Overly sexualized female characters, to me, show how immature the gaming medium still is. It's hard to be called "art" when girls run around in thongs all of the time.
Except the best, high-profile video games do not do this. You see the same thing in all forms of media, from books, to games, to movies.
While Im pretty much a nerd Im not so nerdy that I obsess over female video game characters.
but i found alyx and some of the female cast of mass effect to be orders of magnitude more attractice than, say, any of the females in dead or alive or soul calibur.
more of a combination of interesting character and realistic appearance than bewbs
Overly sexualized female characters, to me, show how immature the gaming medium still is. It's hard to be called "art" when girls run around in thongs all of the time.
Except the best, high-profile video games do not do this. You see the same thing in all forms of media, from books, to games, to movies.
I understand, but when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator, videogames take the cake (aside from advertising, of course). I haven't seen so many skimpy women in any other medium.
Overly sexualized female characters, to me, show how immature the gaming medium still is. It's hard to be called "art" when girls run around in thongs all of the time.
Except the best, high-profile video games do not do this. You see the same thing in all forms of media, from books, to games, to movies.
I understand, but when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator, videogames take the cake (aside from advertising, of course). I haven't seen so many skimpy women in any other medium.
You should probably steer clear of films, books, photography and art because they all have waaay more erotica related material than games do.
When it comes to character design, I think that *both* the male and female gaming demographics are split.
For men looking at male characters, there's the demographic that wants the fantasy of being a big tough guy with rippling muscles. There are also a lot of men who would rather play a slimmer guy... the mage, the spy, etc. My husband is part of the second group. He frequently chooses female avatars because he hates playing dudes on steroids. He's not the only one, though. I've read plenty of comments from his anti-steroid brothers on gaming forums.
For women looking at female characters, well, you just have to read the WoW forums to see the split. There are women (and girls, frequently teenaged girls) who will only play model-skinny avatars and/or prefer to dress sexy. Then there are the women like me who prefer avatars with womanly proportions and/or prefer to dress their characters realistically or modestly.
Unfortunately, many games ignore both the second demographic of men and women. Many game developers also can't seem to grasp the idea that there *are* men who would prefer more realistic women in games, or that there *are* women playing games who would prefer to see male characters that are appealing to them. Yeah, I'm sure there are some women out there who think Kratos is the shit, but seriously. How many women are doing Kratos fanart versus, say, Sephiroth fanart? (Note: In case my Santa is stalking me, I am not personally a fan of Sephiroth.) It's probably a lot easier for designers to design for the current MTV fantasy generation, where men are from Jackass and girls wanna be Paris Hilton. As they say in my old country, "Gag me with a spoon".
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Overly sexualized female characters, to me, show how immature the gaming medium still is. It's hard to be called "art" when girls run around in thongs all of the time.
Except the best, high-profile video games do not do this. You see the same thing in all forms of media, from books, to games, to movies.
I understand, but when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator, videogames take the cake (aside from advertising, of course). I haven't seen so many skimpy women in any other medium.
Skimpy and over-sexualized are different things. Women face relentless societal pressures to look and act a certain way, and this manifests itself in all forms of media, albeit in different forms. I agree that it seems to manifest itself a little more strongly in video games (as far as dress goes); this is likely because all VG images have to be drawn, so physically impossible and improbable costumes can predominate. You see the same thing in other hand-drawn forms of media.
It has always bothered me the way designers/developers make it painfully obvious they're not thinking about their female characters from a female perspective. Obviously none of them has ever run around with D-cup breasts, without a bra, because then they would understand why bras were intended to be worn. But they make their female characters without one anyway, just so they get to render the nipples and special boob-physics. I am specifically thinking of Taki from Soul Calibur 2. It is very hard to be a ninja when your huge breasts won't stay down. With Ivy, her costume makes a little more sense because I imagine her as some sort of dominatrix that wears ridiculous outfits all the time. Except that in reality, the size of her breasts would probably cause too much back pain to be a fighter. Note to developer studios: the minimum breast size for post-puberty women should not be a C-cup.
