Nova stream Issue #2

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Interview Alaisdair Dewar chats with writer and director

Kiah Roache-Turner at Supanova.

If you follow the site at all you know we love Wyrmwood and we’re basically here today to thank you for making an awesome film.

My absolute pleasure.

How’s it all going?

This is my first time at Supanova and it’s super awesome to look around and see people cosplaying as Guardians of the Galaxy and Mr Safari and Katniss Everdeen and Bobba Fett with tits which is fantastic and here we are in the middle.

We’re sitting around talking to the fans and signing posters. It makes you feel like you made a real film.

Now we do have to ask you a big question: What happens next? Are you doing another movie or a TV series with Netflix like we suggested on the site?

if it’s as good as Wyrmwood the movie in a ten part series we could get away with it.

As for what’s next – the sequel won’t be next but the TV series definitely will be. We’re working on an unnamed – well it is named but I can’t tell you – it’s an R-rated Ghostbusters with lashings of Lovecraft and Stephen King and Clive Barker. It’s like Hellraiser with pulse riflers.

It’s going to be mental. It’s like a ghost film you’ve never seen before.

I’m so intrigued right now.

Like Aliens meets Ghostbusters. Tell me you don’t want to see that film!

Will it have an all-female cast like the new Ghostbusters?

That was you? You really came up with that? Because we’re probably going to do that.

No, no, it’s cross-sexual. Equal opportunity for men and women.

That would be amazing!

So do we have a release date?

It’s a funny thing because we spent four years on this – ages and ages – and people are screaming for a sequel and I was like “oh god” because I know if we do a sequel we have to go back to Broken Hill and it has to be huge road trains of zombies and rocket launchers – it has to be the Fury Road of zombie films.

I just finished the forth draft of the screenplay so we’re still figuring that out but we’ve got concept art that just… amazing, it’s phenomenal. We’re in preproduction, we’re making costumes. It’s being filmed next year. Look out for it.

Now I’m tired and I don’t want to do that but a TV series I could do. So we’re going to do a ten part or a twelve part R-rated hardcore Netflix/HBO series that leads into a theatrical sequel. Which will be huge.

And with a tv series I don’t have to write or direct them all. Maybe the first couple and the last one like David Lynch did with Twin Peaks. It’s like half the work. But 5

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Review

Trainwreck

Alaisdair Dewar can’t look away from this Trainwreck

I am not going to sugar coat it, I am an Amy Schumer fan (by the way, we REALLY need to think of a name for ourselves!) So it was with a massive amount of anticipation that I was waiting for Trainwreck, Schumer’s first feature film that she wrote, directed by Judd Apatow. The film is set in the comedy styling of Bridesmaids while bringing the heart and emotion of This Is 40. It has an intelligent, powerful and well played out story, while bringing consistent laughs and genuine emotion that combines outrageous laughing one minute and tear invoking emotion the next.

Amy stars as Amy (?) a journalist working at S’Nuff, a men’s magazine ran by editor in chief Dianna (Tilda Swinton) who is writing a story about sports doctor Aaron (Bill Hader) who is producing some ground breaking work on knee reconstruction surgery for sports players. Amy’s character is sexually promiscuous, treating men like disposable objects, while Aaron is a settled doctor who hasn’t had a relationship for six years.

His best friend is Le Bron James who plays a hilariously needy version of himself.

While the majority of the film does focus on these main players, there is also Amy’s sister Kim (Brie Larson) and her father Godron (Colin Quinn). Amy and Kim are close but complete opposites; Kim is married with a step-child with one of her own on the way. She is settled and has her head screwed on properly.

Their dad has advanced multiple sclerosis and has just been admitted to an assisted living home. He is surly and offensive to everyone that talks to him, which provides some beautiful scenes between him and Amy.

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The film shines with Amy’s trademark sense of humour, mixed with Apatow’s ability to produce genuine emotion that brings a depth to these seemingly stereotypical characters. I was concerned about the 120 minute run time, as some of Apatow’s previous work feels over-blown, fortunately in this one there is enough content to keep it moving along at an evened pace.

Other cast nods go to John Cena who plays a cross fit-loving love interest with one of the most graphic sex scenes I have seen in a long time. Ezra Miller plays an intern with a dark side and Daniel Radcliffe plays a dog walker in a movie that the cast watch called The Dog Walker. They all contribute hilarious and engaging scenes that show that Schumer knows how to write content to make everyone just as funny as the main character.

Overall this film is one of the best comedies I have seen in a long time. Even taking Amy Schumer out of it, the supporting cast, the setting of New York and empowering message of family and love shine through. The blend of comedy and emotion is balanced perfectly and Apatow’s ability to craft a film of this genre is at its best in Trainwreck. This is the film that Schumer fans have been waiting for: she is brilliant, funny and solidifies her status as comedic and feminist legend.

Trainwreck is showing in cinemas now.

