Games Vs. Women

It's not been a good month for women and videogames. First there was the furore over the new Hitman: Absolution Trailer (the top comment for that particular instance is currently "They should have stayed in the kitchen."). Then there were some disturbing quotes about the new Tomb Raider game in relation to players wanting to protect Lara. Of course there were also the attacks on Anita Sarkeesian and her kickstarter campaign and just the other day I read another article about how a female journalist was treated at E3.

I initially wasn't sure whether to write anything about this, I would be rather late to the party and almost anything I could say about it had probably already been said better by someone else. There was also the feeling that as a man it feels difficult to speak about issues that affect women and not myself directly. I've felt this way in the past when I wrote about Sucker Punch; I had looked around for other reviews and found women who made arguments for it actually being a feminist film so I felt it best to leave that argument alone. I think that was probably one of my weaker pieces on reflection and that feeling of holding myself back could well be part of the problem with it.

In the end I decided to write something mostly about the Tropes Vs. Women campaign. The positive outcome of it must feel like a poisoned chalice since the controversy has brought so much attention. Sadly I doubt I would have otherwise become aware of the project and gone on to watch her previous videos, which I've mostly found to be pretty informative. One video by someone else convinced me that men should not be afraid speak out against these kinds of issues - I don't have any new ideas about how to combat the relentless youtube trolls but I did think it could be interesting to look at how games could be improved on a practical level.

In amongst the insults one question that has been asked repeatedly is what the point of these videos will be; that the clichés are already well known and written about so it doesn't need funding to make videos about them. However I think that for the games industry they could actually end up being quite a useful resource, something that clearly and simply sets out things that you should avoid doing. I know from experience that it's almost always preferable to avoid having to add something to a game in the first place than cut it out later.

With a 10 part series on what not to do though, I could see that some people might wonder how exactly to go about writing better female characters. Like my own difficulty in writing about issues that affect women, I think there's also a fear that men feel they wouldn't be able to write believable female characters and instead fall back on simple stereotypes. I think the first step is not to worry so much about this issue and just write characters the same way as you would any other. In fact there are plenty of examples of female characters who have gone on to become popular, who were initially written as men and changed nothing but their sex at a later date.

Ripley in Alien is one particular example and while it may have been done for slightly dubious reasons ("wouldn't it be funny if the survivor is a girl"), Sigourney Weaver made the role her own and there was no question about whether this was a believable female character. Within the gaming world you could also look at Mass Effect and the character of Shepard. While some of the secondary female characters in the Mass Effect universe don't fare so well, Shepard herself is incredibly strong despite there only being fairly minor differences in dialogue for the male and female choices. I have seen more praise for Jennifer Hale's voice acting than her male counterpart and I have to agree from what I've heard so far. The only area where she hasn't fared quite as well is in her visual representation, with her cup size suspiciously increasing between the second and third game...

This approach might seem a little simplistic and given that one of the tropes that Anita Sarkeesian will be investigating is "Man with Boobs", I did wonder whether that would be about characters that have received a simple gender swap. I'll be interested to see what that video is actually about, I would guess it might be the stereotype of a really butch female character who tries to act the same as the male characters. I think that changing less stereotypical characters in this manner is valid for all sorts of areas that you might not have an in-depth personal knowledge of, including different races and sexual orientations. If you come up against an issue where you don't think you are representing a character very well you can always seek additional advice but I think the important step is getting more variety in the first place.

All of this is probably basic knowledge to any writers out there but I am also thinking of those in the games industry in general. I recently read this article via the Good Games Writing Blog, which gave a good insight into the process of writing for games and how writers are involved in the project. While starting filming without a script normally spells disaster in the film world, it's pretty much standard in games. Even in the best of circumstances where a writer may be working on a game from the start, there will probably still be others heavily involved in shaping the look and feel of it. In the worst case, if a writer is brought on at a later date to do a 'patch job' on some story issues, a request to change the sex/race of a character would probably be laughed at if art and models were already completed.

So while hanging writers out to dry for perpetuating negative female/racist/gay stereotypes is often people's first thought, it's probably not always the whole story. I think that there is a responsibility on everyone involved in the initial planning stages to consider the range of characters that might be in the game and try to create an appropriate balance. I can also imagine it might seem very difficult for someone working on a game to speak out about something offensive, especially if it is not an issue that effects them personally. I'm certainly not sure whether I could be that guy but it's something I'll try to keep in mind in future. Hopefully others will too, better representations are not going to magically appear and somewhere down the line there will have to be an effort from those who aren't directly campaigning for it.

