- WB Interactive
- Honestly, I’d say this is more “catty” than anything else.
Two points before I explain the current situation:
One: The newly released Batman: Arkham City is awesome. Like, Game of the Year awesome.
Two: When playing as Catwoman, it is quite common to hear the game’s enemies (Gotham City’s criminal element) refer to her as a “bitch.” This usually coincides with their attempts to punch her or otherwise inflict bodily harm.
Now that you’re all up to speed, here’s the thing: Apparently this has upset some people. Specifically, Kotaku’s Kirk Hamilton who took to the popular gaming wing of Nick Denton’s Gawker empire to rail against the use of the word toward this fictional feline lady.
As a result, my Twitter stream is now full of gamers and comic book fans weighing in on whether or not the word “bitch” is an apropos sentiment in this game, whether the term itself is innately damaging to women and/or how stupid people are for being insulted by this in the first place.
I’m going to abstain from offering any personal commentary on the topic, but I thought I’d toss the question out to Portland’s enlightened masses via a precise, scientific poll. *Nex points downward*
Where is the “Nex is an idiot and shouldn’t have posted this” box?
I feel like Kirk wrote that post specifically for my benefit.
The same people are not concerned that the Gotham authorities simply walled up a section of town as a prison and let mentally ill super criminals out of the Arkham Asylum to run the place? Do they have a comment about whether it is appropriate to let a man in a rubber bat fetish suit with serious trauma issues police the prisoners and crush them from great heights by jumping on them from buildings? I think those things are more disturbing than the word bitch, if you think about it for a minute.
PS: It is definitely game of the year.
PPS: Bitches.
@tcraighenry: In all honesty that was totally an option, but I ran out of room. Sorry.
@kiala: As with everything Kirk does, this is invariably a plan to seduce every woman, everywhere.
catwoman is a cat, not a dog. this “bitch” argument is invalid.
its like calling bachmann a candidate.
It’s not so much offensive, as just unnecessary. It has “let’s be provacative!” written all over it.
NYPD Blue could have been the same show without showing Dennis Franz’s ass. I’m guessing this could be the same game without calling someone a bitch.
Yes, “ma’am” would have been much more pleasant and polite. Can’t these maniacs learn some fucking manners? And the characters they create too?
The rebooted DC’s “Catwoman #1” is much more “let’s be provocative” than looped video game dialogue. Catwoman is also really fun to beat people up with in this game so it’s just added incentive to claw some faces off.
#occupygotham