
If we ever get a Prototype 3, I hope they do something similar to Resident Evil 7 and focus more on the horror of The Blacklight Virus Epidemic. Then maybe at the halfway point of the game or maybe all throughout the game you can kind of unlock Blacklight Powers if they go for a completely different character. Kinda like Prey or The Darkness etc.
You can tell prototype is loved to this day by the amount of 1 day ago and couple hours ago comments, i love prototype and i def Love Prototype 2 and James and Amaya story
When it comes to standard male gaze fanservice like this, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I do generally enjoy looking at sexy ladies being flaunted on the screen. But on the other hand, I can also roll my eyes at it depending on how it's done, and wouldn't fault anyone for criticizing it. I do prefer it when they put a little more thought and nuance into it, even if I can appreciate fanservice for its own sake. I'd also prefer it if there was more equality among the genders when it comes to fanservice - if you want to put some sexy ladies in there just to have sexy ladies, lean in and have some sexy dudes as well.
I think they could made the idea of Mercer being evil actually work, sort of. Maybe after the nuke at the end of 1, we could have learned in 2 that Green's consciousness still survived and while he was injured from the blast, she took over his subconscious. Her goals align a lot more than what Mercer wanted in the original game, and she was only using his body because it was much stronger than her old one. Or even make it that Mercer was just playing Blacklight along till they could develop a weapon that can actually kill him, and he chose Heller to be the one to kill him in the end after they took Blacklight out. I feel like the pieces for interesting twists were there, but they really just wanted to turn Mercer into their totally emo and edgy OC
Next to what you’ve already written: it would make sense to her dialogue with „I am your mother“ The mother of the virus/mutated virus giving her an almost god-like being that has already spread its consciousness to every single mutated infected. (Those who can still control themselves) So if we put together that the „good“ Mercer nuked himself to save the humans died, the consciousness of Green took over his body and regenerated. Now in a powerful body, green did what she did in Prototype 2. if you put pieces and puzzles together from already established story-telling it would make this story less flawed. Now just give Prototype 3 a new city and god forsake don’t give us New York again. XD
She was flirting?...I always thought it was just how she stood...i mean it made sense if you didn't want to sit down but wanted to be at eye level with the screen you eith pick the laptop up or bend down to get at that level. Also Blackwatch in 2 looked slightly cooler for the grunts but it really feels like their character was murdered. Like P1 Blackwatch was cold and like dark Grey, but they weren't evil. They were doing what they had to to contain a rampant infection. They were a very ends justify the means group which isnt great but in the context of what was going on was understandable. P2 Blackwatch just felt like laughably black evil in comparison to the the aforementioned cold, Dark Grey of 1.
Straight guy here: Yea no, games doing this kinda weird nonsense makes me as a person feel... Almost slighted. It makes me feel as if there's a generalized image that is being fed into and I dislike it. That being said, the prototype game series deserves a complete reboot with a much better story. This ain't it.
This was the first and so far only game where I feel a gender swap would have been much appreciated. James makes the incredible character development of going from a big scary black guy to a bigger, scarier -blacker- guy. A smol, insecure woman going from only an inner strength of character to an outer strength of body, then dealing the conflict this creates as she works to protect and save her child would have been, imo, much better. Struggling to come to terms with becoming an unstoppable killing machine after a lifetime of being withdrawn and somewhat timid. Mercer could then have been the anti-hero that our PC uncomfortably goes along with in the beginning, until she finally finds her strength, stands up to him for all his unpunished evils and a morality twisted beyond recognition. She realises she can take the mantle of leader from him by consuming him, saving millions of lives and her kid. This is the push she needs to make Mercer a target/final boss and finish her arc as she finally steps into her power as a confident person. I mean, this is one of the few IPs wherein lore-wise being female would have no effect on physical strength if you become the effectively genderless Blacklight.
So as a teenager i appreciated the ass shot but let me emphasize i was a teenager. Now a days for me it depends on the context of the story. If the tone calls for it sure it could work but if its just thrown in im bored with it honestly
God I was not expecting autism and the mistreatment of it coming up in this video. Khan I really thank you for bring it up. It's an issue I always focus on given that I myself am autistic. Particularly being that of Asperger's which has since been renamed for obvious reasons as Dr. Asperger conspired with the Nazis... I still call myself an aspie though as many others do.
About Galloway's slightly oversexualized first scene: I think you're thinking a bit too deep about this. Even if we disregard the fact that she was factually bargaining for her life in her own way, the scene is mildly awkward at best. I am a white heterosexual man, and even I sometimes see scenes in games/movies that are way over the top with this kind of presentation. When something like *this scene* happens though, I just go... "Nice." And don't give it much thought afterwards.
For me I've never seen the point in forced romance in games like this. Like yeah I'll get a wife in skyrim but that's just to have the house I built/bought populated. Other than that I don't really see the point. I wonder if its a case of romance scenes in war movies intended for the sake of wives/gfs who are stuck watching their man play a game. Often feels quite clumsily implemented romance would be the last thing on my mind in an apocalypse
at the 16:00 mark when he calls her "crazy" he might be refering to the vibe she was giving off going from "please have your way with me" to "please don't hurt me" act within a few seconds.
On my opinion of tha Gratuitous A$$ Shot, when I first saw it as a hormonal teenage boy my personal reaction was along the line of "Wow, nice a$$... but why though?". I think even then I knew that it was unnecessary and didn't fit the tone or aesthetic of the game so in the end it was less enticing and more funny because it just had no point.
22:51 I like the way it’s described in Babylon 5 “”they cut you open remove all your internal organs and make I nice neat little pile of you next to yourself”” said as only Londo can say it (I love that show it’s so good and is surprisingly good at predicting some of the nonsense that’s been happening over the last decade only with less spaceships and aliens).
To answer your question, don't care either way, we picked up this game to play as a viral god like monster, that bit with the seducing was pretty much unnoticed and it was pretty clear she was someone to kill in the game later
I’m a straight dude so I’ll answer the fan service question, my answer is that I don’t really care most of the time. Reason why is because fan-service USUALLY goes both ways. For every sexed up woman there’s a sexed up man. In this context tho, yeah it shouldn’t be there.
Booty in gaming does nothing for me, depending on the game it may give a chuckle, but that's only if it's more hexagonal than round. Honestly if you didn't mention Galloway be a horny scorny roly-poly I probably wouldn't have noticed. I mean, if something wasn't overtly sexual -- think the deadpool game -- it'd go over my head. Tbf I'm a bit dull, so it might just be a skill issue... awareness issue? An issue.
Late to the topic, but as a straight guy those scenes I either don't notice, if they are shorter (though, may just be the ol' mental illness making me not), and generally eye-roll if it's more focused on, look away, or skip it. They are almost always just shallow horny bait it feels like when I do notice them, and it just... doesn't fit or make sense. If it does make sense, it can still just feel uncomfortable, especially being in a long term relationship
Fanservice is a strange thing for me. I do enjoy attractive and even fairly overtlty sexual female characters in games. But, it does come off as checkmarky and just like the writers kink. Also, if they really wanted to, they should've gone all the way and given her a very feminine infected armor form with all that entails.
To answer your question about ass shots, personally I never realize they are there unless I was already into the character. Those times I enjoy them, but other times I simply don't see them. Doesn't register one bit.
15:30 like many others have said, it’s complicated because physical reactions to stimulus and emotional reactions. It’s very possible to be aroused by something while also grossed out by it at the same. On the other end it seems like (in my subjective view) males tend to latch onto sexual content significantly more the more touch starved they are as it’s the brain trying to make up for lacking an emotional need. Whereas folks who are in healthy relationships have that need filled and thus don’t jump at any stimulus they come across.
The way I feel about fanservice is as follows: I see it my neurons activate for a second and then i immediately feel like a baby being spoonfed. It's so low effort and weak that it flips around to be unnatractive. The most effective "fan service" i've ever experienced was balalaika from black lagoon that is how you make an attractive character IMO
A fun watch since months back, I found out/realized that I can no longer play this game again after so many years had past. USED to, and didn't get far into it, but now, it and its franchise is practically dead.
Regarding games being fucking weird when it comes to presenting woman for male audience. I as a man find it weird and cringy and even talking to my friends, at best people find it funny
Oh man, I remember this game. I thought that the first Prototype game was heavy handed edgelord story on steroids, but the sequel dialed the edgelord factor to 12 and threw out any of the good parts of the story and made Blacklight even more cartoonishly evil. The scene I remember the most was when Blacklight released a Hunter into civilians for no goddamn reason. It was just so pointless and edgy, good lord...