5/5

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They say good things come in small packages and, true to form, Marvel Studios Ant-Man has delivered a small gift that everyone can enjoy. Ant-Man is the story of Scott Lang, an ex-burglar who is released from prison with only one thing in mind; making up for the time away from his nine year old daughter Cassie. But when a criminal record and finding a stable job don’t coincide he’s left with no choice but to return to a life of crime in order to make the child support that will enable him visitation rights. On his first heist he discovers a mysterious old home containing an astonishing suit that enables the wearer to shrink to the size of an ant and control them telepathically with a receiver built in to the helmet.

When its owner, a brilliant scientist named Dr. Henry Pym wants it back the two strike a deal.

Pym was once a hero in his own right donning the suit for the government during the Cold War era and taking on the mantle of the Ant-Man. But after losing his wife (and superhero partner Janet Van Dyne aka The Wasp) in an adventure gone wrong he walked away from a life of super heroics and, while grief stricken, inadvertently pushed his daughter Hope away. Now his research and development company Pym Tech has been taken over by greedy corporate figure Darren Cross who plans to use the technology Pym deemed too great for the world to responsibly handle to build an army of Ant-Man sized suits and sell them to the highest bidder. It’s now up to Pym, Lang and Hope to work together, break in to the high security facility, destroy the research and pull off the ultimate heist.

Since Iron Man, every following Marvel movie has grown bigger and bigger in scale.

From corporate corruption to Nazi world domination to alien invasion to planetary destruction; and with stakes soon to reach a battle to infinity and beyond in the upcoming Avengers Infinity War Part 1 and Part 2 many have wondered where these movies could possibly go from there. Which is why it’s a joy to see them return to a smaller and more personal tale to astonish here once again. The stakes still involve an end of the world type scenario (a must have trope of the genre) but among the action is the story of two fathers trying to reconnect with their estranged daughters and both longing for a sense of redemption.

The tone throughout Ant-Man is undeniably fun and the San Francisco backdrop is presented as bright and vibrant and, most importantly, Marvel make the world an inviting place, which is something that sets it apart from its DC comics contemporaries (and if the Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad trailers are anything to go by, it doesn’t look like changing any time soon). I mean, at the end of the day, if the world is still gonna be a bleak, depressing, grey, gloomy place then is it really worth saving? But that’s for a future review altogether.

Another great thing on display here is the wonderful sense of humour which isn’t shoe horned in with pop culture references or slapstick injuries, but instead comes organically from the unusual situations the characters are faced with. Like Rudd stuck working a dull clerk job in a Baskin and Robbins, or every time an epic moment happens to those tiny scale but it appears as mundane to anyone else watching. These moments like a plain old suitcase falling from the sky while a secret battle is happening inside or when our hero heaves a full train carriage with all his might 10

off the track and the toy train softly lands up on a window sill. In fact this entire climatic battle on a children’s Thomas the Tank Engine scale railway track is both awe inspiring and at the same time absolutely hilarious.

But comedy timing is nothing without great actors.

Paul Rudd at first seems like an odd choice as the lead of a superhero movie but again, like Robert Downey Jr before him, it has proven to be an inspired choice. He brings in the every man perspective and really is that likeable anchor for the mainstream audience. Rudd has proven himself to be a great team player in movies like Anchorman and will be great in an ensemble when inevitably joining the Avengers future roster.

Michael Douglas brings credibility as Hank Pym and tapping in to his action adventure days of Jewel of the Nile and Romancing the Stone, it’s easy to believe that he was once the heroic Ant-Man. However, outside of mentoring and giving speeches he doesn’t have much else to do. In an absolutely mind blowing opening scene though, a heated board room meeting is brought to a stand still when a young 30 years old Michael Douglas storms in the room with the use of digital de-aging.

Technology has come leaps and bounds (even since last month’s Terminator: Genysis gave us a digitally-young Arnold Schwarzenegger) where when can have digitally-aged actors up close on a Imax-sized screen you can’t even tell the difference. It would be a bold (yet expensive) move to make a Hank Pym-focused Ant-Man prequel but I would be dying to see one.

The supporting cast are great too. Corey Stoll as the villainous Darren Cross oozes bottled rage and his deep baritone voice brings great menace. Evangeline Lily is OK as Hope Pym but she has little more to do than pout and stomp her feet, mostly used here as plot device in where I’m sure she will get her chance to shine. Michael Pena is used perfectly for comic effect and his long winded stories are a huge highlight.

The absurdity of a hero who fights villains with ants and being small is quenched once you see him in action. The special effects service the story perfectly but unfortunately don’t blow my mind like I wish they could have, but there is plenty of room for future sequels to mine that potential and the one emptiness here more than make up for it. What is really impressive though are the costumes and action set pieces. The Ant Man suit is initially mistaken as a motor cycle helmet and suit which is a cool grounded approach that really works and the yellow jacket armour is both menacing an awe-inspiring, like an Iron Man/Robocop/Ant-Man hybrid. The fights move at such a fast pace that multiple viewings are required, which I think Marvel are counting on. While AntMan has opened to shrinking box office numbers compared to Marvel Studios’ last effort, the massively hyped Age of Ultron, I’m certain good word of mouth will make this a sleeper hit.

While not the in the top three Marvel movies (which is an incredible standard) it does sit highly and is guaranteed to get a few chuckles from young and old.