Nope. As swell as military outfits are, thigh boots win out.
Karin's normal costume always struck me less overly sexualized and more just goofy. It's like she wandered into the alternate reality, 1915 European version of Goodwill and just grabbed whatever she could find. I think it was the one inexplicable glove that got me. Now, the "secret" costumes, which of course only the women have have? That fits this subject perfect.
To me, though, nothing out-odd's Ashe's costume from Final Fantasy 12.
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You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
It has always bothered me the way designers/developers make it painfully obvious they're not thinking about their female characters from a female perspective. Obviously none of them has ever run around with D-cup breasts, without a bra, because then they would understand why bras were intended to be worn. But they make their female characters without one anyway, just so they get to render the nipples and special boob-physics. I am specifically thinking of Taki from Soul Calibur 2. It is very hard to be a ninja when your huge breasts won't stay down. With Ivy, her costume makes a little more sense because I imagine her as some sort of dominatrix that wears ridiculous outfits all the time. Except that in reality, the size of her breasts would probably cause too much back pain to be a fighter. Note to developer studios: the minimum breast size for post-puberty women should not be a C-cup.
Heh heh. Jiggletech amuses me. Forget eventual back pain... just flinging those things around like that would be painful. It's too bad that I can't outfit 3D modelers with D-cups for a day and charge them with running downstairs sans bra.
Oh, and dear 3D modelers: our boobs are not attached to our shoulderblades. Try a bit lower. Seriously, yo.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Nope. As swell as military outfits are, thigh boots win out.
Karin's normal costume always struck me less overly sexualized and more just goofy. It's like she wandered into the alternate reality, 1915 European version of Goodwill and just grabbed whatever she could find. I think it was the one inexplicable glove that got me. Now, the "secret" costumes, which of course only the women have have? That fits this subject perfect.
To me, though, nothing out-odd's Ashe's costume from Final Fantasy 12.
Hey, at least two of the best looking women in computer games are dressed just fine.
Yuna from (before X-2 at least)
And Iris from Phoenix Wright 3 (WARNING: CASE 3-5 SPOILER (seriously, even the look of the character is a big PW3 spoiler, so I suggest only looking if you've finished the game/aren't interested in PW))
Aya Brea, Parasite Eve 1 (The Good One). Again, black leather jacket, jeans, and t-shirt, makes her look like an actual cop, but even when she was wearing that black evening dress, it was believable. It was a stylish, normal evening dress, not advanced lingerie. It looked like she could actually hide a gun in a thigh holster. And it made her look good hipchecking her date to the ground and yelling at a monstrous opera singer to put her tentacles up in the air.
Aya Brea, Parasite Eve 1 (The Good One). Again, black leather jacket, jeans, and t-shirt, makes her look like an actual cop, but even when she was wearing that black evening dress, it was believable. It was a stylish, normal evening dress, not advanced lingerie. It looked like she could actually hide a gun in a thigh holster. And it made her look good hipchecking her date to the ground and yelling at a monstrous opera singer to put her tentacles up in the air.
Of course, they gave her a shower scene in the second game.
Aya Brea, Parasite Eve 1 (The Good One). Again, black leather jacket, jeans, and t-shirt, makes her look like an actual cop, but even when she was wearing that black evening dress, it was believable. It was a stylish, normal evening dress, not advanced lingerie. It looked like she could actually hide a gun in a thigh holster. And it made her look good hipchecking her date to the ground and yelling at a monstrous opera singer to put her tentacles up in the air.
Of course, they gave her a shower scene in the second game.
They made her younger, too.
Basically, Parasite Eve 2 was a terrible game all around and should be forgotten.
Aya Brea, Parasite Eve 1 (The Good One). Again, black leather jacket, jeans, and t-shirt, makes her look like an actual cop, but even when she was wearing that black evening dress, it was believable. It was a stylish, normal evening dress, not advanced lingerie. It looked like she could actually hide a gun in a thigh holster. And it made her look good hipchecking her date to the ground and yelling at a monstrous opera singer to put her tentacles up in the air.