An evenings worth of gaming

This double review was also posted on ArtFist.org

An evening of gaming for me is usually just enough to complete a couple of missions in Mass Effect. However I recently managed to finish two gaming experiences in the same amount of time. I'd hesitate to call them games, simply because they were both downloadable parts of a larger story.

First up was Harley Quinn's Revenge, a DLC expansion for Batman: Arkham City. I have been a big fan of both Arkham City and Arkham Asylum, but I was a little dubious about whether this would be worth 800 Microsoft Points. However, I ended up winning some bonus points from Xbox Rewards recently so it made taking a chance on it a little less painful.

For those who didn't buy the challenge maps that featured Robin (myself included), playing as him to begin with was quite a nice opening. That said it wasn't long before muscle memory kicked in and I started playing him in the same manner as Batman. He may have different animations and gadgets, but they don't really feel like they create a different playing experience. Compare this to playing as Catwoman, where a lot of her moves were overly flashy and took more time to complete, so you had to be more aware of whether you would leave yourself vulnerable.

I was also a little put-off after the opening section, as it used my least favourite scenario in TV shows at the moment: "48 hours earlier", gnnnngggh. This used to be a concept that was used rarely and was intended to make you think one thing from the brief glimpse of future events, before cleverly twisting your expectations when you finally catch up to what you've seen. Recently, it just seems to have become a standard way to open an episode, akin to a "here's what's going to happen in this episode" montage. I guess you could possibly be left thinking "Is Batman dead?" but c'mon - it's Batman!

Another complaint was how some of the new stealth rooms in this seemed very awkwardly laid out. Often they would be missing good vantage points to scope out your enemies, while good hiding spots were also thin on the ground if you were spotted. Some sections even seemed to be trolling you with grates that lead to nowhere, dropping you directly down to the next level rather than into an air vent, for example. Perhaps you were supposed to use these to escape from people on the same level as you, but it was a complete change in style from the rest of the game and not particularly clear.

All I can be thankful of is that none of the enemies featured the alarm collars that alert their compatriots no matter how you take them out. I always preferred having the option to mix up your approach, taking out lots of guards silently before finally making the last few aware of your presence. I was slightly surprised by one section featuring infinitely re-spawning guards though (or at least enough reinforcements to make it seem that way). Since this area featured Harley Quinn herself, I felt that it was very anti-climactic being forced to periodically drop down and wear down her energy bar before fleeing from guards rather than have a one on one confrontation.

Overall, the experience felt very short and despite the expansion obviously requiring new environments and character models to be built/modified, it didn't really feel worth the 800 points. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, I suppose a new unique boss fight or something was probably always out of the question. It was nice to have a reason to go back to the game (other than to visit Calendar Man) and I'll always enjoy a few rounds with its combat system but the story was so slight it was hardly worth bothering. I suppose in a way it was a fitting episode for Harley Quinn, lacking the Joker's twisted creativity, she couldn't really plot revenge on Batman and ended up sabotaging herself as usual.

My second game of the night was The Walking Dead, an XBLA adventure from Telltale Games based on the comics and TV show of the same name. Like most of Telltale's recent output, it's episodic in nature and only the first of five is currently available. It plays somewhat like a traditional point and click game, mixing in conversation choices similar to Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol, with brief combat sections a little like quick time events.

The first thing that came to mind after its brief introduction is how well it handles a point and click system on a console. Control is split between your analogue sticks, with the left moving your character and the right moving a fairly subtle cursor that highlights areas of interest. I found myself wondering whether this system could have benefited the first 3D LucasArts adventure with direct character control: Grim Fandango. While there was little to criticise about that game, interpreting exactly what Manny's head was tilted towards could prove difficult on occasions. The cursor may mean a slightly less immersive experience than having no HUD elements, but to my mind the ease of use this system allows is of greater importance.