Coming in at a lean 2 hours the movie flies by at a nice pace that won’t leave you feeling like you’ve got ants in your pants. There are a few tiny issues that bugged me though. Many of the best lines from the trailer do not appear in the finished movie; which might be understandable if it were just in early teasers but great jokes shown in the final trailers are now either alternate takes or completely removed from the final film.

At the end of the day though; if you’ve got even a just tiny interest in seeing this I definitely recommend making the effort to check it out.

While the idea of a guy whose super power is talking to ants seems silly, push all doubt aside because it is definitely a movie that will grow on you. Oh, and for those wondering if a certain other insect-themed hero makes an appearance, let’s just say there was a minuscule name drop, but don’t expect more than that in the Marvel cinematic universe just yet.

Dylan Boaden reviews this small film with a big heart

4/5

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Review

Paper Towns

Mark Halyday read the book...then he saw the movie

Paper Towns is based on a novel by John Green – the same guy that wrote The Fault In Our Stars – and that for me is all the promotion it will ever need.

John Green is one half of popular YouTube channel ‘vlogbrothers’ and is one of the most genuine, compassionate, educated and generally cool people I have ever known to exist. He and his brother Hank have my utmost respect. Their tagline DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome) is a light-hearted ethos to inspire. I have it as my facebook cover photo, on my corkboard and on a t-shirt.

Together they have consistently been producing four minute videos at least once a week for over five years while branching out to other areas of media.

Their endeavours are countless. After the blinding success of The Fault In Our Stars the studio approached John about adapting another of his novels. He joyfully agreed and signed on to executive produce.

Paper Towns stars Nat Wolff (The Fault In Our Stars) as Q and Cara Delevingne (Suicide Squad) as Margo in a love story that switches gears into a mystery. After a night of revenge Margo vanishes and Q recruits his friends to track her down by deciphering a series of clues. The film’s namesake is a reference to the predetermined and manufactured factors of life. Without too many spoilers here the mystery snowballs into a road trip with Q and his friends in search of Margo.

It’s such a cliché to say that the film is not verbatim to the novel. They are entirely different mediums with their own nuances and should be treated individually. For instance, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets director Christopher Columbus omitted Nearly Headless Nick’s 252nd deathday party to streamline the film and keep John Cleese happy. While the scene would have been a cute piece of film it ultimately added nothing to the story and its absence from the film series isn’t a wound.

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On the other hand Paper Towns felt like too much of a departure from the source material. The novel paced the events over a longer time frame and really immersed Q in the world of Margo in spite of his impending graduation. In the film graduation is supplemented for prom – the midway point of the novel – and there is little personal loss to Q. The film’s title is also a reference to Margo’s state of mind. The novel doesn’t just flirt with suicide – it presents it as the most likely outcome. It invites you to believe a disenfranchised teen that witnessed a trauma early in her life has slowly been giving up. The final night of revenge was the last straw and if she is not dead she will be if Q does not find her. The urgency is legitimate – not a manufactured concept like prom that flies in the face of everything that Q and Margo stand for.

So the folks that adapted the plot to a movie’s runtime failed entirely. They didn’t get it. Even with the author slipping notes across the table they failed to grasp the source material adequately and cut the legs off the film before it had a chance.

Yes, suicide is a gloomy topic. Yes, this will sell to a larger market. No, it was not half as faithful to the novel as The Fault In Our Stars.

Otherwise, it was a cool film. Cara Delevingne could read the phonebook and it would get positive reviews. Her soul is genuine and infectious. Suicide Squad is lucky to have her, and yes, I appreciate the stark irony here.

Nat Wolff was a risky choice. It’s his first time leading a film and there were moments that it showed. Q is probably the most sombre romantic lead of 2015, contrasting to road-trip-love-story with a sharp twist tone that the studio was aiming for. Was this the misguided writers again or was Nat Wolff the only one being faithful to the source material?

It’s not all bad. The supporting cast are electric. They’re basically all unknowns

– Justice Smith did a few episodes on Nickelodeon, Austin Abrams did three episodes of The Walking Dead, Jaz Sinclair did three episodes of Rizzoli and Isles and Halston Sage did a scene for Bad Neighbours. Combined, they offer a brighter context for the ensuing mystery and keep everything teen-friendly.

The final glaring difference to the novel is the inclusion of Angela, portrayed by Jaz Sinclair. It made so much more sense for Radar, the most likable character of the series, to bring his girlfriend on his great adventure and the film is better for it.

Similarly Austin Abrams transforms the least likeable character Ben into a good friend with a different frame of mind.

Points there.

Ultimately, it feels like it lost a lot in translation, sucking all the gravitas from the big moments to keep the studio happy.

The valleys were lower and the peaks were higher and a slightly watered down version cannot compete with an excellent novel. However, Paper Towns The Movie is not competing with Paper Towns The Book.

Paper Towns The Movie is competing with Ant-Man. And if you have not read the novel I thoroughly recommend it with the same tenacity as I recommend youtube. com/vlogbrothers and The Fault In Our Stars.

