The Nerd Next Door

The Damsel in Distress, a tale as old as time, a beautiful maiden, a ferocious monster, and the dashing knight in shining armor come to save the day, whether due to a sense of duty or emotional reasons (okay, that take is as old as feudal Europe but you get the point). For a while, it was just sort of the default for female characters, particularly in the early days of film, comics, and video games. But recently (if the 80's counts as recent) there's been a push against that being the default for female characters, new characters like Samus Aran, Ellen Ripley, and Spider-Gwen have all made names for themselves kicking ass and taking names and even previous notorious damsels in distress have been either kicking a lot more ass or are just better written in general. But in turn there has been another type of character, the "action girl" who is built up as a fighter and a warrior but turns out to just be a damsel in distress and utterly helpless in spite of the build...

Ask anyone what the best feeling in a video game is and you'll get a wide variety of answers, the thrill of winning and dominating your foes, the chaos you and a friend can create with a large sandbox, the feeling of discovering a world of lore and fighting their way through it, the terror of having to survive against overwhelming odds. For me though the best feeling in a video game is when the world feels like it could go on forever, that this stretch of world your in is just a small part of something bigger and who knows what lies over the next hill (answer: whatever assets the dev was too busy to delete). The first time I felt this was when I was 5 and got my first gaming console, a Nintendo Gamecube, along with a copy of Super Mario Sunshine . My mind was blown by just how big the world of Isle Delfino was, how you could see other islands in the distance and how you could swim in their direction, I wanted to see those places and go there. Well I was a dumb child who kept re...