Of course, they gave her a shower scene in the second game.
They made her younger, too.
Basically, Parasite Eve 2 was a terrible game all around and should be forgotten.
Parasite Eve 2 can be summed up by the following words, screamed in frustration by my friend Jay as he tried to play this Resident Evil ripoff:
"SHE HANDLES LIKE A TRUCK!!!"
. . . as he's making a three-point turn with Aya Brea.
Funny, I had a smaller version of this discussion on another smaller forum with friends a few days ago.
At least for fantasy games, some of the blame can be laid at the feet of Boris Vallejo. Conan the Barbarian definitely influenced some schools of fantasy worlds. But as a friend pointed out, sometimes it fits. She's more familiar with fantasy writing than I am, but something she brought up is that some of these worlds are supposed to be more sensual and hence everyone runs around naked. This doesn't apply when the female characters in a game are the only ones half naked when other women are more sensibly dressed though.
I detest the use of pandering to base urges in males myself, but I can't deny that it can be effective. As much as my mind understands that it's just an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I cannot deny that I can be dragged around by the hormones at times even when I'm cognizant of being manipulated in that way. Even more intellectual guys can be affected by all this despite a desire not to, so it's pretty much here.
I love to see boobies in everything, especially games, but things are getting a little out of hand with Soul Calibur IV (spoiler'd for kinda NSFW);
I had to laugh at those, I called in my girl to check them out, she was like "those clothes look stupid, OMG bewbs".
Redonkulous.
On the other hand, this chick looks excellent;
Mass Effect does the "actually functional female armour" thing ok, too.
Red X Extravaganza!
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
No joke, game devs need to cut out this turbo-boob crap. Underwear belongs inside pants, and those pants need to be buttoned up. Stuff like Conan? It's about a giant barbarian with rather poor manners in dealing with women. Ludicrously dressed women is sort of part of the whole deal, but at least make them look human. There's no way I'll buy the new Soul Calibur game simply because I don't feel like explaining to anyone that sees me playing it that it's not some kind of porn game, it's actually a fairly involved fighting game.
Something I'm noticing here, though, is that people are throwing up tons of examples from Japanese games and a couple Western games. I have no idea on the numbers here, but I think it's probable the Western devs are catching on to this much better than the Japanese devs just based on the numbers of examples thrown up by people here. As an example, here's a bunch of big Western games from this year that don't feature bikini-character women: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Team Fortress (of course, it doesn't feature women at all), Portal, HL2:Episode 2, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, blah blah blah. Lots of BIG games that all avoid women from Thongozonia. However, my knowledge of recent Japanese games is extremely lacking, so can anyone provide me with a rebuttal here? I'm aware of a couple games, but those are mostly in the Mario line and I'd prefer other examples of more serious games.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
When it comes to character design, I think that *both* the male and female gaming demographics are split.
For men looking at male characters, there's the demographic that wants the fantasy of being a big tough guy with rippling muscles. There are also a lot of men who would rather play a slimmer guy... the mage, the spy, etc. My husband is part of the second group. He frequently chooses female avatars because he hates playing dudes on steroids. He's not the only one, though. I've read plenty of comments from his anti-steroid brothers on gaming forums.
For women looking at female characters, well, you just have to read the WoW forums to see the split. There are women (and girls, frequently teenaged girls) who will only play model-skinny avatars and/or prefer to dress sexy. Then there are the women like me who prefer avatars with womanly proportions and/or prefer to dress their characters realistically or modestly.
Unfortunately, many games ignore both the second demographic of men and women. Many game developers also can't seem to grasp the idea that there *are* men who would prefer more realistic women in games, or that there *are* women playing games who would prefer to see male characters that are appealing to them. Yeah, I'm sure there are some women out there who think Kratos is the shit, but seriously. How many women are doing Kratos fanart versus, say, Sephiroth fanart? (Note: In case my Santa is stalking me, I am not personally a fan of Sephiroth.) It's probably a lot easier for designers to design for the current MTV fantasy generation, where men are from Jackass and girls wanna be Paris Hilton. As they say in my old country, "Gag me with a spoon".
