Sharing Games with Non-Gamers or: How I Stopped Worrying and Got Drunk

It’s the new year, and I feel excited about video games. I am excited about the mountain of games I acquired as presents and with gift cards, as well as games coming out later this year. For as much as I love good games, I am sad over how many of my friends and family just don’t enjoy them the way I do. Whether they lack interest or skill, it’s always difficult to share this part of my life with them. That’s why I’m trying to think of new ways for me to try and share my gaming experience with them.

There are of course the games that are fun to play with a group despite the challenges of the game. Games like New Super Mario Bros. U, Call of Duty, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 are great because, due to their tendency toward bullshit difficulty spikes, the whole group enjoys the accomplishments of even two players finally beating a level. Plus, the shared suffering leads to lively conversation. Other games which have narrative arcs which tend to appeal to those outside of the medium are always fun to pass and play, even if some people are terrible. These games include Alice: Madness Returns, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Resident Evil 5, and they tend to be just as fun to watch as to play if you are already invested in the subject matter. Hell, some games are such a spectacle that it’s fun to pass and play without any narrative context. Call of Duty and Halo attract droves of casual players who only play in groups. Any of these are fine, but I feel my repertoire lacks a certain “universally appealing” punch. So imagine my delight and excitement as I realize a way to better involve more people in the same games I already love.

Tekken Tag 2: Fun, Sexy, and Deeply Confusing

I have enjoyed the Tekken series since I was a youngster playing Tekken 2 with my friends. It has always been fun for me, and after missing out on the series for some time, I finally picked up the newest title, Tekken Tag Tournament 2. As an adult, I am noticing some things about the game which I either failed to notice before or missed in their development.

The first thing that I noticed is how funny this game is. It makes fun of itself and the fighting genre, which works well with its powerful and serious characters. Its good humor makes it difficult to understand what exactly it is really saying sometimes. Tekken is, like many arcade games, highly sexualized. However, it is very aware of this and pokes fun at the clash between violence and sex. For example, the opening cut scene begins with Jinpachi, who is glowing with a powerful aura, riding in a cab presumably on his way to the fighting tournament. He tells the cab driver that it should be obvious where he is going, as he needs to unleash his awesome power. In a follow-up cut scene available in the gallery, we see that the driver mistook Jinpachi’s cryptic remark to mean that he wanted to go to sin-corner to pick up a prostitute. In other games, the character Ganryu fell in love with Michelle after kidnapping her mother and Michelle subsequently kicked his ass. After Michelle was written out of the series and replaced by her daughter, Julia, Ganryu arbitrarily forgot about Michelle and fell in love with Julia. 

Trailer Tuesdays: Tekken Tag Tournament Two’s Girl Power Trailer

It’s Trailer Tuesdays! Let’s talk about Tekken‘s version of Girl Power.

I love playing Tekken! Love it! I enjoy kicking the various butts of all of my friends that play with me. It’s one of the few video games that I have always enjoyed and have been good at.

Apparently though, Tekken Tag Tournament Two‘s new trailer Girl Power has a message for me, that message appears to be either that Tekken is not for women or that the only power women have comes from their sexuality. I think there is less than a minute of actual game footage is this trailer. The rest is simply models dressed up to look like the characters and posed in various provocative ways.