If you have read the novel I’ll tell you that unfortunately you may want to limit your expectations.

Review

Terminator: Genisys

Does the latest instalment in the classic sci-fi series live up to the original? Liam Kinkead finds out!

The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Christian Old Testament and details how God created the world and everything in it. God creates the first man and woman and appoints man as his regent (and so began gender inequality), man displeases God and He destroys the Earth with a flood.

In 1984 a young filmmaker named James Cameron created a world of his own with The Terminator, and with it, changed the face of science fiction filmmaking forever. Cameron’s Terminator was smart and lean, it was a film of big ideas shot on a small budget with a stripped down aesthetic that looked like nothing else in cinemas of the day. Its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, built on the foundation of the original and is widely considered to be the seminal action sci-fi film. With T2 Cameron, like God before him, decided to close the loop on his creation and move on to other worlds with an emotionally powerful and logical denouement. Flash forward to 2015 and the release of the fifth instalment in the Terminator franchise, an entry which is so poorly made it may have some feeling thankful God never had to give his precious creations up to capitalism and copyright laws.

Terminator Genisys is Paramount and Annapurna Pictures’ own Genesis on the Terminator series, taking the original film and all its IPs and rebooting them for a new generation. The idea of the ‘soft reboot’ is one which seems to have taken hold in the minds of Hollywood studio executives – perhaps thanks to the success of 2009’s Star Trek – right in the amygdala next to a piece of grey matter labelled ‘comic book movies’, two of which served as trailers for the feature showing of Terminator Genisys; an oxymoronic title for a film which serves to add nothing to the lore from which it was spawned.

Make no mistake, in spite of its namesake, Terminator: Genisys is the most unoriginal film since the 1998 almost shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the weakest of the film series to date.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return as the

eponymous cyborg was a much-hyped carrot dangled in the face of fans, but ultimately it is not the treat fans had hoped for; Schwarzenegger is almost unrecognisable in the role which made his career 30 years ago, and without the steady hand of a director like Cameron, Schwarzenegger’s performance is scattershot and wooden in all the wrong ways. In Schwarzenegger’s defence, the script is really quite terrible, calling for his T-800 to be nothing more than a prop; running interference by slamming one robot or another through dry wall and concrete for the nth time, or making one more bad joke which fails to deliver due to director Alan Taylor and the screenwriters’ lack of character development. What made the jokes of T2 so effective was the relationship between Edward Furlong’s John Connor and the T-800, the way it grew and developed into a proxy father/ son relationship with the absence of the already dead Kyle Reese. Cameron spent time making the relationship believable and touching. Genisys fails to show us why the jokes are appropriate given the stakes of the film, it fails to connect its audience with the characters beyond a superficial level, and the gags ultimately fall flat on their synthetic faces because they have no emotional undercurrent to them.

Another character who is completely unrecognisable is Emilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor. Linda Hamilton’s portrayal of Connor in the original films was an acute character study of a woman pushed to the limits of her sanity and beyond by forces outside of her control. The films remain Hamilton’s strongest performances to date and Hamilton made the character her own, so to reboot and recast Clarke in the role was a huge ask for the young actor famous for her role as another strong female in Game of Thrones. Clarke’s portrayal is like watching a marionette try to recreate the movements of a human; no matter how posable and manoeuvrable the puppet, something just feels wrong.

Where Hamilton was able to evoke the strength and iron will of her character, Clarke seems to rely on foul language and mutterings about ‘fate’ to show she is

a badass. Hamilton looked every bit the hardened warrior in T2, here Clarke just isn’t believable as the rebooted Connor who has lived her life hunted by robotic assassins. She has no hard edge, and her abilities as an actor show fissures when scrutinised so closely for the film’s two hour runtime.

Everything about Terminator: Genisys feels like an inferior copy of the original, like a T-1000 that for all its bells and whistles just can’t seem to outdo the trusty old T-800. The cast, score and script are cheap knock-offs of those found in Cameron’s brilliant films, and while the old effects of the original films may have aged, the slap of new paint given to the infamous homicidal automatons looks great in parts, but fake in others, forcing the audience to notice the shiny toys and pulling them out of the film’s storytelling experience.

Just like Adam, Terminator: Genisys fails to live up to the expectations set by its creator; every part of the film fails to capture the magic and ingenuity of the original films. While the prospect of Cameron ever returning to the franchise which made his name is unrealistic, it would be a much better future for all of us if the great films of yesterday weren’t rehashed for the audiences of tomorrow but reexamined and enjoyed by those who have yet to experience their magic.

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Airlock Available NOW! The much anticipated online sci-fi series Airlock, starring Mark Coles Smith (Last Cab to Darwin) and Dan Mor (Underbelly) is now available worldwide on BitTorrent Bundle and for devices including Windows, Mac, Web, iPhone, iPad, Roku, Chromecast and more via http:// deadhousefilms.com/titles/airlock/ For an unlimited time the first episode of the series, directed by Marc Furmie (Terminus) is free. The entire series download bundle, priced at $5, includes an exclusive music video Clear The Aura by Tim Hilberts, an MP3 album of the Airlock score by Paul Dawkins, an EP of ‘Songs Inspired By Airlock’ and the behind the scenes featurette, Lockdown.