16:00 she not only provided you targets to kill but started the conversation with it. She didn't act afraid, let alone she must know the company wants to kill off or evolve the human race?
On the ass scene. Keep in mind, at the time this was aimed at teenagers and in that time, with both Prototype 1 and 2, a good lot of teens still had that heavy edge phase. To a teenager, that woman would've possibly been one major banger at the time. Just explaining the thought process back then on that scene. It hasn't aged well, and today, and i think even back then for me, it was too much. Even I, who has serious trouble reading the room at times, could tell the writers and such were trying waaay too hard. As for fanservice... look I'll be blunt, it has a time and place, and you can blame incredibly inappropriate scenes in anime, but i like my fanservice to be appropriaty nuanced and tasteful. There is fanservice with pure crassness of a blunt hammer, then there is fanservice with proper class and civility. Both on men and women.
15:35 It feels like a cheap way to get people to play your game by adding some lazy sex appeal. I’m not a prude but it just comes across as lazy and for perverts. It’s like the pan shot in an anime that starts at a girl’s feet and slowly goes up, it’s very obvious what they are trying to do and its pathetic. I feel like having a sexually appealing character works better when establishing an actual character for them at the start with the general idea that they are beautiful and build onto that with learning more about them and maybe getting a little more riskay to just compound on the player’s emotional attraction. They do the latter in shows/movies a lot but miss the bit about making them appealing characters.
Great video! I remember playing both games growing up and feeling like it had untapped potential. By the way to answer your question as a cis straight guy I tend to roll my eyes to camera shots like that now a days. When I was kid I use to think "hehe nice" but now as an adult all I can think is "really? Who is this actually for"
I've got my own idea brewing on a rewrite of the game starting with the in-between part which wouldn't be a comic but instead a cutscene. I'd have him encountering some of the worst people until his skills are put to use after an earthquake or some other natural disaster. Mercer would narrate that himself but that would only be after the introduction and Heller thinking that Mercer killed his family. Pull a good old bait and switch on the player, perhaps preluded by Mercer rescuing Heller and the others with him. It's always good to leave a hint of the bait and switch that the player has a good chance of not noticing on the first playthrough. I'd also rewrite Blackwatch so that there is perhaps division in it with factions based off moral differences. It could be that the old guard are getting worse while the new guard are looking to change things. Maybe even an alliance with the new guard to get rid of the hardliners.
First video I've seen from you, great stuff. Looking forward to next week's video and checking out what's in your backlog. Speaking to that question you asked about: I also tend to get the ick. I don't mind a character who is overtly sexual as long as it's handled well, but it's not something I expect or generally appreciate in my games. A good example would be someone like Lae'Zel from Baldur's Gate 3. She can go from hating your alien guts to wanting to bone pretty quickly, but it kinda works for her because she's the "Badass Warrior Woman" trope done *well*, so it makes sense for her to be honest and kinda forceful about her feelings. BG3 also doesn't overly sexualize its characters (not that I can remember), but several of them are allowed to be 'sexy' when it makes sense.
15:30 It's complicated, if I'm by myself and it happens my reaction will be "wow, that's a nice butt, moving on." If I'm watching it with friends, family, or in public I'll probably find it a little embarrassing because unfortunately people will judge you for such things. Unless the fanservice shot completely ruins the tone/pacing of a scene I'll never say no to seeing a nice butt. That being said, I am extremely horny, and fully cognizant of that fact, I don't think there's anything wrong with being horny, but also I don't think there's anything wrong with not being horny. I do take issue when people shame others for their sexuality, whether that be their orientation, libido or lack there of, or fetishes (so long as they aren't hurting others IRL or supporting people who do so). This scene I doesn't bother me, the butt is nice and the fact that she's doing it demonstrates she's either trying to manipulate him or is just plain crazy (which Heller picks up on). Was it necessary to use that angle for the scene? no, but I don't fault them for doing so, they had a scene where a female character was trying to seduce the protagonist and took the opportunity to put a nice butt on screen. I also completely understand why some might not enjoy that sort of thing, it's a matter of personal preference. My opinion on that sort of thing is very "live and let live." The only justification an artist needs for including something in their work is "I wanted to." The Audience is under no obligation to justify their enjoyment of a work.
I also think that it is worth noting that any non-protagonist in a story will always be objectified, whether sexually, emotionally, or otherwise, I feel like the focus on sexual objectification is because of the sex-negative culture we live in. Sex-negativity both encourages bad eroticism *in* media, and plays a role in why the eroticism makes people uncomfortable. Sex-negativity doesn't acknowledge human agency in regards to sex, for women this robbing of agency is very overt, portraying sex as something done *to* women rather than something they are an active participant in. This leads to media having erotic depictions of women that don't factor in the woman's desires/consent, let alone remind the audience of the importance thereof. On the male end of the gender spectrum, Sex-negativity also robs men of their agency as it depicts them as enslaved by their libido, and as such it not only doesn't hold men accountable for their own actions regarding sex, but it also pushes a harmful lie that says that men can't be victims of sexual assault. zooming out a bit, I've always found it strange that no one seems to recognize non-sexual objectification and the potential harm there. Countless humans are killed brutally by the protagonist in the main story of so many games, but the depiction of those people as weapons, tools, and/or threats that can be killed without a second thought is rarely brought up. Merchants are often treated as little more than a vending machine that can talk back, and so on. objectification is something humans do. Humans view others through the lens of what they want from them. Female-oriented media objectifies men all the time, though sexual objectification is not *as* common, it is still there. More common in female-oriented media is the objectification of a male character as a source of money or emotional comfort. The last one might sound strange but an easy example is the "gay best friend" trope, in which a gay man is used as an object of emotional comfort by a female character. That's only one example though, a less obvious example is a male love interest being depicted as comforting one of the female cast, but never (or is never allowed to) express his own wants and desires. 2014's Maleficent was guilty of objectifying its male cast imo, the degree to which every male character was portrayed as either stupid, evil, or subservient to a female character was honestly one of the few times in my life I think I experienced the discomfort many women feel when seeing sexual objectification of female characters.
(continuing from my other reply) I also think the damage objectification in media does is greatly exaggerated, I think that the overwhelming majority of people can easily differentiate between an NPC in a game and a people in real life.
The fan service in any game always makes me uncomfortable as a man. Doesn't make me any more attached to a character without ASS being shoved in my face. Also tends to be the moment when people always walk in😂
I am once again reminded of Pyra xenoblade 2 whose ginormous tits and ridiculous outfit made it hard to take any scene seriously because she looked like a titty slapstick harem anime girlie. Sorry, only slightly related to your comment.
You are either in doubt of your own sexuality or putting up an act. Also usually a character for fanservice isn't intended as someone you should attached to or a critical character for the story. But if they are then i understand you and in the same boat, this too only if these scenes contradict their narrative purpose. For example here it doesn't really took me out of the scene because i just saw her gesturing in a seducing way to a mutant few second before that particular scene.
As a straight male, I don't have a problem with fanservice. It can be used to serve multiple purposes. Yes, likely the #1 reason is to allow for objectification of one's physique. Those cleavage and butt shots are used where they are for the enjoyment of those who occasionally wanna see a nice view, not to annoy or disgust those who don't. Let's not act like it doesn't go both ways though. I've seen plenty of content in games, movies and books that had me thinkin, "yeah that was definitely 4 da ladies." Point is, we either like what we see or we don't, and that's OK. Many times though it can give insight to how a character see's themselves or how the main character views the world around him/her. In this game I got the sense that Galloway thought of herself as a woman with sex appeal and not afraid to use it. Thus, the sentiment Heller had after he left. Perhaps he noticed it, too and she just wasn't his cup of tea. For Miranda from ME2 & 3 her sex appeal was as much a part of her character as her intelligence. She was genetically engineered to be as generally attractive as possible for the purpose of being able to use that aspect whenever she saw the opportunity. The camera angles served to reinforce that. For a woman to think that of herself, chances are she will move and idle in ways meant to draw the attention of whom it may concern to whatever she thought were her most notable assets. Many years ago my wife introduced me to a book series called "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter," written by Laurel K. Hamilton. I read the first 20 books and a reoccurring theme was that the main character was an attractive woman that viewed herself through humble eyes, which I felt was reflected in the fact that she rarely ever described herself from a 1st person perspective. She did manage to fall in love with a vampire by the name of Jean Claude whom by her account not only was very attractive to her but he had a knack for moving and idling in ways that caused her to stare uncontrollably, and he knew he was doing it. That was part of his character. All that being said, I have also seen situations where fanservice had no point whatsoever other than just to be fanservice and it can come off as weird when used in situations that contradict the mood the scene is trying to set. Bottom line, not all fanservice is created equal. LOL
Small correction. Blackwatch was made to protect America from bio weapons. Carnival 2 in hope idaho was done by the Army and afterwards Blackwatch was made using the best soldiers that held the line and captured Greene and her Child with Randall as its head. The rearch they did was moved on to a private company called Gentek and gentek hired mercer
Blackwatch was made to watch blacks. I am not joking that's what the first game said. They were a white supremacist op who fell backward into the virus business when their racism virus went full Resident Evil.
