It's A Man's Overworld
Looking at the role of female characters in games and how some have and haven't changed
Even more serious games like Metal Gear Solid 4 had women in it that had joyful back stories of violence and abuse. Instead of seeking some sort of counseling they had been transformed into maniacal killing machines. Maybe that was a step of the therapy plan, I was left to wonder. When you eventually kill the ‘beasts’ they are revealed to be clad in tight fitting onesies and then go on to writhe in a mixture of pain/ecstasy before expiring. Hideo Kojima knows how to get my fire burning.
Final Fantasy had productive women in their games, Terra in VI was neither under or over stereotyped but that game had a solid cast on the whole with both male and female. Sqaure’s latest offering XIII, I think, had a lot of annoying characters in it. Lightning had more testosterone than the rest of the male cast combined, even her voice sounded as if she had just taken a fistful of man pills. Vanille was so saccharine that I contracted diabetes just playing the game. Fang was the better of the two and reminded me of female Mel Gibson, just angrier.
I think that games with well rounded female characters that aren’t as sexualised (by the company at least) would be someone like Samus Aran from Metroid, the female equivalent of Master Chief but with meatier man parts.
Jill Valentine deserves a mention because of her consistency in the Resi series for not whinging about the zombie situation which most of the others do. She can dispose of explosives and isn’t bad with a gun too. Stick her and Clare Redfield in a paddling pool full of jelly and the undead and it would be a well met extension to the series.
One female character that made we want to destroy my console was Kreia from KOTOR-2, yes she was the old menopausal jedi-lady. I get it, you feel hot all the time and your junk stopped working but don’t take it out me! If I had my way me and Atton would have dumped her out into space, got our hyperdrive on and played pazzak.
So yeh, women can sometimes get a bad rap in games but they’re slowly breaking away from the shadows of their male counterparts and coming into their own. The industry is still quite male orientated so until some balance is struck and we have a larger female presence things will change, just not a quickly. Hopefully one day we can sail somewhere close to an accurate rendering of the female protagonist. For now though we’ll have to make do with the ol’ rake with watermelons... not that I’m complaining.
Cue some female empowering music like ‘I will survive’...or something.
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Oct 12, 2010 12:37:28 (Oct 12, 2010 12:37)