So much truth in a single post, and it seems to have been glossed over...
Overly sexualized female characters, to me, show how immature the gaming medium still is. It's hard to be called "art" when girls run around in thongs all of the time.
Except the best, high-profile video games do not do this. You see the same thing in all forms of media, from books, to games, to movies.
I understand, but when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator, videogames take the cake (aside from advertising, of course). I haven't seen so many skimpy women in any other medium.
Skimpy and over-sexualized are different things. Women face relentless societal pressures to look and act a certain way, and this manifests itself in all forms of media, albeit in different forms. I agree that it seems to manifest itself a little more strongly in video games (as far as dress goes); this is likely because all VG images have to be drawn, so physically impossible and improbable costumes can predominate. You see the same thing in other hand-drawn forms of media.
This is a good observation. I think these guys are just drawing the kind of women they would want to look at every day at work. And, like it or not, a large chested female in skimpy clothes is just going to attract more attention than a more conservative character, even though some of it will be negative.
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RoshinMy backlog can be seen from spaceSwedenRegistered Userregular
edited December 2007
There are basically two changes I would like to see or rather two stylistic directions. This will never happen, but I would still like to see it.
1. Stop pretending. No one is going to believe that those tiny patches of leather is really supposed to be armour. They're just there, so you can show as much flesh as possible without actually showing genitalia. Everyone knows this, so just let the characters be naked.
or...
2. Take the clothing seriously. Hire some real fashion designers and have them design outfits for the characters. Shoes, pants, hats, coats, shirts, gloves, armour, etc. Serious designs, mind you, based on real life fashion ideas.
Edit: I was just playing Conan on the 360. The violence is okay, but have you seen those captured maidens that Conan comes across during his rampage. Slim, big honkin boobs, and dressed in only a loincloth. When Conan frees them, they display a peculiar animation where they sort of bend over and present their butt to the barbarian. They will then say things like "Ooh, where are my clothes..?" or "Ooh, how can I thank you..?". Jesus fucking christ.
I just think it's getting old. It might have been cool with Laura Croft, I'm not sure as I didn't really play those games. But seriously, game after game now these female characters all look the same without any character behind them. Hell, the first preview I saw for Heavenly Sword I thought was cliche as hell.
So I guess I'm more against it from a creative and artistic perspective than anything else. I don't care about exploitation or fanservice or the morality of this and how it affects children. I just think it's gotten boring as hell.
Unfortunately, many games ignore both the second demographic of men and women. Many game developers also can't seem to grasp the idea that there *are* men who would prefer more realistic women in games, or that there *are* women playing games who would prefer to see male characters that are appealing to them. Yeah, I'm sure there are some women out there who think Kratos is the shit, but seriously. How many women are doing Kratos fanart versus, say, Sephiroth fanart? (Note: In case my Santa is stalking me, I am not personally a fan of Sephiroth.) It's probably a lot easier for designers to design for the current MTV fantasy generation, where men are from Jackass and girls wanna be Paris Hilton. As they say in my old country, "Gag me with a spoon".
So much truth in a single post, and it seems to have been glossed over...
I thought it went without saying. I'm mostly trying to focus on examples of games that do better.
Call of Duty 4, which someone mentioned, is actually a good example of a game that avoids the steroid male stereotype. I mean, Captain Price is badass, but he does it while basically being an older skinny-ish British guy with a funny mustache. Same with Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell: he kicks ass and he's an old guy with greying hair. So we are seeing deviations away from the traditional muscleman stereotype. Not that it's been very prevalent: I mean, hell, two of the most famous video game heroes are an Italian plumber with a beer/mushroom belly and a blue hedgehog in red sneakers.
I actually think that the "sexy" costumes in video games are highly off-putting, and would find it much sexier if they clothed up a bit, so where does that put me in this debate? O_o
I'm less concerned with how female characters look than with how they're handled. There are too many characters who exist to be helpless, murdered, or kidnapped. Or just be eye-candy.