I dont want the fanservice. Fan service for me is when i get to have a good game and a good story nowadays. The bar has been lowered extremely as of late in the indistry and im not happy
Tbh, Galloway is written to be disgusting in the most stereotypical unsubtle way possible. To the point that despite playing the game several times, it was your video that made me notice the completely unhinged camera angle used. But more importantly is that she is written this way as retroactive "justification" for Heller to act as a donkey(idk if I can use the other word I wanted on YT). It's as if his dialogue was written first and then author decided that "yes, it's good and it's staying this way" so he needed someone to fall onto all that edge. The main problem here comes from value dissonance. These are two blobs of biomass. Gender, sex and all that bs is past them. "Not him, IT"-General Randall. It's like seeing one T-1000 trying to hit on other T-1000. Player is just hit with this out of left field. As for comparison with Miranda and how straight men see her - we like Miranda, but not in that way and there's a reason she's shipped so hard with Jack while most player see only Liara or Tali(or Garrus. And cry about Samara)😅 I feel like you overfixated on the fact that Redlight was designed to be able to distinguish race of the target among other things(like the whole purpose of operation Carnival 2?) and lost a bit of a picture with Blacklight later on. They wanted programmable bioweapon that would magically do everything. They wanted it to target by race, by region, by diet or other markers, be able to target one specific person by their DNA, be able to give them supersoldiers, be able to be nonlethal and superlethal simultaneously and so on. And how do you make a universal weapon that can UNDERSTAND the given task to perform such wild variety of contradicting roles? That wild overblown technical requirement of "I want it to do everything" that we see so often from clients in any engineering or software field is what led to Blacklight being intelligent. And being intelligent meant that it could make its own choices. Like choosing NOT to be all of that. In a way Prototype has a plot similar to Universal Soldier(I hope I'm referring the right movie. The one where a soldier is declared obsolete and dumped on some planet only to learn that he's human). Proper sequel to Prototype 1 that treats both character and player with respect would be Terra Invicta with a bit of ShenzhenIO/MagnaOpus. And you can't sell that as competitor to InFamous 2😅
Regarding the male gaze discussion at about 15 min, I don't think I ever got excited or anything even remotely like that with stupid ass shots like Sabrina and Miranda from Mass Effect It always feels like some ridiculous thing added for horny teenagers with little to zero ability to actually interact with a woman
honestly the ones of miranda were ok as a teen. they didnt force her into weird positions and yeah the suit is pretty tight but thats just her kinda. but this example was pretty uncomfortable
15:27 - When it defies logic, it feels like the media thinks I'm a goddamn 12-13 year-old boy that's completely oblivious to media manipulation tactics. It often makes me physically roll my eyes because it's so blatant. Such as the aforementioned ME2 Miranda example. It makes more sense in something like Metroid because the Zero Suit to me implies that it's like a second layer of skin meant to provide a bridge between Samus and the Power Armor that she wears, but Miranda prancing around in what amounts to just shy of a latex gimp suit in armed combat would've greatly detracted from the experience if I had any desire to bring that sussy bitch along in the first place. I enjoyed it when the Eclipse merc leader retorted "Take your best shot..." with "I was waiting for you to finish getting dressed. ...Or does Cerberus really let you whore around in that outfit?" Followed by Jack cutting in with "I like her... are we still recruiting?" But it doesn't change the fact that it makes no logical sense and moves like those are just meant to justify the existence of fanservice by doing self-aware callouts. That said, when you have things like that one back-to-back ass-shot scene in Tremors 2, or the player character dancing at the strip club in Saints Row regardless of their gender, etc. I like it *WAAAAAAAAAAAY* more. Because it's not so much calling itself out as justification, so much as saying "yeah, we're objectifying, but *EVERYONE* gets something tasty to look at, not just you" which I respect. Also, I feel that the problem with sex and relationships in stories is that they more often than not feel like completely separate entities shoe-horned in for the sake of broad appeal. I'm often reminded of a Yahtzee's review, I think it was one of the Western Silent Hill games where he talked about a pointless romance story. He said something to the effect of "Imagine a world where every film regardless of tone or genre had to include at least one line-dancing competition, we'd all think they were insane! Yet here we are expected to engage with a forced romance more out of place than any of the supposed "horror" we're meant to be facing!" It's rare for me that it feels natural and human in nature for me. An example of something I actually found really interesting is a conversation with a Sniper at Camp McCarrin in Fallout New Vegas when you ask her about how she feels when killing the Fiend gang members. And she talks about how sometimes she thinks about the effects of the drugs having ravaged the minds of the women and warped them to the point where they can't even see what they're doing is wrong anymore. But she admits that maybe the only reason she thinks that way is because she wants to "get in their pants". An acknowledgement that sexual attraction and desire can prevent us from de-humanizing others, yet that lack of de-humanization simultaneously is potentially dependent upon sex, gender, racial, and/or physical attributes that no one can control. Even beyond outright de-humanization, just *suggesting* that a character is cognizant of, and might be wrestling with, personal biases in relation to the amount of empathy they feel and desire to reach out to others it *WAAAAAAAAAY* deeper and more philosophical than most *MAIN CHARACTERS* get in stories, let alone one random NPC. Though, the sniper doesn't let that prevent her from doing her job. The conflicting notion exists, but she's rational and knows that this is not a world where luxuries like mercy, drug addiction treatment, and mental health care are cheap, easy to come by, and plentiful, and keeping the NCR and civies safe by putting them down is the right thing to do. 20:54 - Henry Kissinger from beyond the grave: "Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, I don't know what you're talking about..."
My biggest issue was not even Heller. As much as I find him kind of "basic" he's fine. My issue is the fact that prototype 1 was building up to something. After defeating the absurdly powerful Elizabeth green we learn that she (and Mercer) where merely imperfect incarnations of the virus. But Elizabeth had a son PARIAH who was a perfect incarnation of the virus. I remember being so exited to learn more. I even thought that you would be PARIAH in Prototype 2 or at least that it would be a part of the game.
But no, everything that the first game was building up to was replaced with the most basic "good old American soldier fights monster to save his daughter"
In a vacuum i don't hate Heller, but in considering what could have been explored I hate him for the space he took. Specially because that's the last prototype we ever got.
Super disappointing.
"But the effects where decent"
On the fanservice, i asked a bunch of anime fans that very question (regarding some scenes added into an adaptation)- and most guys said that if they like it, they don't care, and i've seen the same response from grown adult men even into their 40s, groups of men can get very animalistic in that sense. The other response i saw was my own, and like others have said i maybe cared for it when i was a teen (that was when i played this game anyway, so) but over time and after getting to know more ways to express and enjoy sexuality than "look at sexy body", it's just not enough- if i was horny enough then i'd just handle it, instead of walking on the line bc i felt gross about my own body.
I do remember back then thinking about these kinds of scenes that it was weird, but if i liked it enough then horniness took over thinking. Iirc the moment i started thinking more about it was when i learned that there was such a thing as "female gaze", and the differences between what self-serving stories made for men and women look like, made me feel embarassed about how little i'd thought about it.
Your commentary is great it feels almost as what me or a friend would say when replaying the game, but more thought out.
Honestly think they should've made the main story about Alex Mercer genuinely wanting to end Blackwatch and Gentech but being secretive about it having "Evolved" infiltrating Blackwatch, Blackwatch doctoring video of the Alex releasing the second outbreak and listing it as something very classified to throw off any spies within the organizations and maybe getting them to join their side in it.