The online series, also starring Dwaine Stevenson (Infini, Gabriel) and Kristy Best will have its domestic big-screen premiere at Australia’s international web series festival, Melbourne Webfest, on Saturday July 11 and has just been confirmed to appear at the prestigious Marseille Webfest event in October this year.

So what is Airlock?

A drifting derelict spaceship docks with an isolated space station. Inside is a dead crew and a band of stowaway refugees. Tasked with the investigation, Security Officer Jonah Ashbrook (Mark Coles Smith) is thrown headlong into a series of events that will turn life on the station into a life or death crisis.

Alaisdair & Ryan recently sat in on the premiere episode at Supanova 2015 and commended it as “visually epic” and “one of the most promising events to come out of Australia in a long time” Make sure you head over to http://deadhousefilms.com/titles/airlock/ and put your money down on this epic series! Our full review will be up soon!

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DANIEL PRIMAN

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Feature

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Could Become the Best Comedy on TV Daniel Priman takes a look at the new contender With Parks and Recreation finishing it’s final season earlier this year, the throne for best American comedy is waiting for it’s King OR QUEEN (this is just a metaphor, television shows don’t have a gender and I don’t want to be sexist). It seems that we only have the Community movie left to look forward to and no one has recommissioned Futurama yet GOD DAMN IT! So those are out, still there quite a few good shows at the moment, New Girl, Silicon Valley, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia to name a few. But if we are talking about a big show that is consistently hailed as the best comedy on TV, I say Brooklyn NineNine could be the one to watch(pun intended, the only reason people say “no pun intended” is so that they can point out that they made a pun).

Brooklyn Nine-Nine centres around a group of detectives heading up the 99th precinct in the New York Police Department and their newly appointed captain. The show has got an astounding cast, who are all amazing comedy actors that all deserve a mention. Headed up by Andy Samberg who seems to be playing Andy Samberg the cop aka Jake Peralta, which is fine because Andy Samberg is hilarious and he really goes the extra mile in this role. Andre Braugher is introduced at the team’s new captain, Raymond Holt who is stilted, yet focused and efficient, which on the surface sounds dull but Braugher’s amazingly dry wit can make his character the funniest in the room. Melissa Fumero plays the driven Amy Santiago who quickly becomes the teacher’s pet, a fact that she is quite proud of. Joe Lo Truglio’s character, Charles Boyle is riddled with eccentricities that make his character charming and hilarious at the same time. Half way there; Terry Crews plays Detective Sergeant Terry Jeffords who is the team’s strongest, yet most sensitive member. Rosa Diaz is the team’s scariest team member and about the only fact I know about her is that she is played by Stephanie Beatriz. Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller are Hitchcock and Sully, the most pointless and ridiculous detectives in the

entire precinct. Finally there is the precinct’s civilian administrator, Gina Linetti, played by Chelsea Peretti, who for my money is the funniest member of the team. Chelsea Peretti’s performance just oozes funny and everything from her odd dance moves down weird giggle/noises she makes all add up to an amazing comic performance.

It’s not just the cast that this show’s got right, there’s also the setting.

As my brother said to me, it’s nice to see a cop show that isn’t all scary murderers, dramatic back stories and stern looks. As well as that, Brooklyn Nine-Nine may well be the most progressive comedy on television(after Transparent of course). The cast is very diverse, the male protagonist is always making feminist comments and most of all, the captain of the entire team is a black homosexual man that fits none of the gay stereotypes TV has built up over the years.

Alright, now that I’ve dumped all my praise for the show on top of you, let’s return to the title of this article; Brooklyn Nine-Nine COULD Become The Best Comedy On TV. While I think the show is very good, it just doesn’t seem quite ready to be called great. Sure the ingredients individually all taste great but when you put them all together, the final dish doesn’t taste quite as sweet as you were expecting. What it boils down to is, there just isn’t enough jokes.

If we are going to compare the show to Parks And Recreation, you’ve got to remember how hilarious Parks And Recreation actually was. Every episode had at least two laugh out loud moments an episode with a few chuckles thrown in along the way for good measure. Brooklyn NineNine on the other hand may have one laugh out loud moment every two episodes or so. There are also times in the show where you can see that the writers have made an attempt at a joke but it hasn’t quite paid off. It may just be down to the fact that the characters still need time to grow but if we look back to Parks and Recreation again, that show really learnt from it’s mistakes in the first series.

Having said all that, I am very excited for the third series and I have faith that the writers can beef up the joke count. They have all the right tools at their disposal considering that quite a few members of the creative team come from Parks And Recreation to begin with, I’m quietly confident.

So I would like to say good luck Brooklyn Nine-Nine and thank you for reading an article that really could have been summed up in the one sentence; Brooklyn Nine-Nine is pretty good but it needs more jokes.