After a short intro, you will soon be faced with one of the combat sections that I described earlier. The good thing about these is that to me they didn't really feel like quick time events, more like solving a simple point and click puzzle very quickly. The first event is probably the one that feels the most like this but I found that having to line-up the cursor to perform actions made you feel much more in control. While traditional point and click games featuring player death were usually frowned on, I felt that it fits the scenario really well - you should never feel completely safe in a zombie game. I think the important distinction is that you are unlikely to die by experimenting with the wrong item; it is more down to not reacting quickly enough. It keeps you on your toes knowing that killing a zombie is something you should never approach lightly.

I also really liked the conversation system, which is very similar to Alpha Protocol where you only have a certain amount of time to answer important questions. There were some differences though, and I liked the fact that you could take your time picking what to say in general conversation. Having the option to not respond at all was a nice touch too: I don't think you can spend the entire game as a mute, but there was at least one point where I felt that a response wasn't necessary. The text you choose is also the text you speak, compared to Mass Effect where the text is usually just a hint of what will be said, which sometimes doesn't match up with your intentions. Some of your conversation choices may not turn out to be important (especially if the character you're speaking to ends up dying soon after), but I'll be intrigued to see which of them do have an impact in future episodes.

Stylistically, the game doesn't really fit in with the TV series, but I can only see that as a good thing at this point. The relentless negative tone of the show has meant that I can't bring myself to watch more than the first episode of the second season. The game isn't exactly light-hearted, but it has a few funny points along the way and a lot more likeable characters than the show. Some of them are still bastards though: I'll be keeping an eye out for a way to get rid of one in particular in future episodes. I was also impressed by the kids in this game, I would guess largely because they were actually voiced by adults. Despite this, they come across as more believable than the annoying child actors in the TV show - I actually felt kind of bad when one of my dialogue choices led to me being short with Clementine in one particular scene.

Again, the experience is pretty short, but it feels like there is a fair amount to do and a good variety of locations, with the story moving forward at a good pace. At half the price of the Batman expansion, I definitely felt that I got my money’s worth and would be happy to continue buying the episodes as they are released, even if there is eventually a cheaper collected edition. In fact, the only real downer to it is how long it is taking for the next episode to appear, originally expected to be in June, its exact release date is still unsure. I doubt we could ever see episodes released in less than a month, but that feels like a reasonable amount of time to keep people ready to play the next one. Even I'm starting to forget some of the decisions I've made, and waiting much longer to see their consequences could mean that they lose their impact.

While Batman was a little disappointing, The Walking Dead still managed to convince me that I like the idea of episodic gaming. Having a complete gaming experience somewhere between the length of a TV Show and a film is something that definitely appeals to me, and I would imagine to a lot of people with limited gaming time. Only being able to get half way through a mission before being forced to quit can be a frustrating experience, especially if it is difficult to pick up again next time. I'm becoming increasingly aware of this while replaying Mass Effect and really looking forward to moving on to its sequel. Many have commented on how well paced Mass Effect 2 is, with nearly every mission feeling like a self-contained story of sensible length. In contrast, Arkham City's rather open-ended approach is perhaps the opposite of an episodic game, which makes you wonder whether adding content in this manner could ever have been a success - no matter the quality of it: you are just expecting to play it for a much longer time.

Cancer For Cure (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

El-P is someone that I've been aware of for a long time, but have never really got into. I've been a fan of his production on occasion: The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox was a particular favourite, but I wasn't really enticed to seek out his solo efforts. I'd listened to bits and pieces, but they never really grabbed me, I couldn't really get into his voice and didn't feel like it was the best match for the beats he made. I also felt like the general perception of him was that he was the equivalent of indie rock in the rap world or the champion of 'backpacker hip-hop'. As I've made an effort to listen to his older work, I've realised that this opinion didn't really have much basis.

Cancer For Cure wasn't on my radar at all until I heard The Full Retard, which seemed like a total change in style from his previous work. No matter what my feelings were about him previously, it felt as though this time the music was compelling enough to get past the vocals. It's difficult to understand just how much hype the record got off the back of one track. By far my favourite quote describing it was on a forum I frequent: "It's like a nuclear bomb went off in 1988 and Rick Rubin has been left with a sampler in a post-apocalyptic wasteland." After that much build-up, it started to feel inevitable that there would be some disappointment in the album as a whole.