This leading to James Heller being very very mistrusting of Alex because of this. This goes on for a while with back and forth of Alex trying to convince James he's trying to do good while Blackwatch and Rooks plants seeds of doubt, eventually having Mercer and Heller getting into a fight and the player being given the choice of killing Mercer or letting him live. If you kill him his memories turn out that he was telling the truth the entire time. If you don't kill him he tells you everything he kept secret. What that is I'd just leave up to better writers than I. Maybe all the agents he has, his exact plans for taking down blackwatch, or even just that his plan isn't fully thought out.
But either choice having the same ending of finding out Colonel Rook to be the first of the "Evolved" Mercer made and wanting to release the virus globally, with depending on your choice having Mercer aiding you in the fight, or being much more powerful for consuming Mercer.
I wish my goat Alex stayed good. Made me immediately switch up when he went down the: “I can cure the world and remake it in my much better image after I completely tear it down” path
To defend Heller statement about Galloway being "clearly crazy". Galloway on first meeting have so many red flags that I kinda agree with Heller here.
So Galloway knowing Heller is an super powered human who could literally eat her to get the infomation he wanted, but decided instead of being afraid and bargain him for her usefulness alive, tried to seduce him and with a hint of trying to use him instead? Heller made the right call, heck I would even call that a plus point for Heller as a character. Dude got enough emotional intelligence to know who is using him and who is on his side without eating them.
To comment on the sexualized "check out my ass" pose type stuff. The answer, I'd say, not surprisingly is "It depends."
Overly sexualized characters do work and can be both fun and effective, but it's often more about the setting they are placed in than the character itself. I.e. A character like Bayonetta or Catwoman blatantly posing sexually and making constant sexual innuendos actually does work quite well because with both of those examples they are present in worlds that are already presented as over the top and unrealistic. In the case of Bayonetta she is presented as a seductress character who uses sex appeal alongside her magical powers in order to defeat angels (many of which also have a sexual overtone). She also uses said behavior to mask her personal insecurities throughout the series as a sort of pseudo-persona that over the course of the series does in fact sort of fuse with her more venerable sides into her true character.
Catwoman, especially from the Arkham Games or some of the comics is likewise a great example of this trope being done right (at least most of the time, let's not get into the whole topic of comics inevitably being messed up by bad artists who don't understand the characters). Said behavior seems much less out of place in a world where said main character is not only a superhero, but is surrounded by an entire rogues gallery, most of whom all represent aspects of said character. In the case of Catwoman, she is supposed to represent (at least in comparison to Batman, her character has other traits in respect to other characters) she is supposed to represent the concept of freedom, passion, and not caring about responsibilities. Essentially things Batman is well known to try and keep in check as he doesn't wish to lose control of himself. Now, we could discuss whether the trope of "emotionally damaged sexy woman with self-control issues and self-destructive habits" is an inherently problematic archetype (I would argue it's not at least as a starting point), but that's a whole other topic than the question posed regarding sex appeal.
To hark back to the original question, it's more about execution and worldbuilding than just does a character pose and look all sexy. For me it's about whether or not it fits the world and does it make sense for said character to be sexualized. Though milage may vary for others.
15:24 I, as a straight male, have played this game and have observed that scene twice (because I replayed it) and the scene just kinda didn't register, like I knew she was seducing, or trying to seduce Heller but it just didn't matter to me, like I saw that there was booty and I just went "Oh booty, Anyway..." and just kinda moved on because I was extremely more interested in acting out my power fantasy of murdering terrible people with a variety of viral superpowers, I also knew she didn't mean for any emotional connection and I knew this wasn't that kind of game so just inherently not concerned with it in the first place. Tl;dr No horny, only murder.
The devs clearly didn't understand subtlety. It's honestly painful how heavy-handed Galloway's character is a walking, talking stereotypical femme fatale but without any of the charisma you expect from one.
She convinced heller not to kill her at first. How is she not charismatic?
@@sleepyhyrule6894 Charismatic means charismatic to real people, not a fictional character literally written to do something.
@@hedgehog3180 one could write a character that’s charismatic to a character without being relatable to real people. They could be unrealistically dumb for instance.
@@sleepyhyrule6894 No one would describe such a character as charismatic, they'd describe it as bad writing.
15:32 Yeah, "patronizing" feels like a good way to describe it. It's often very tedious and immediately makes it hard to care about what's happening with the character.
Coming from your first [PROTOTYPE] video I have to say, your alliterations are unhinged - and I love it. Keep going! Well produced overviews and recaps, tight presentation of personal opinion with a lot of humor and wonderful narration. Greatly enjoyable content.
Dude speaking here, regarding your question about how we/I view booty in games... it is distracting, as in it pulls me out of the game usually. I loved Miranda in Mass Effect, but the camera focusing on her booty while she is describing her childhood traumas is insane.
These thing have their time and space.
colest thing about this game truly is how cool the blackwatch soldiers looked, they did not need to go so hard on that hood and mask combo
The shoulder pads where a bit too much
A straight man here:
I fucking hate it when "look at the sexy. Look over there. THERES A BOOOOOOB!" happens in entertainment that isnt porn. There is a time and a place and if the sexual scenes arent fundamental to the story, it just feels reductive.
Hell I find it boring in porn as well lol.
I'm a lesbian and it often almost feels insulting. Like do the writers really think that's all there is to making a character attractive? It might work for teenagers but I feel like to make a character attractive to adults you need to actually give them an attractive personality as well. That's harder because no two people find the exact same character traits attractive and expressing that requires way more writing but I don't think anyone finds it attractive when a character acts like they're starring in a porno. Really that just kills whatever immersion I might have that actually could make a character seem attractive.
I agree on the blackwatch part. In the first game they were clearly evil sure but it always seemed more like a necessary evil. In 2 they are cartoonistly evil.
As a teenager, I thought these games were metal as hell, and Alex becoming a villain was awesome. As an adult, its character assassination and just plain crap writing. Prototype 2 wouldve been so much better if it had taken a similar route as DMC4. The previous protagonist is broken as shit, nothing is a real threat to him anymore, so heres someone new. Go nuts.
@aliciagrayson4203
Same, I was already aware about the comic at the time. But my young monke brain was just stoked for more Prototype back then.
But after my D&D phase and analyzing good storytelling... They just made Mercer an edgelord all because his Feefee's got hurt from two people that betrayed him... (It was stated after the first game, that he rid the world of crime and removed the worst people in existence. You're telling me the dude didn't see the worst of humanity before that?!)
Seeing this vid has also made me realize that both games are edgy in tone and story. The setting sucks and most people are shitty, for the sake of being shitty...
Even 40K being the Grimderp it is, is tame on it's edge 🤣
As a straight man, I just find the arse scene comical. It looks detached from her body somehow and the cheeks don't even deform with her posture. Sorry to get (possibly) over analytical about a cgi bum but that's just my personal take. In general though, no it doesn't bother me if there's a reason for it. It can be pleasant but there's no real context in this case and so I'd just roll my eyes and maybe laugh.
I would have loved the story more if Heller turned into a complete softy when his daughter was around, it would have also been nice if she was involved sooner.
8:47 SO THATS WHY YOU ADDED THE ABLEISM! Im an autistic young man and although I am verbal, that shit hit me like a fully loaded train going 300mph. I physically lept out of my seat.
These days, the butt is, "Ah, a well-crafted butt. Moving on."
As a stereotypically hormonal teenager, "Fuck yeah. Booty."
In both time periods, I get annoyed if it's really ham-fisted into the scene or moment. Nonsense posing, in particular, will piss me off.
Galloway gave me brain damage from how heavy handed that shit was.
My head canon is that Mercer WANTED someone to become strong to kill as a Hero with unwavering conviction, then go after Gentec out of sheer spite. Mercer knew he had gone too far and pretended to be the biggest bad after the comics so he could potentially unite humanity against him. Then Heller as an X factor came into his plan who turned out to be resistant to the Virus (to some degree) making him the ideal candidate to antagonize and have Heller consume him to end it once and for all then going after Gentec. Mercer knew Heller wouldn't be corrupted with all that power and just LET HELLER CONSUME HIM and the line "Welcome to the top of the food chain" in a stereotypical villain tone so Heller could really stop it from getting more worse. He wanted Heller to take his Patient Zero powers and him use it to save humanity. Lets just hope Prototype 3 comes soon and Heller isn't big bad or Mercer gets retconned and somehow revived.