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Feature

Women in Gaming

Alana Young discusses the unique experiences she’s had from being a woman in the gaming industry There’s a lot of heat around the way women are represented in games as well as our place in the gaming industry. On the whole, people are glad to see a growing number of women playing and making games, but there are still some struggling with acceptance. And while some games do an admirable job of creating strong female characters, a lot of the major titles are still lagging behind. But even disregarding the gender equality issues explored in the media lately, there’s no doubt that women in gaming face certain challenges. As a woman who’s played games her entire life, and is working towards a career in the industry, my life has been shaped by issues of identity within the community.

The biggest issue I’ve faced as a woman who plays games isn’t sexism or abuse – I’ve been harassed by a guy online once and a lot more people came to my defence than screamed at me to add them. The hardest part of being a gamer has been expressing my passion for the medium to some of the most important people in my life. My mum didn’t love that I played so many games as a kid, and I think she was a bit shocked when I told her I was going to be studying them at uni. None of my closest friends are gamers, and for the most part I’ve stopped talking to them about games. Not because it makes me feel excluded but because I know they have no idea what I’m talking about! So for a long time I didn’t have an outlet for discussing video games, and I always desperately wanted one.

The life-long desire to share my love of gaming is a big part of what made me want to become a video games journalist. These days, some of my happiest moments come from the times I send Novastream reviews to my mum. Since I’ve started writing for the site, every article has given me a chance to share a part of myself with all the non-gamers that I love.

I’ve also struggled with the sense that I need to justify my interest in gaming, as a career choice but especially a hobby, because I’m a woman.

Writing my dissertation on video games gave me a chance to show that all the time and effort I’d put into games was worthwhile. Months of tireless work and a lifetime of investment paid off when I could point to respected academics like Janet Murray, Miguel Sicart, and Tom

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Bissell and explain how I was expanding on their work. My Honours supervisor is an amazing and inspiring woman, but she had no idea about games or what made them special.

When she was interested in my research and acknowledged video games as a powerful narrative form, I remember feeling a huge sense of pride, relief, and success.

But this is still hard for some people to grasp.

The other day I was telling a neighbour about this article and she asked why any nice young lady would like video games? The reason is simple: they give me an experience that nothing can match. I love immersing myself in fantasy worlds, and games offer this escape in a way no other medium can. It’s doesn’t matter that I’m a girl – I just love being told stories and getting the privilege to participate in them!

Sadly, the stereotype that games are a man’s medium is still prevalent in our society. Last year I wrote a uni assignment on the rhetoric at work in the Gamergate controversy. When I started research I thought the issue was silly but working towards a real solution, but by the end of the essay I was convinced it had devolved into a screaming match between two sides who wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter the consequence for the industry. The whole thing seems ridiculous and harmful, and I want nothing more to do with it. That being said, of course I believe that games should work to portray more realistic and positive female characters. And, happily, some games do an outstanding job of this!

Anya and Caroline in Wolfenstein: The New Order are just as integral to the resistance as BJ, and Frau Engel is a terrifying villain without compromise; Lara Croft burst back into our lives as an unstoppable whirlwind of ability and strength of will in the rebooted Tomb Raider; a female Commander Shepard in Mass Effect is the saviour of the galaxy and lacks nothing that a male Shepard possesses.

In fact, BioWare games in general are brilliant examples of gender equality. Mass Effect 2 shows off Miranda’s sex appeal every chance it gets, but she isn’t defined by it: she’s incredibly smart, a formidable player in galactic intrigue, and a powerful ally for Shepard. Dragon Age: Inquisition features a cast of ambitious and talented women, as Novastream’s own Zahra discussed. Characters like this make me proud

to be a girl gamer, because they give me positive female characters to identify with and form connections with.

isn’t as important to me as I once thought it was, they’re still an important part of my life.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of problems with the representation of women in games. Women in GTA V are only ever prostitutes and “bitches” put in the game for a male audience’s violent comedic outlet. The Witcher 3 has positive female characters, but the sex cards in the first game are a childishly hyper-sexualised approach to women. Geralt having sex with lots of women makes sense in a narrative context, but there’s no in-game justification for his collection of the middle ages equivalent to naked snapchats. The cards only serve to appeal to players, and young male players at that.

Games are an amazing medium that welcome anyone with open arms. There’s still work to be done to achieve equality in games, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be positive experiences for women. Being a gamer has given me some amazing experiences in life. I’ve made lots of friends playing games, and I’ve become a part of some very friendly and supportive communities. But no woman – no person – who plays games is defined by that interest. Girl gamers aren’t spectacles, we’re just people who want interactive and immersive experiences. When these experiences get gender representation right, they can lead to some powerful responses. So I’m going to keep striving for equality in games for as long as I’m involved in the industry, and I’m excited to see where we end up in the next few years.

For the first time in the franchise’s AAA release history, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will feature a playable female character (Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation gave us Aveline as a playable character, but the fact that this instalment was relegated to a PS Vita release should show how little effort Ubisoft put into this attempt at gender equality). However, a report from Kotaku claims that Evie will only be playable for roughly 20% of the game. I understand the marketing logic behind this choice, with the series having a predominately male audience, but with the demographic of the gaming industry constantly shifting to include more and more women, this won’t be a valid excuse for much longer.