I actually think that the "sexy" costumes in video games are highly off-putting, and would find it much sexier if they clothed up a bit, so where does that put me in this debate? O_o
Over here with the classy gentlemen? Then again, I'm the guy who regularly lusts after women who wear long dresses with aprons. Damn you Victorian Romance Emma.
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Except the best, high-profile video games do not do this. You see the same thing in all forms of media, from books, to games, to movies.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
but i found alyx and some of the female cast of mass effect to be orders of magnitude more attractice than, say, any of the females in dead or alive or soul calibur.
more of a combination of interesting character and realistic appearance than bewbs
Haha, you could have at least posted a screenshot of Karin's "secret" clothing.
It puts her second outfit to shame.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I understand, but when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator, videogames take the cake (aside from advertising, of course). I haven't seen so many skimpy women in any other medium.
FINE.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
You should probably steer clear of films, books, photography and art because they all have waaay more erotica related material than games do.
That would've been the perfect opportunity to put a picture of Frank there.
For men looking at male characters, there's the demographic that wants the fantasy of being a big tough guy with rippling muscles. There are also a lot of men who would rather play a slimmer guy... the mage, the spy, etc. My husband is part of the second group. He frequently chooses female avatars because he hates playing dudes on steroids. He's not the only one, though. I've read plenty of comments from his anti-steroid brothers on gaming forums.
For women looking at female characters, well, you just have to read the WoW forums to see the split. There are women (and girls, frequently teenaged girls) who will only play model-skinny avatars and/or prefer to dress sexy. Then there are the women like me who prefer avatars with womanly proportions and/or prefer to dress their characters realistically or modestly.
Unfortunately, many games ignore both the second demographic of men and women. Many game developers also can't seem to grasp the idea that there *are* men who would prefer more realistic women in games, or that there *are* women playing games who would prefer to see male characters that are appealing to them. Yeah, I'm sure there are some women out there who think Kratos is the shit, but seriously. How many women are doing Kratos fanart versus, say, Sephiroth fanart? (Note: In case my Santa is stalking me, I am not personally a fan of Sephiroth.) It's probably a lot easier for designers to design for the current MTV fantasy generation, where men are from Jackass and girls wanna be Paris Hilton. As they say in my old country, "Gag me with a spoon".
Skimpy and over-sexualized are different things. Women face relentless societal pressures to look and act a certain way, and this manifests itself in all forms of media, albeit in different forms. I agree that it seems to manifest itself a little more strongly in video games (as far as dress goes); this is likely because all VG images have to be drawn, so physically impossible and improbable costumes can predominate. You see the same thing in other hand-drawn forms of media.
I am nothing if not true to my word, cj.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Nope. As swell as military outfits are, thigh boots win out.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Karin's normal costume always struck me less overly sexualized and more just goofy. It's like she wandered into the alternate reality, 1915 European version of Goodwill and just grabbed whatever she could find. I think it was the one inexplicable glove that got me. Now, the "secret" costumes, which of course only the women have have? That fits this subject perfect.
To me, though, nothing out-odd's Ashe's costume from Final Fantasy 12.
Heh heh. Jiggletech amuses me. Forget eventual back pain... just flinging those things around like that would be painful. It's too bad that I can't outfit 3D modelers with D-cups for a day and charge them with running downstairs sans bra.
Oh, and dear 3D modelers: our boobs are not attached to our shoulderblades. Try a bit lower. Seriously, yo.
A character design from Senko no Ronde might.
Found it:
Yuna from (before X-2 at least)
And Iris from Phoenix Wright 3 (WARNING: CASE 3-5 SPOILER (seriously, even the look of the character is a big PW3 spoiler, so I suggest only looking if you've finished the game/aren't interested in PW))
:winky:
Aya Brea, Parasite Eve 1 (The Good One). Again, black leather jacket, jeans, and t-shirt, makes her look like an actual cop, but even when she was wearing that black evening dress, it was believable. It was a stylish, normal evening dress, not advanced lingerie. It looked like she could actually hide a gun in a thigh holster. And it made her look good hipchecking her date to the ground and yelling at a monstrous opera singer to put her tentacles up in the air.