Sexual content and fan service only bothers me when it doesn't fit the tone of the story it's in.
At the very least Heller's origin of the government knowingly sending a decorated soldier suffering from PTSD and delusions into a suicide mission instead of getting him help is at least an accurate depiction of standard VA practice
prototype; I may be a monster, but who I'm wearing disgusts me honestly.
prototype 2; nevermind, I AM JUST FUCKING EVIL.
One thing that I think would successfully retcon/improve Alex Mercer in this game, is that in a potential Prototype 3 it would be revealed that in Prototype 1 when Alex Mercer regenerated from the nuke, it wasn't just ONE Alex/Backlight that regenerated, but multiple, or at least two. Then the Mercer fought in Prototype 2 could have just been a shard of Mercer that had more memories from evil Black Watch assholes, which is why P2 Mercer was so evil. Then we could find out that the MAIN portion of Alex was actually doing something against Black Watch in other parts of the country while Small pp Alex in New York was being stupid. It would also explain why P2 Mercer is lacking some of his powers from P1, he literally regenerated from so small of a fragment that he didn't have that genetic info anymore. Then we could play as another rando protag (preferably a semi-custom character like Shepard or V are), and eventually Who gets turned into a Blacklight human through maybe some fight between any number of Blacklighters, and we accidentally become infected. Then we could eventually meet older Blacklight humans like Mercer, Heller, and Pariah. Then our CC could go through similar existential crises, but then could be helped by Mercer or Heller who have already gone through shit like that.
Edit 1* 11:37 I mean... if Heller's D.N.A. (which is shown the be "dominant", whatever that technically means) dominated the guy's vocal cords who was injected with his D.N.A., then yeah, it's "bullshit anime/videogame science" plausible that he'd have Heller's voice.
Edit 2* 24:27 - 25:17 To be fair, if Maya was white, you likely wouldn't be having this opinion because of your added "context". So when exactly will it be okay to depict black or white characters in equally bad situations? 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? I hear people making 9/11 jokes as though it were a distant memory despite it only being about 23 years ago, meanwhile the vast majority of the unethical experiments that black Americans were subjected to took place around 50 years ago or longer. Sure, you could look at it from the angle of continued racial prejudice in "inseret current year", but I honestly don't think it's as big of an issue as you're making it out to be. Hell, when I first played Prototype 2, I had literally *ZERO* knowledge of that heinous shit (and if I did, I was young enough to not connect the dots), so I didn't even notice it. Though since I also didn't play Prototype 1, I didn't have the context of Redlight being and "anti-race" virus. Actually, I think it's a bit fucked-up irony that Mercer wanted Maya (a character who's Black) to be the "mother" of the new Blacklight age, when Redlight was developed to "kill people like her". I won't deny it's really fucking twisted, but it's also kinda funny. Dark humor hits people differently.
Edit 3* I'm just going to assume that all likes on my comment are for the first section that talks about the Mercer problem rather than my Edit* timestamps... maybe I should have mad emultiple comments...
Edit 4* Some spelling corrections
Really enjoyed your comment. The difficulty depicting poc in fucked up situations is due to society refusing to collectively acknowledge the ramifications psychologically financially and mentally/emotionally until it can really be acknowledged for what it was and still is to this day we won’t be able to truly see black and white people
In the same light. (Though I don’t think you meant to be obtuse or ignorant here so don’t think this is an attack just a hope that I gave you something to consider)
Funfact: the guy who voiced James Heller also voiced Brad from the first Dead Rising.
I really need Pariah to be revealed if there's ever a prototype 3
15:36 Eh, it never really bothered me. The most these kind of scenes get outta of me is "oh that's kinda sexy" and then my focus goes back to whatever the game is supposed to be about. Fanservice is something I only really notice as its happening but it never really lingers in my mind long enough for me to form an opinion.
Yep, eyes rolled and move on.
*Caveman noises*
Nah, JK. Zooming in on Miranda's lower lower back during some of the convos in Mass Effect was crazy. 😂
15:30 maybe my eyesite is just bad, but the cutscenes in this game are so dark i didnt even notice until you pointed it out xD
A funny thing you didn't mention even tho you pronounce Father Guerra's name as "gu-e-ra" it's actually "geh-rra" and Guerra in spanish means "War" so his name is pretty much "Father War" lmao.
The Galloway shot flew over my head when I was younger but that's only speaking for me as I mainly played and watched movies to do and see cool stuff and have fun.
gripes I have though is that I recall the audiolog about the gangrape as being said soldier
policing other civilians but I haven't played the game in a while so I will have to check that for myself
And the brothel I do not recall at all, but my main issue is that it feels out of place for blackwatch, they went from cold and surgical to cartoonishly evil. Even the suit reflects this it went from simple and practical to edgy rendition of a combine metrocop with a hoodie and arm blade to boot, like... Why?
I remember somebody made a video of a what-if scenario for a Prototype 3. Can't remember it all, just the idea that the Mercer we witnessed in this game wasn't the actual one from the first game, and somehow returns as an antagonist with the first game's Mercer returning to be the main focus of the game. Honestly, it probably wouldn't have helped fix the issues of this game's story, but it would at least fix the issue of this game causing character assassination. And somehow, I doubt we'll ever get a follow up to this anytime soon.
So this isn't what *i* feel(I am un sure of that myself) I like to think heller calling Galloway crazy was bc she was being so damn forward that it gave *him* the ick
See, that would be understandable
It says a lot about me that I didn't realize Sabrina was basically hitting on heller the whole time lmao
In response to the question about the painfully hamfisted "evil seductress" bit; Yeah, it is *very* patronizing. I would much rather have some genuinely interesting characters instead of the barrage of sexy lamps we're typically given. Can an interesting female character also be highly attractive? Sure. But why sacrifice the former just to fixate on the latter? One trait is essential while the other is entirely extra.
Honestly you had a sub at "we have heard exactly Fuck and All since then" 🤣
Personally as a straight man with autism and ADHD scenes like that have always made me feel uncomfortable. Especially in cases where yhe camera oggles a character that believes they are alone/in a safe space or any situation where the person in question is not showing direct interest.
Tbh I just like the eye-candy, I don't think too much about it, to me any scene with Galloway was just a glorified loading screen with a bit of eye-candy.
I did hope for Heller and Galloway to end up together during my first playthrough, I mean she obviously kind of likes Heller, she looks good and she gives good support to Heller, without her help, Heller would not really have gotten as far as he did, or maybe he would, it would just have taken much longer.
For Galloway it was so dark that i genuinely did not notice those shots
I've never played this game, but watching this video, it truly does feel like Galloway was only tacked on for you know what, especially given that her in game model does not fit with the rest of the game. It stands out like a sore thumb. They really did just make her for that.
To answer the Sabrina Galloway "gay to straight men" question:
Generally we don't even notice it. Or at least I don't. Full on a woman has to out right tell me she's into me or I'll not act. Partly due to fear of getting an SA charge but mostly due to just *not noticing* any sort of subtle signs like this.
Prototype 1's story wasn't that great. But it had good twists, and a cool idea for an anti-hero who COULD take over the world but ended up more human than the humans he killed. Prototype 2 feels like some edgy middle schooler to high schooler's fanfiction after they played 1/3rd of the first game and assumed they knew how it ended.
15:31 it's kind of funny how hard they try to make it alluring but it's still kind of awkard. Awkward in a "this is why I don't play games in the living room" type of awkward, specially in scenes that are meant to be for exposition or trauma dumping like in Miranda's case.
i first thought that mercer was just killed by that nuke and the little biomass that remained lost all of its personhood, basically meaning the mercer in 2 had the core personality of that crow it ate in the final cutscene. when i found out it was the exact same mercer having a meltdown over a stupid tiny little thing that happened in a spin off comic that literally no one would read i was super upset. that was both a god awful plot point to ruin a character over and such an awful trend that whoever started it should have never gotten work in the industry again.
IT made even less sense cause Mercer ate over a hundred people. He has the perspectives of hundreds, their memories, their thoughts, and we saw him develop a sense of right and wrong.