Those who heard it early on didn't seem blown away by it, and Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music was generally being talked about as the better album featuring El-P's production. I tried to keep my expectations unbiased, but it was definitely difficult to stay positive before I could get my hands on it. My first thought was that if you were expecting every song to be like The Full Retard, then you'd be disappointed. I can't say that there are any other tracks on the album with a similar bombastic old-school electronic feel. That's not to say that there aren't other powerful tracks though: if anything, it can be even more relentless than Killer Mike's album. It pulls in a lot of influences, and towards the end I'm not even sure it still sounds like hip-hop.

It took me a while to get into it though, and to begin with I was still ready to blame it on El-P's voice. It sometimes doesn't feel like he has enough range of tone to avoid becoming repetitive. On some songs, it fits perfectly and they might all work in isolation, but I just found myself getting overloaded with it after a while. When guest rappers show up on a few tracks, it feels like they add some much-needed variety and the chance to take a breath from El-P's relentless assault. I guess that others may have liked his vocal style from the start, but for me I think I just needed time to get used to it.

Other reviews of his work sometimes suggest that he's not the best rapper in the world, but I think that's not entirely true. Technically, some of what he does is very impressive and he's definitely extremely creative, but I feel that on first listen it can be difficult to engage with his lyrics. To me, it seems that they are almost never straightforward and that can make it hard to make that personal connection to them straight away. If I were to put my amateur rap psychologist hat on, it almost feels like a defence mechanism against exposing his personal issues directly.

That's not to say that this is an emotionless album, it can just take time to get to grips with it. After a week or so, more songs began to grow on me – The Jig is Up is becoming one of my favourites and that question of "just why is my partner with me?" is surely quite a universal one. Tougher Colder Killer is probably my favourite overall, not just because it features the talents of Killer Mike: the introduction to it, written from the viewpoint of a soldier who has just killed an enemy may be an imaginary scenario, but it is instantly understandable and relatable.

So while The Full Retard probably still stands out as the best track on the album, due to its brash, unconstrained insanity, there is clearly a lot to like here. It will doubtlessly always be compared to “R.A.P. Music” with the two albums being released so close together, but it is different enough to stand apart and on its own two feet. Just give it some time if it doesn't immediately click with you.

Prometheus (2012)

I think I did everything I could to try and avoid being disappointed by this film. As soon as I saw a trailer that started to show specific plot elements I cut myself off from any more promotional materials and tried to forget what I had seen. When a few friends saw it before me and their feedback wasn't very positive I tried to prepare myself to judge it as a film on its own and not to view it purely as an Alien film. However all of this wasn't enough to avoid making it the most disappointing film of the year so far.

I almost want to start with what I did like about it to get that out of the way, it's going to be a shorter list than what I had problems with. On the whole it looks fantastic, with the opening shots looking especially other worldly - even when I knew in advance that a lot of it was filmed in Iceland. I liked the Prometheus ship and alien structures, though both felt a little lacking in scale. Michael Fassbender is utterly convincing as David, a prototype android while Charlize Theron and Idris Elba were both interesting to watch, though not as good as I thought they might be. I saw it in 2D so I can't comment on how the 3D was used but I can imagine that some of it would have been impressive if it was originally filmed for 3D.

I'm writing this before reading most reviews but the first that I actively read was from the Strange Shapes blog. Knowing that the writer was obviously a huge Aliens fan I wanted to see if their opinion was similar to mine. I'd say that we were both disappointed by roughly the same issues but had different thoughts on the source of the problems. Valaquen concentrated a lot on what was down to editing, whereas my first instinct was to criticise its writing. This is despite the fact that I didn't want to be part of that group that was so quick to jump to criticise Damon Lindelof on Twitter, blaming him for everything that was wrong with the film.

What first bugged me was how it seemed to be full of lazy expository dialogue, that only seemed to serve to highlight what would be important later. "This is a totally separate unit?", "Yes, I can survive for years on my own if separated from the ship". "Wow, a Med Pod 720i, they only made a few of these. They're capable of performing surgery unaided, I know all of this because I'm an archaeologist". One or two lines like this I could let slide but they just seemed to build up and give the film a really cheesy feel that was out of character with the tone of the rest of the film.