Of course, they gave her a shower scene in the second game.
Basically, Parasite Eve 2 was a terrible game all around and should be forgotten.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
"SHE HANDLES LIKE A TRUCK!!!"
. . . as he's making a three-point turn with Aya Brea.
Yeah, that was a bad call. The costume was good, just raise the bust line out of the whorebag zone.
At least for fantasy games, some of the blame can be laid at the feet of Boris Vallejo. Conan the Barbarian definitely influenced some schools of fantasy worlds. But as a friend pointed out, sometimes it fits. She's more familiar with fantasy writing than I am, but something she brought up is that some of these worlds are supposed to be more sensual and hence everyone runs around naked. This doesn't apply when the female characters in a game are the only ones half naked when other women are more sensibly dressed though.
I detest the use of pandering to base urges in males myself, but I can't deny that it can be effective. As much as my mind understands that it's just an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I cannot deny that I can be dragged around by the hormones at times even when I'm cognizant of being manipulated in that way. Even more intellectual guys can be affected by all this despite a desire not to, so it's pretty much here.
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I had to laugh at those, I called in my girl to check them out, she was like "those clothes look stupid, OMG bewbs".
Redonkulous.
On the other hand, this chick looks excellent;
Mass Effect does the "actually functional female armour" thing ok, too.
Red X Extravaganza!
Something I'm noticing here, though, is that people are throwing up tons of examples from Japanese games and a couple Western games. I have no idea on the numbers here, but I think it's probable the Western devs are catching on to this much better than the Japanese devs just based on the numbers of examples thrown up by people here. As an example, here's a bunch of big Western games from this year that don't feature bikini-character women: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Team Fortress (of course, it doesn't feature women at all), Portal, HL2:Episode 2, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, blah blah blah. Lots of BIG games that all avoid women from Thongozonia. However, my knowledge of recent Japanese games is extremely lacking, so can anyone provide me with a rebuttal here? I'm aware of a couple games, but those are mostly in the Mario line and I'd prefer other examples of more serious games.
So much truth in a single post, and it seems to have been glossed over...
1. Stop pretending. No one is going to believe that those tiny patches of leather is really supposed to be armour. They're just there, so you can show as much flesh as possible without actually showing genitalia. Everyone knows this, so just let the characters be naked.
or...
2. Take the clothing seriously. Hire some real fashion designers and have them design outfits for the characters. Shoes, pants, hats, coats, shirts, gloves, armour, etc. Serious designs, mind you, based on real life fashion ideas.
Edit: I was just playing Conan on the 360. The violence is okay, but have you seen those captured maidens that Conan comes across during his rampage. Slim, big honkin boobs, and dressed in only a loincloth. When Conan frees them, they display a peculiar animation where they sort of bend over and present their butt to the barbarian. They will then say things like "Ooh, where are my clothes..?" or "Ooh, how can I thank you..?". Jesus fucking christ.
So I guess I'm more against it from a creative and artistic perspective than anything else. I don't care about exploitation or fanservice or the morality of this and how it affects children. I just think it's gotten boring as hell.
I thought it went without saying. I'm mostly trying to focus on examples of games that do better.
Call of Duty 4, which someone mentioned, is actually a good example of a game that avoids the steroid male stereotype. I mean, Captain Price is badass, but he does it while basically being an older skinny-ish British guy with a funny mustache. Same with Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell: he kicks ass and he's an old guy with greying hair. So we are seeing deviations away from the traditional muscleman stereotype. Not that it's been very prevalent: I mean, hell, two of the most famous video game heroes are an Italian plumber with a beer/mushroom belly and a blue hedgehog in red sneakers.
Oh, and Alex from Eternal Darkness.
See my game reviews at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=strangegamer
Over here with the classy gentlemen? Then again, I'm the guy who regularly lusts after women who wear long dresses with aprons. Damn you Victorian Romance Emma.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970