A far better idea I heard was to make it so that Alex was trying to protect and uplift humanity, but he thought his morality was in the way, so he put it somewhere else so he could do his "uplift humanity" thing then grab it back later - into Heller. That the evolved who betrayed Alex weren't random people, that they were just multiple copies of Alex, and they had eaten people and developed morality, so they betrayed "Mercer Prime" and wanted to get Heller to fight him.
imagine being one of the bureaucrats that has to file/redact/destroy all the paperwork for what went on in this game.
If we ever get a Prototype 3, I hope they do something similar to Resident Evil 7 and focus more on the horror of The Blacklight Virus Epidemic. Then maybe at the halfway point of the game or maybe all throughout the game you can kind of unlock Blacklight Powers if they go for a completely different character. Kinda like Prey or The Darkness etc.
You can tell prototype is loved to this day by the amount of 1 day ago and couple hours ago comments, i love prototype and i def Love Prototype 2 and James and Amaya story
When it comes to standard male gaze fanservice like this, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I do generally enjoy looking at sexy ladies being flaunted on the screen. But on the other hand, I can also roll my eyes at it depending on how it's done, and wouldn't fault anyone for criticizing it. I do prefer it when they put a little more thought and nuance into it, even if I can appreciate fanservice for its own sake. I'd also prefer it if there was more equality among the genders when it comes to fanservice - if you want to put some sexy ladies in there just to have sexy ladies, lean in and have some sexy dudes as well.
I think they could made the idea of Mercer being evil actually work, sort of. Maybe after the nuke at the end of 1, we could have learned in 2 that Green's consciousness still survived and while he was injured from the blast, she took over his subconscious. Her goals align a lot more than what Mercer wanted in the original game, and she was only using his body because it was much stronger than her old one.
Or even make it that Mercer was just playing Blacklight along till they could develop a weapon that can actually kill him, and he chose Heller to be the one to kill him in the end after they took Blacklight out.
I feel like the pieces for interesting twists were there, but they really just wanted to turn Mercer into their totally emo and edgy OC
Next to what you’ve already written: it would make sense to her dialogue with „I am your mother“
The mother of the virus/mutated virus giving her an almost god-like being that has already spread its consciousness to every single mutated infected. (Those who can still control themselves)
So if we put together that the „good“ Mercer nuked himself to save the humans died, the consciousness of Green took over his body and regenerated.
Now in a powerful body, green did what she did in Prototype 2.
if you put pieces and puzzles together from already established story-telling it would make this story less flawed.
Now just give Prototype 3 a new city and god forsake don’t give us New York again. XD
She was flirting?...I always thought it was just how she stood...i mean it made sense if you didn't want to sit down but wanted to be at eye level with the screen you eith pick the laptop up or bend down to get at that level.
Also Blackwatch in 2 looked slightly cooler for the grunts but it really feels like their character was murdered. Like P1 Blackwatch was cold and like dark Grey, but they weren't evil. They were doing what they had to to contain a rampant infection. They were a very ends justify the means group which isnt great but in the context of what was going on was understandable. P2 Blackwatch just felt like laughably black evil in comparison to the the aforementioned cold, Dark Grey of 1.
The worst sin this game does is have superior gameplay feel to its predecessor, so that I can't unilaterally dismiss it altogether out of spite.
Straight guy here: Yea no, games doing this kinda weird nonsense makes me as a person feel... Almost slighted. It makes me feel as if there's a generalized image that is being fed into and I dislike it.
That being said, the prototype game series deserves a complete reboot with a much better story. This ain't it.
This was the first and so far only game where I feel a gender swap would have been much appreciated.
James makes the incredible character development of going from a big scary black guy to a bigger, scarier -blacker- guy.
A smol, insecure woman going from only an inner strength of character to an outer strength of body, then dealing the conflict this creates as she works to protect and save her child would have been, imo, much better. Struggling to come to terms with becoming an unstoppable killing machine after a lifetime of being withdrawn and somewhat timid.
Mercer could then have been the anti-hero that our PC uncomfortably goes along with in the beginning, until she finally finds her strength, stands up to him for all his unpunished evils and a morality twisted beyond recognition. She realises she can take the mantle of leader from him by consuming him, saving millions of lives and her kid. This is the push she needs to make Mercer a target/final boss and finish her arc as she finally steps into her power as a confident person.
I mean, this is one of the few IPs wherein lore-wise being female would have no effect on physical strength if you become the effectively genderless Blacklight.
So as a teenager i appreciated the ass shot but let me emphasize i was a teenager. Now a days for me it depends on the context of the story. If the tone calls for it sure it could work but if its just thrown in im bored with it honestly
God I was not expecting autism and the mistreatment of it coming up in this video. Khan I really thank you for bring it up. It's an issue I always focus on given that I myself am autistic. Particularly being that of Asperger's which has since been renamed for obvious reasons as
Dr. Asperger conspired with the Nazis...
I still call myself an aspie though as many others do.
15:30 I don't care for the most part, all it does is make me feel awkward when someone enters the room while those scenes are playing
About Galloway's slightly oversexualized first scene:
I think you're thinking a bit too deep about this. Even if we disregard the fact that she was factually bargaining for her life in her own way, the scene is mildly awkward at best.
I am a white heterosexual man, and even I sometimes see scenes in games/movies that are way over the top with this kind of presentation.
When something like *this scene* happens though, I just go... "Nice." And don't give it much thought afterwards.
15:35 I don't like it because I usually need a reason to get attached to the female character in question beyond her looks
For me I've never seen the point in forced romance in games like this. Like yeah I'll get a wife in skyrim but that's just to have the house I built/bought populated. Other than that I don't really see the point. I wonder if its a case of romance scenes in war movies intended for the sake of wives/gfs who are stuck watching their man play a game. Often feels quite clumsily implemented romance would be the last thing on my mind in an apocalypse
at the 16:00 mark when he calls her "crazy" he might be refering to the vibe she was giving off going from "please have your way with me" to "please don't hurt me" act within a few seconds.
On my opinion of tha Gratuitous A$$ Shot, when I first saw it as a hormonal teenage boy my personal reaction was along the line of "Wow, nice a$$... but why though?".
I think even then I knew that it was unnecessary and didn't fit the tone or aesthetic of the game so in the end it was less enticing and more funny because it just had no point.
22:51 I like the way it’s described in Babylon 5 “”they cut you open remove all your internal organs and make I nice neat little pile of you next to yourself”” said as only Londo can say it (I love that show it’s so good and is surprisingly good at predicting some of the nonsense that’s been happening over the last decade only with less spaceships and aliens).
To answer your question, don't care either way, we picked up this game to play as a viral god like monster, that bit with the seducing was pretty much unnoticed and it was pretty clear she was someone to kill in the game later
I’m a straight dude so I’ll answer the fan service question, my answer is that I don’t really care most of the time. Reason why is because fan-service USUALLY goes both ways. For every sexed up woman there’s a sexed up man. In this context tho, yeah it shouldn’t be there.
Booty in gaming does nothing for me, depending on the game it may give a chuckle, but that's only if it's more hexagonal than round. Honestly if you didn't mention Galloway be a horny scorny roly-poly I probably wouldn't have noticed.
I mean, if something wasn't overtly sexual -- think the deadpool game -- it'd go over my head. Tbf I'm a bit dull, so it might just be a skill issue... awareness issue? An issue.
Late to the topic, but as a straight guy those scenes I either don't notice, if they are shorter (though, may just be the ol' mental illness making me not), and generally eye-roll if it's more focused on, look away, or skip it. They are almost always just shallow horny bait it feels like when I do notice them, and it just... doesn't fit or make sense. If it does make sense, it can still just feel uncomfortable, especially being in a long term relationship
Fanservice is a strange thing for me. I do enjoy attractive and even fairly overtlty sexual female characters in games. But, it does come off as checkmarky and just like the writers kink. Also, if they really wanted to, they should've gone all the way and given her a very feminine infected armor form with all that entails.
15:30 Shots like that make it feel like they think my whole existence is just about sex, and it's fucking annoying.
To answer your question about ass shots, personally I never realize they are there unless I was already into the character. Those times I enjoy them, but other times I simply don't see them. Doesn't register one bit.
15:30 like many others have said, it’s complicated because physical reactions to stimulus and emotional reactions. It’s very possible to be aroused by something while also grossed out by it at the same.