Personally, I don’t often get offended by gender imbalanced in games, but even so, I’d love to see them continue to change. There are more and more women getting involved in all aspects of the industry, and I’m sure they’d agree when I say that I want more realistic women in games, both to represent us and for us to identify with. This isn’t a case of wholesome versus sexy – I love seeing a kick-ass lady flaunting what she’s got – just don’t make a woman’s appearance her defining characteristic.

The gender imbalances in the gaming community had a big influence on the kinds of friends I made when I was younger. In primary school I was very much a tomboy and I had more guy friends than girls, mostly because I recognised boys as my chance to talk about video games. But I realised in my last years of high school that playing games and doing girly things aren’t mutually exclusive. I still don’t have a lot of female friends who game, but all my ladies are amazingly geeky about something. I met Lauren when she saw my Star Wars pencil case one day at school, and she owns what I’m sure is the world’s largest collection of Marvel shirts and lounge pants; Bridgette knows more about Girls than Lena Dunham herself and may even love Han Solo more than I do; I get roughly one snapchat a week from Jess who can’t wait to show off her new art supplies; Mel has the most intense reactions to TV shows and we spent our afternoons after school binging on Veronica Mars and Fringe. I love seeing them geek out about their thing, and even when we’re not talking about video games it satisfies the part of me that wants to express a passion for something.

Anya is every bit BJ’s equal

Miranda is as threatening as she is beautiful

Lara Croft has no time for looking glamourous

That being said, games have also been the cornerstone of some of my strongest relationships. One of my best friendships in high school started when I asked a guy to help me build a computer, and we were inseparable for years. I met some of my closest friends at college when they saw the giant KOTOR poster on my wall, and Mass Effect 3 is what led to my boyfriend and I going on our first date (we made a bet that whoever finished the series last would take the other out for coffee. I won, but I think that was his plan all along). So even though a mutual appreciation for games 19

Review

Batman: Arkham Knight Alaisdair Dewar steps into the shadows for the Dark Knight’s final adventure

The Bat is back!

In the highly anticipated finale of the Arkham trilogy (yes, Origins has no place here!) RockSteady studios return to close out their masterpiece in storytelling, this time putting Scarecrow front and centre of the mayhem and introducing a new villain, the mysterious Arkham Knight, who seems a little too close to Batman to be a complete stranger. The graphics upgrade is phenomenal and an open world Gotham with supporting player team ups sees Arkham Knight return to its glorious gaming roots and deliver one of the best games on consoles this year.

Following on one year from the events of Arkham City, Batman must once again save Gotham when Scarecrow threatens to unleash his fear toxin on the city. Along with the help of the Arkham Knight, a villainous mechanical bat suit figure who seems to only be able to fight Batman with a military grade helicopter, Scarecrow forces Gotham to evacuate and leaves Batman to fight one dimensional goons on his way to stop the villains from taking over Gotham city. It sounds pretty straight-forward story wise, and like the other games, it kind of is.

Where it does mix things up is the gameplay. This time around your fighting moves are upgraded and come with a whole new set of combos and electrocution gloves that can get through anything. There are also certain missions allowing you to team up with Nightwing, Robin & Catwoman for combo takedowns and allowing control of the other character. Also new is the Batmobile, fully driveable and usable for the first time in a Batman game. Unfortunately it is not just about driving around the city: the Batmobile converts into a Bat-Tank and then you are forced

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to undertake the most horrendously tedious tank missions that will test your dedication to finishing this game. The batmobile is the game’s biggest strength, while also being the biggest weakness.

Graphically this is a gamechanger. Gotham, while still very under-populated due to the events in the game, truly feels alive for the first time in the Arkham series. The level of detail on the buildings and streets make it feel like the dark and depressing city it is. Special mention has to be given to Batman’s design.

The way the rain and water shimmers and dribbles down his cape is truly an accomplishment in console graphics. The characters are also intricately detailed to comic book-nerd perfection, which helps make the game feel authentic.

This game was plagued with problems on the PC version and as a result is now no longer for sale on Steam. A date for the fix has not been set as of yet, although whispers are late September before it will work again on PC. PS4 and Xbox One users can get a bug free experience and with 6 months of supported DLC included in the season pass. This is proving to be one of the best-value games of 2015.

Overall, Batman: Arkham Knight is an achievement in gaming.

It pushes the boundaries of graphics on a console system, while remaining true to a great and original story that delivers the high standard that the previous games have set. While the Batmobile does let it down, it is the only negative thing about the game I could find. It’s well worth a playthrough.

Satoru Iwata Lamenting a Legend Pat Braithwaite takes a look back at the life of the gaming legend It has been just over a week since the internet was torn asunder by the news that CEO and President of Nintendo, Mr. Satoru Iwata, had passed away. The world quickly took to social media, posting tributes and condolences over a fallen hero. Even rival companies, Microsoft and Sony, paid respects to Iwata and his family at the news, showing that a good person transcends the everlasting console war.