Speaking of out of character, the characters in the film seemed very underdeveloped and confusing to follow. The familiar post-defrost meal which would often introduce you to the characters in the Alien films only really gives you a glimpse of a few new characters here, with one in particular giving you completely the wrong impression. Almost like a scene from a high school movie, a 'geek' sits down at the 'jock's table' and gets verbally berated for it. Antagonistic attitude, mohawk, only in it for the money - surely this guy must just be hired muscle along for protection. No? A short while later we find that this guy is actually a geologist who "loves rocks" and isn't as tough as he initially seemed.

This is one of the first points where I can't say for sure how this came about - was it written badly in the first place or did the way the movie was edited contribute to the confusion? Thinking about it later, an anarchistic punk rock geologist could actually have been an interesting character but his introduction was so screwed up that I didn't really care about him at the time. In a sense this character was lucky to even get a bad introduction, I couldn't tell you much about the rest of the crew at all. The 'geek' who I mentioned is supposed to be a botanist but I don't remember it being mentioned. That knowledge might have gone some way to explaining the attitude he has during their first alien encounter but at the time the guy comes across like a complete idiot.

In fact, for what was supposed to be a team of super smart scientists, they come across as the dumbest bunch of people ever to travel in space. The crew of the Nostromo in Alien weren't geniuses but most of what happened was down to bad luck and unbeatable odds, they weren't literally making the worst possible decisions at every possible turn. Making bad decisions is pretty much a staple of horror movies but you have to give the audience a reason to believe that characters could make the wrong decision. Unless of course it was trying to show that people can make dumb mistakes in the pursuit of science, compared to the pragmatic approach to survival the 'normal' people in Alien take...

It is also difficult to figure out who has more sinister motives for alien contact. Charlize Theron initially seems like she will be a figure like Burke in Aliens but she also warns the lead scientists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway (Rapace and Marshall-Green) not to make contact with any creature (shame they didn't pass that message on to the other scientists eh?). David seems to have a very clear goal of infecting someone with what they find, which initially seems like it could have been his main purpose as programmed by Peter Weyland. However when Weyland finally makes an appearance he seems to have no interest in anything other than speaking with the Engineers. In the end I can only assume that David was performing his own experiments just to see what would happen, he was quite a nasty piece of work when you think about it.

As for Peter Weyland himself, I found it very distracting that he was played by Guy Pearce in rather unconvincing ageing make-up. Obviously he played the role of his younger self in some of the promotional materials but they weren't used in the film. While I was watching it, all I could think was that perhaps he was going to get his wish and transform back to his younger self. I suppose that makes his death kind of a surprise to us as well as him but I think a different actor of the appropriate age would have made it easier to focus on what was happening.

Weyland's desire to meet with his creators and potentially make use of their technology was obviously the heart of the film and the reason for its name but it wasn't really the most interesting part to me. I felt that Shaw's alien 'pregnancy' was the best seed of an idea and if that had been the focus of the film I could have got behind it much more. Even if it was obvious that someone would need to use the Med Pod, the robotic surgical extraction was still the most disturbing scene of the film for me. The knowledge that her character was unable to have children naturally made the whole process even more horrific. To then completely forget about this extracted creature until the climax of the film seemed utterly ludicrous.

I would say that all of the alien encounters in the film end up feeling fairly throwaway, there are no real consequences after them. It's not clear whether the snake like creature went through some kind of transformation as it flees the scene and is never seen again. Shaw's partner Charlie's infection and then death is abruptly forgotten as it leads into the aforementioned pregnancy scenes. Even the return of the horrifically deformed geologist doesn't have much impact as we have barely been introduced to the crew members he beats to death. Valaquen's comments about the trailers initially suggesting that Shaw would take part in this scene feels like confirmation that all of these events got very cramped as minutes earlier she was undergoing the procedure in the Med Pod.

All of these issues seem to create a film that feels as if it needs to be cut down and extended at the same time. I keep coming back to the idea that it should have been more focused, perhaps losing some of the pointless plot lines and giving the film a chance to breathe so that you could get to know the characters. I wouldn't be surprised if there's eventually a directors cut of it but I wouldn't expect that to remove anything, it would likely just add more scenes and I think there are some mis-steps within it that would be difficult to fix with any amount of expansion.