On the other end it seems like (in my subjective view) males tend to latch onto sexual content significantly more the more touch starved they are as it’s the brain trying to make up for lacking an emotional need. Whereas folks who are in healthy relationships have that need filled and thus don’t jump at any stimulus they come across.
The way I feel about fanservice is as follows:
I see it my neurons activate for a second and then i immediately feel like a baby being spoonfed. It's so low effort and weak that it flips around to be unnatractive. The most effective "fan service" i've ever experienced was balalaika from black lagoon that is how you make an attractive character IMO
A fun watch since months back, I found out/realized that I can no longer play this game again after so many years had past. USED to, and didn't get far into it, but now, it and its franchise is practically dead.
Regarding games being fucking weird when it comes to presenting woman for male audience. I as a man find it weird and cringy and even talking to my friends, at best people find it funny
Oh man, I remember this game. I thought that the first Prototype game was heavy handed edgelord story on steroids, but the sequel dialed the edgelord factor to 12 and threw out any of the good parts of the story and made Blacklight even more cartoonishly evil. The scene I remember the most was when Blacklight released a Hunter into civilians for no goddamn reason. It was just so pointless and edgy, good lord...
I played with game twice and I never noticed Galloway being bent over....loved playing the game tho
16:00 she not only provided you targets to kill but started the conversation with it. She didn't act afraid, let alone she must know the company wants to kill off or evolve the human race?
I loved Starnes from the rescue squad missions personally , his dialogue was hilarious
On the ass scene. Keep in mind, at the time this was aimed at teenagers and in that time, with both Prototype 1 and 2, a good lot of teens still had that heavy edge phase. To a teenager, that woman would've possibly been one major banger at the time.
Just explaining the thought process back then on that scene. It hasn't aged well, and today, and i think even back then for me, it was too much. Even I, who has serious trouble reading the room at times, could tell the writers and such were trying waaay too hard.
As for fanservice... look I'll be blunt, it has a time and place, and you can blame incredibly inappropriate scenes in anime, but i like my fanservice to be appropriaty nuanced and tasteful.
There is fanservice with pure crassness of a blunt hammer, then there is fanservice with proper class and civility. Both on men and women.
I swear it feels like half the reason you went on to review prototype 2 is to make more cannibalism food puns. Love it.
15:35 It feels like a cheap way to get people to play your game by adding some lazy sex appeal. I’m not a prude but it just comes across as lazy and for perverts. It’s like the pan shot in an anime that starts at a girl’s feet and slowly goes up, it’s very obvious what they are trying to do and its pathetic.
I feel like having a sexually appealing character works better when establishing an actual character for them at the start with the general idea that they are beautiful and build onto that with learning more about them and maybe getting a little more riskay to just compound on the player’s emotional attraction. They do the latter in shows/movies a lot but miss the bit about making them appealing characters.
Great video! I remember playing both games growing up and feeling like it had untapped potential. By the way to answer your question as a cis straight guy I tend to roll my eyes to camera shots like that now a days. When I was kid I use to think "hehe nice" but now as an adult all I can think is "really? Who is this actually for"
I've got my own idea brewing on a rewrite of the game starting with the in-between part which wouldn't be a comic but instead a cutscene. I'd have him encountering some of the worst people until his skills are put to use after an earthquake or some other natural disaster. Mercer would narrate that himself but that would only be after the introduction and Heller thinking that Mercer killed his family. Pull a good old bait and switch on the player, perhaps preluded by Mercer rescuing Heller and the others with him. It's always good to leave a hint of the bait and switch that the player has a good chance of not noticing on the first playthrough. I'd also rewrite Blackwatch so that there is perhaps division in it with factions based off moral differences. It could be that the old guard are getting worse while the new guard are looking to change things. Maybe even an alliance with the new guard to get rid of the hardliners.
It's so sad and tragic that Heller became more popped collar than man 😢
First video I've seen from you, great stuff. Looking forward to next week's video and checking out what's in your backlog.
Speaking to that question you asked about: I also tend to get the ick. I don't mind a character who is overtly sexual as long as it's handled well, but it's not something I expect or generally appreciate in my games. A good example would be someone like Lae'Zel from Baldur's Gate 3. She can go from hating your alien guts to wanting to bone pretty quickly, but it kinda works for her because she's the "Badass Warrior Woman" trope done *well*, so it makes sense for her to be honest and kinda forceful about her feelings. BG3 also doesn't overly sexualize its characters (not that I can remember), but several of them are allowed to be 'sexy' when it makes sense.
15:30 It's complicated, if I'm by myself and it happens my reaction will be "wow, that's a nice butt, moving on." If I'm watching it with friends, family, or in public I'll probably find it a little embarrassing because unfortunately people will judge you for such things. Unless the fanservice shot completely ruins the tone/pacing of a scene I'll never say no to seeing a nice butt. That being said, I am extremely horny, and fully cognizant of that fact, I don't think there's anything wrong with being horny, but also I don't think there's anything wrong with not being horny.
I do take issue when people shame others for their sexuality, whether that be their orientation, libido or lack there of, or fetishes (so long as they aren't hurting others IRL or supporting people who do so).
This scene I doesn't bother me, the butt is nice and the fact that she's doing it demonstrates she's either trying to manipulate him or is just plain crazy (which Heller picks up on). Was it necessary to use that angle for the scene? no, but I don't fault them for doing so, they had a scene where a female character was trying to seduce the protagonist and took the opportunity to put a nice butt on screen. I also completely understand why some might not enjoy that sort of thing, it's a matter of personal preference.
My opinion on that sort of thing is very "live and let live." The only justification an artist needs for including something in their work is "I wanted to." The Audience is under no obligation to justify their enjoyment of a work.
I also think that it is worth noting that any non-protagonist in a story will always be objectified, whether sexually, emotionally, or otherwise, I feel like the focus on sexual objectification is because of the sex-negative culture we live in. Sex-negativity both encourages bad eroticism *in* media, and plays a role in why the eroticism makes people uncomfortable. Sex-negativity doesn't acknowledge human agency in regards to sex, for women this robbing of agency is very overt, portraying sex as something done *to* women rather than something they are an active participant in. This leads to media having erotic depictions of women that don't factor in the woman's desires/consent, let alone remind the audience of the importance thereof. On the male end of the gender spectrum, Sex-negativity also robs men of their agency as it depicts them as enslaved by their libido, and as such it not only doesn't hold men accountable for their own actions regarding sex, but it also pushes a harmful lie that says that men can't be victims of sexual assault.
zooming out a bit, I've always found it strange that no one seems to recognize non-sexual objectification and the potential harm there. Countless humans are killed brutally by the protagonist in the main story of so many games, but the depiction of those people as weapons, tools, and/or threats that can be killed without a second thought is rarely brought up. Merchants are often treated as little more than a vending machine that can talk back, and so on. objectification is something humans do. Humans view others through the lens of what they want from them.
Female-oriented media objectifies men all the time, though sexual objectification is not *as* common, it is still there. More common in female-oriented media is the objectification of a male character as a source of money or emotional comfort. The last one might sound strange but an easy example is the "gay best friend" trope, in which a gay man is used as an object of emotional comfort by a female character. That's only one example though, a less obvious example is a male love interest being depicted as comforting one of the female cast, but never (or is never allowed to) express his own wants and desires. 2014's Maleficent was guilty of objectifying its male cast imo, the degree to which every male character was portrayed as either stupid, evil, or subservient to a female character was honestly one of the few times in my life I think I experienced the discomfort many women feel when seeing sexual objectification of female characters.
(continuing from my other reply) I also think the damage objectification in media does is greatly exaggerated, I think that the overwhelming majority of people can easily differentiate between an NPC in a game and a people in real life.
The fan service in any game always makes me uncomfortable as a man. Doesn't make me any more attached to a character without ASS being shoved in my face. Also tends to be the moment when people always walk in😂
I am once again reminded of Pyra xenoblade 2 whose ginormous tits and ridiculous outfit made it hard to take any scene seriously because she looked like a titty slapstick harem anime girlie. Sorry, only slightly related to your comment.
You are either in doubt of your own sexuality or putting up an act. Also usually a character for fanservice isn't intended as someone you should attached to or a critical character for the story. But if they are then i understand you and in the same boat, this too only if these scenes contradict their narrative purpose.
For example here it doesn't really took me out of the scene because i just saw her gesturing in a seducing way to a mutant few second before that particular scene.