Even if you aren’t like me, who stayed up until the wee hours of the morning (because Australia) to watch the latest Nintendo Direct and see all the goodies that Iwata and his peers would announce, if you have played anything remotely Nintendo you have more than likely played something that Satoru had a hand in bringing to life.

From an early age, Satoru had an interest in games. As a high schooler, he designed games for him and his classmates to play on electronic calculators. It’s no surprise that he went on to major in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and take his first role in software development as an intern at Commodore Japan. Following this, he rented an apartment in Akihabara to form a game development club, which would eventually evolve into HAL Laboratory (a developer that often work in close collaboration with Nintendo to this day).

HAL laboratory might not ring a bell to you if you aren’t a Nintendo nerd, but some household names of the last few decades might: Earthbound, Kirby, Super Smash Bros. and the early Pokémon games, just to name a few - all of which Iwata had a stake in creating.

In the year 2000, Satoru took a corporate position at Nintendo and oversaw growth in the company as its Head of Planning.

A mere two years later, Mr. Satoru Iwata became the fourth president of Nintendo, being the first new leader in more than half a century and the only president to not have been related to the Yamauchi family who founded the company in 1889.

It’s safe to say that Mr. Iwata saw the company through its best and worst times financially. He was at the helm of implementing the Nintendo strategy of abandoning competition in the console war (between Xbox and Playstation) and focussing on keeping games fun and accessible to people of all ages. This would lead to great success with the Nintendo DS and Wii. Sadly this trend did not carry on to the Nintendo 3DS or WiiU, with the market for accessible games shifting to mobile devices.

Seeing this paradigm shift, Satoru set up a partnership with mobile platform developer DeNA to bring Nintendo characters and franchises to mobile devices. This move may help Nintendo live on for many years beyond his passing.

I tear up writing this article because Satoru was a great role model for me and kept a company I hold dear alive and created games that helped me grow throughout my life. I know I’m not the only one as thousands of heartbroken fans in Japan stood in the pouring rain to pay respect to a lost legend. You will be missed. Rest in peace…our leader, Iwata-san.

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Feature

Why Destiny Won Me Back Zahra Emily gives the huge online FPS another chance I remember when Destiny was launched. I remember my infatuation, I remember the time spent finishing the story, exploring the world and above all my excitement at reaching level 20. Oh but things changed then didn’t they? There were guns, armour, strike playlists, all the more things to do and ways to earn your loot. It served me well for a time, chasing public events, running strike after strike, earning my first legendary pieces of armour. It all felt like something special, an achievement for my dedication. Soon, far too soon really, it started to feel… Stale.

The tasks I initially felt proud to know inside out began to feel repetitive, and soon the grind was real. There’s nothing wrong with repetitiveness in games (all are when it comes down to it) but there was just no pleasure in it anymore, and it wasn’t long before I stopped playing altogether.

It had been a while when I eventually picked back up where I left off. It wasn’t anything in particular: the two expansions had been released, I was in the mood for a shooter after playing The Handsome Collection and I had discovered others who had only just started playing Destiny for the very first time. So it crept back in. Slowly at first; I missed the insanity of Borderlands, and wasn’t initially keen to go through the same levels all over again.

I started by playing through the new content. I was particularly taken by The House of Wolves. It wasn’t even really the story levels, it was the prowling wolves, the Queens bounties and especially the Prison of Elders. Then it was playing it through the original content with people with fresh eyes that got me excited all over again.

Credit where credit is due, Destiny had been improved. The grind was still very real, but they’d made some improvements.

The prowling wolves really livened up patrols for those of us who were way over levelled and ensure that there’s always something coming to keep it interesting. There are ways to speed up the

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upgrading of your weapons and much more funs ways to acquire legendary weapons – yes I mean the Prison of Elders again. Can we talk about that for a moment? Remember the arena in Fable?

It was just about my favourite thing in my formative years and I absolutely adore both the challenge and rewards of taking on the fallen, cabal, vex and hive in this new format. It has some of that frenetic pace, the challenge that I’d been missing. The drop to the treasure room is its own kind of infuriating but I can’t really fault them for that.

There are still things that need work. Destiny is without a doubt best enjoyed with people and anyone who has ever tried to take on a high level strike solo can attest to how frustrating it is when you fail to get matched. Sure they might drop someone in later, but that doesn’t make it any easier now and there’s no guarantees.

If you’re a low level 20 you’ll find it hard to get enough vanguard marks doing the strikes to get good enough gear to level up, and some of the story missions, like the very first from the Dark Below expansion are basically impossible to finish at that level without a buddy. When you start and subsequently can’t finish something because it’s a two person job, well, it’s frustrating and can sour an otherwise good experience.

When I really think about it, maybe it wasn’t just Destiny that won me back after all, but the people I get to play it with. When there’s someone down the headset who has your back, makes the grind feel like a breeze and admires your grenade throws, well, it’s hard not to enjoy it. Either way, I’m back and I’ll be waiting for the Taken King expansion with a little bit of that giddy joy I felt when it first launched.

Destiny: The Taken King will release in Australia on the 15th of September 2015. Zahra’s review of this content will be online shortly after release.