It's difficult to know for sure whether my disappointment is still tinged by being a fan of the other Alien movies but I think that I gave it a fair chance. Without knowing exactly where the blame lies in terms of writing or editing, all I can really say is that the buck stops with the director. Aside from any studio pressure, Ridley Scott should have had the final say over things like editing and dialogue so it just gives the impression that he didn't really care as much about coming back to the world of Alien as interviews seemed to suggest. While the ending leaves things open for a sequel, I don't think the film ever did enough to make me care to find out what happened next.

Hidden in Plain Sight (2011)

I'd heard of Hidden in Plain Sight recently but didn't really expect to get around to playing it as it's focused on local multiplayer, ideally with more than two people. However, when someone forgot to bring along their arcade stick to a recent gathering with friends, we found ourselves looking for something other than a fighting game to play. This came into my mind and 80 Microsoft Points later we had it downloaded and ready to play.

I found it almost as difficult to describe it to my friends as it is to write a simple description of it here. It's a collection of mini-games, which all revolve around not knowing who is a player and who is computer controlled - including your own character. The first few seconds of any round are spent trying to figure out which of the many characters on screen is controlled by you, usually while trying to avoid giving away who you are to other players by making obvious movements. Each mini-game has different objectives, some of which are every man for himself and some of which are more team based. To start with we worked our way through each of them in turn but we eventually gravitated towards the game I had heard the most about beforehand - Death Race.

This is the most unique game of the lot as it has a different control scheme and every player has control of an on screen character and a gun sight at the same time. Moving your sights around is fairly straightforward but your character is moved by pressing either the A or Y button. A moves you to the right at the same speed as any other computer controlled character whereas Y makes you move much faster, which immediately highlights a player character as there is no other reason one will run. Your objective is to be the first player to get across the screen but you can also fire one shot per round, with the aim of killing a character that you believe is going to reach the finish line before you.

There aren't many other rules to playing this mode and you are left to work out your own strategies on how best to win. There are no penalties for shooting non-player characters and no restrictions on how much you use the run button but obviously wasting shots and making yourself conspicuous are not going to help you win most of the time. However I did find that I could use the run button sparingly at the start to quickly find which character I was controlling, most of the time others wouldn't notice as they were scanning for their own.

After a few rounds getting used to how the game played, with most learning to move their characters sensibly to blend in with NPCs, more interesting strategies gradually started to emerge. These would usually revolve around trying to misdirect the other players, which is something that I don't think would occur so easily if it were an online multiplayer game. The way people played would shift and change as time went on too - even making a run for it became a viable option on occasions. We all laughed at the first player to shoot their own character by mistake but by the end of the night almost everyone had done it (yes there was alcohol involved). I did it on one of the occasions where everyone started running from the off and for some stupid reason I took a guess on shooting one of the remaining runners rather than stop running to confirm which one was me!

This was just one of numerous situations that made me laugh harder than I have in a long time, not just specifically while playing a video game. I also managed to come up with some quite devious tactics, with two of them being variations on the same idea of following your own character with your gun sight. With only one shot available people would often assume that someone else would take the shot if the cursor was hovering over one character in particular, which could sometimes allow you to cover them to the finish line. I even did this on one of the occasions where we had got used to people making a break and running right from the start, covering my own character as I held Y all the way to the end zone. Obviously the same trick wouldn't work twice in a row and during the next games there would often be a tendency for all of the players cursors to hover over one character in particular that looked suspicious. Often one player would end up cracking and firing off a round, no matter whether it was a player or an NPC.

A lot of this was achieved without saying a word but sowing suspicion verbally could work very well too. Suggesting that a group containing your own character looked rather suspicious could be risky but at the same time suggested to others that you would be handling them. On one occasion it actually turned out that a group of identical sprites was actually controlled by myself and another player and I kind of unintentionally double bluffed myself, assuming that it was just coincidence and that the other sprite must be an NPC. I also took to holding back at the start of the round for a while and when a group of 4 characters formed at the head of the pack I remarked "we must all be in that group at the front". In the chaos that followed all of the other players were taken out and I casually strolled to the finish.

We could have carried on playing indefinitely, which was something I didn't expect at all when we first started, especially with some people unconvinced by the basic nature of the graphics. It really was the perfect party game, once again with it being priced at under a pound I feel that I want to give the developer more. One of my friends paid for it on Saturday night but I made sure to buy my own copy at home, even if I never get around to playing it. I'm sure I may try it with my wife eventually but it could lead to major marital strife...