As a straight male, I don't have a problem with fanservice. It can be used to serve multiple purposes. Yes, likely the #1 reason is to allow for objectification of one's physique. Those cleavage and butt shots are used where they are for the enjoyment of those who occasionally wanna see a nice view, not to annoy or disgust those who don't. Let's not act like it doesn't go both ways though. I've seen plenty of content in games, movies and books that had me thinkin, "yeah that was definitely 4 da ladies." Point is, we either like what we see or we don't, and that's OK.
Many times though it can give insight to how a character see's themselves or how the main character views the world around him/her. In this game I got the sense that Galloway thought of herself as a woman with sex appeal and not afraid to use it. Thus, the sentiment Heller had after he left. Perhaps he noticed it, too and she just wasn't his cup of tea. For Miranda from ME2 & 3 her sex appeal was as much a part of her character as her intelligence. She was genetically engineered to be as generally attractive as possible for the purpose of being able to use that aspect whenever she saw the opportunity. The camera angles served to reinforce that. For a woman to think that of herself, chances are she will move and idle in ways meant to draw the attention of whom it may concern to whatever she thought were her most notable assets.
Many years ago my wife introduced me to a book series called "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter," written by Laurel K. Hamilton. I read the first 20 books and a reoccurring theme was that the main character was an attractive woman that viewed herself through humble eyes, which I felt was reflected in the fact that she rarely ever described herself from a 1st person perspective. She did manage to fall in love with a vampire by the name of Jean Claude whom by her account not only was very attractive to her but he had a knack for moving and idling in ways that caused her to stare uncontrollably, and he knew he was doing it. That was part of his character.
All that being said, I have also seen situations where fanservice had no point whatsoever other than just to be fanservice and it can come off as weird when used in situations that contradict the mood the scene is trying to set. Bottom line, not all fanservice is created equal. LOL
15:34 a little bit mostly think its unneeded in most games also i didn't even notice it in that cutscene my first playthrough
Do I like Galloway behind? Yes. Do I like her as a character? No.
Small correction. Blackwatch was made to protect America from bio weapons. Carnival 2 in hope idaho was done by the Army and afterwards Blackwatch was made using the best soldiers that held the line and captured Greene and her Child with Randall as its head. The rearch they did was moved on to a private company called Gentek and gentek hired mercer
Blackwatch was made to watch blacks.
I am not joking that's what the first game said.
They were a white supremacist op who fell backward into the virus business when their racism virus went full Resident Evil.
I dont want the fanservice. Fan service for me is when i get to have a good game and a good story nowadays. The bar has been lowered extremely as of late in the indistry and im not happy
The Story of Prototype 1 and 2 is all over the place, but the gameplay was good so eh
Tbh, Galloway is written to be disgusting in the most stereotypical unsubtle way possible. To the point that despite playing the game several times, it was your video that made me notice the completely unhinged camera angle used. But more importantly is that she is written this way as retroactive "justification" for Heller to act as a donkey(idk if I can use the other word I wanted on YT). It's as if his dialogue was written first and then author decided that "yes, it's good and it's staying this way" so he needed someone to fall onto all that edge.
The main problem here comes from value dissonance. These are two blobs of biomass. Gender, sex and all that bs is past them. "Not him, IT"-General Randall. It's like seeing one T-1000 trying to hit on other T-1000. Player is just hit with this out of left field.
As for comparison with Miranda and how straight men see her - we like Miranda, but not in that way and there's a reason she's shipped so hard with Jack while most player see only Liara or Tali(or Garrus. And cry about Samara)😅
I feel like you overfixated on the fact that Redlight was designed to be able to distinguish race of the target among other things(like the whole purpose of operation Carnival 2?) and lost a bit of a picture with Blacklight later on. They wanted programmable bioweapon that would magically do everything. They wanted it to target by race, by region, by diet or other markers, be able to target one specific person by their DNA, be able to give them supersoldiers, be able to be nonlethal and superlethal simultaneously and so on. And how do you make a universal weapon that can UNDERSTAND the given task to perform such wild variety of contradicting roles? That wild overblown technical requirement of "I want it to do everything" that we see so often from clients in any engineering or software field is what led to Blacklight being intelligent. And being intelligent meant that it could make its own choices. Like choosing NOT to be all of that. In a way Prototype has a plot similar to Universal Soldier(I hope I'm referring the right movie. The one where a soldier is declared obsolete and dumped on some planet only to learn that he's human).
Proper sequel to Prototype 1 that treats both character and player with respect would be Terra Invicta with a bit of ShenzhenIO/MagnaOpus. And you can't sell that as competitor to InFamous 2😅
Prototype 1: who am i ?
Prototype 2: swearing.
Regarding the male gaze discussion at about 15 min, I don't think I ever got excited or anything even remotely like that with stupid ass shots like Sabrina and Miranda from Mass Effect
It always feels like some ridiculous thing added for horny teenagers with little to zero ability to actually interact with a woman
honestly the ones of miranda were ok as a teen. they didnt force her into weird positions and yeah the suit is pretty tight but thats just her kinda. but this example was pretty uncomfortable
15:27 - When it defies logic, it feels like the media thinks I'm a goddamn 12-13 year-old boy that's completely oblivious to media manipulation tactics. It often makes me physically roll my eyes because it's so blatant. Such as the aforementioned ME2 Miranda example.
It makes more sense in something like Metroid because the Zero Suit to me implies that it's like a second layer of skin meant to provide a bridge between Samus and the Power Armor that she wears, but Miranda prancing around in what amounts to just shy of a latex gimp suit in armed combat would've greatly detracted from the experience if I had any desire to bring that sussy bitch along in the first place.
I enjoyed it when the Eclipse merc leader retorted "Take your best shot..." with "I was waiting for you to finish getting dressed. ...Or does Cerberus really let you whore around in that outfit?" Followed by Jack cutting in with "I like her... are we still recruiting?" But it doesn't change the fact that it makes no logical sense and moves like those are just meant to justify the existence of fanservice by doing self-aware callouts.
That said, when you have things like that one back-to-back ass-shot scene in Tremors 2, or the player character dancing at the strip club in Saints Row regardless of their gender, etc. I like it *WAAAAAAAAAAAY* more. Because it's not so much calling itself out as justification, so much as saying "yeah, we're objectifying, but *EVERYONE* gets something tasty to look at, not just you" which I respect.
Also, I feel that the problem with sex and relationships in stories is that they more often than not feel like completely separate entities shoe-horned in for the sake of broad appeal. I'm often reminded of a Yahtzee's review, I think it was one of the Western Silent Hill games where he talked about a pointless romance story. He said something to the effect of "Imagine a world where every film regardless of tone or genre had to include at least one line-dancing competition, we'd all think they were insane! Yet here we are expected to engage with a forced romance more out of place than any of the supposed "horror" we're meant to be facing!" It's rare for me that it feels natural and human in nature for me.
An example of something I actually found really interesting is a conversation with a Sniper at Camp McCarrin in Fallout New Vegas when you ask her about how she feels when killing the Fiend gang members. And she talks about how sometimes she thinks about the effects of the drugs having ravaged the minds of the women and warped them to the point where they can't even see what they're doing is wrong anymore. But she admits that maybe the only reason she thinks that way is because she wants to "get in their pants". An acknowledgement that sexual attraction and desire can prevent us from de-humanizing others, yet that lack of de-humanization simultaneously is potentially dependent upon sex, gender, racial, and/or physical attributes that no one can control. Even beyond outright de-humanization, just *suggesting* that a character is cognizant of, and might be wrestling with, personal biases in relation to the amount of empathy they feel and desire to reach out to others it *WAAAAAAAAAY* deeper and more philosophical than most *MAIN CHARACTERS* get in stories, let alone one random NPC.
Though, the sniper doesn't let that prevent her from doing her job. The conflicting notion exists, but she's rational and knows that this is not a world where luxuries like mercy, drug addiction treatment, and mental health care are cheap, easy to come by, and plentiful, and keeping the NCR and civies safe by putting them down is the right thing to do.
20:54 - Henry Kissinger from beyond the grave: "Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, I don't know what you're talking about..."
Then someone flaunts any kind of interest or does that kind of behavior straight away feels more like a red flag or honey potting.
with such a stong foundation with the first game, it's a shame how so much stuff and characters are badly written
Could save the series is Mercer and Heller hunting Pariah