Ratcheting up his masculinity to the point that he becomes a caricature of the Reagan-era "Man" AND making him unforgivably over-the-top sexist is EXACTLY the point; it makes him a spoof of himself without anyone NEEDING to criticize it. If he were more toned down, more "real" but still as sexist, he would cease to be a postmodern joke and become a truly bad role model- but as it stands, if anyone were to try acting like Duke around a real girl, they would find out fast that self respecting women don't like being treated like objects. For the people with the maturity to see Duke as a gigantic spoof, we can play his games and laugh AT him, not WITH him. 2/2

@biggest_loser Again, the postmodern aspect of Duke can only be seen when he is viewed in context. This is what Laura's article was trying to demonstrate and also what you seem to be consistently ignoring. While I still have a problem with trying to cite examples from a game I have not played (a trailer gives you a peek, but not nearly enough evidence to start taking a stance on contextual relevance the way you are trying to), I can tell you what I do know about Duke Nukem. He is DEFINITELY a critique of the "action hero" archetype. A lot of his lines are lifted straight out of popular movies that had their own brand of over-the-top heroes (George Nada from They Live and Ash from Army of Darkness being two of the most notable) and his look is basically an amalgam of a bunch of 80s action stars. His design (in the modern games- DN3D and on) also calls back many of the game heroes of the 80s and 90s, like the guys from Contra, Doom and Wolfenstein. 1/2

@biggest_loser To answer your second question: "Where in the game is anyone criticizing Duke?". We haven't played the game, Laura hasn't played the game and YOU haven't played the game. So the answer is simple: no one knows yet.

@biggest_loser To answer your first question, Duke Nukem is a satire of the way the world of the 80s and 90s viewed hyper-masuclinity. Unlike a character like Rambo (who is often- very incorrectly, remembered as such) Duke is a satire simply because he has ABSOLUTELY no redeeming qualities. He is, a face-value-only, beer drinking, smoking, weight lifting, action hero, who views women as trophies and any enemy as target practice. The fact that there is an alien invasion of pig-monters coming to take away his women, which sends him into "ass kicking" mode is precisely the context that makes Duke a post-modern critique of himself and anyone who has his mentality. Duke is an anti-role-model. Someone who you are SUPPOSED to view as ridiculous. This makes him a dangerous hero to give to a 12 year old boy, but something perfectly acceptable for children of the 70s and 80s to view as a tongue-in-cheek throwback to when masculinity had a much more linear definition. I am not at all saying that Duke Nukem (the character) isn't sexist, just that his sexism is kind of the point. The developers definitely know this and it'll be interesting to see how they handle such a controversial character in a modern context.

@MagicMarker44 I would like to second your Liquid Snake comment- and also elaborate by pointing out the lack of clarity in what exactly Liquid's motives were (through all of MGS1, but also during 2 and 4) was one of the most interesting things about him. Metal Gear's story is so deep and layered that it really takes multiple play-throughs of all 4 main games to truly start having a good detailed answer to a question as simple as "who is the bad guy in Metal Gear Solid"? It's very arguable that Liquid was playing for the good guys all along (always fighting against the Patriots, therefore against Zero and therefore against who is arguably the main antagonist of the series) while Solid Snake would very often be working for the bad guys, unbeknownst to even himself. So I guess what I'm saying is that the only problem with calling Liquid the all time best video game villain, is that he might not have been a villain at all! Now THAT is good, complex antagonist writing. I notice complexity is not one of the characteristics listed in the article. Perhaps it should be.

A lot of these stats apply as good guidelines for writing villains, but others are totally dependent on what type of villain the writers are going for. The Terminator, for example, was a great villain and Arnold's portrayal of IT (not him, you see) was both awesome and terrifying- but is it fair to compare him to Heath Ledger's Joker or Darth Vader? Not at all, because all three are different types of villains. The real truth about story writing is that there are NO formulas that you can apply to guarantee success. As a writer, you write what you find interesting and can only hope that others see why you made the choices you did. So Bioware, I get ya and I'm sure ME3 is going to blow our socks off, whether or not we ever feel for the Reaper's humanity, understand their motive (which in my books, can count as a point in mystery) or feel their presence (which I would argue we did in both of the original ME games). 2/2

I think the Reapers are hard to classify as "a villain". They are really a lot more like an ominous force of nature that is beyond what we can understand and SHOULD be beyond what we can fight- That's sort of what makes Shepard special; being fairly universally regarded (at least by Cerberus and the Jason Statham-like dude in the trailer for 3) as the only person who will figure out how to stop them. There is also something to be said about an enemy that can influence us, but that we also have no way at all of communicating with. It's impossible to add humanity to an enemy whose scariness is rooted in the fact that we have no hope of bargaining or reasoning with it. 1/2

@pabloxiaoyi I hear that dude, Crysis 2 is the first post-KZ3 shooter i've played and I'm really feeling the lack of sharp shooter support. Developers should be on that like white on rice; easily the most immersive control system for a shooter ever concieved.

@Doolum Most of us who hate on Wii are NOT hating its innovation. Motion controls are a neat idea and its nice to see that the two REAL current gen systems are incorporating them- We hate on Wii because it launched itself on out of date hardware that limits the game-experience potential and keeps it firmly in the last generation. Adding the (admittedly innovative) motion controls came off as a gimmick, because the technology of both the controllers (waggle up/down, waggle left/right and waggle vague diagonals, is not true motion control) and the hardware was not up to par with what modern games are capable of. That coupled with the fact that the good games on wii are few and far between and the GREAT games are virtually non-existent (or riffs on old great games like Mario Kart) are the reasons core gamers hate on wii. I don't think the most hardened of PS3/360 fanboys would say "I hate Wii because it's too innovative!"

My predictions: 3 Years From Now: Autostereoscopic 3DTVs will make Glasses-based systems obsolete, or restrict glasses based technology to computer monitors intended for one user (which will be cheaper than Autostereoscopic) 5 Years From Now: Autostereoscopic 3DTVs will start to drop to the $1000 range for a decent sized set (say 32-36") 7 Years From Now: HDTVs will become extraordinarily cheap 10 Years From Now: 3DTV will become the norm, Sony will release PS4 gamers will joke about people who play in 2D the way gamers joke about PS3/360 players who play on a standard def TV now. Hate on 3D all you want, but when the killer apps start pouring in and the hardware starts to cost less, it'll only be a matter of time before each and every one of us cave. The main questions to ponder in order to relate are A: Do you own an HDTV? and B: Would you own one if you weren't a gamer and didn;t own a 360 or PS3?