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[kitty_purrfect]

I do not wish to spark off a Bayonette-style gender debate but I am kind of angry (in a quiet kind of way) that Splash Damage have decided not to put in any female character models in their post-apocalyptic FPS game 'Brink'. I know female character models are less of a focus in the FPS genre than in RPG games, but Bethesda, who are collaborating

Comments

[cinnamon_sakaki]

Urrrgh. Lameness. I remember Fay and I had a snarky conversation about Borderlands (and even that, with all its flaws, had a sultry sorceress who you could play) which was basically, "Why aren't there more women in this game? You'd think that since apparently everyone who plays FPS games are uber-macho uber-straight dudes, there ought to be more opportunities for women-ogling!"

But evidently not. I think this kind of cluelessness and flurbling over it being a hard decision, etc, ultimately comes down to the fact that girls have cooties. They're just sort of difficult, in that nebulous sort of way, so really it's best to sweep them under the rug and avoid thinking about them altogether.

On the plus side, I'm now stuck wondering what the plural of "FPS" is, so it's not all bad.

[cinnamon_sakaki]

PS, what's a Bayonette style gender debate?

[kitty_purrfect]

Referring to a thread on the Gamessoc Board in which the gender politics of the game Bayonetta were discussed. It got a bit out of hand, to the extent that it was locked, then quarantined, and several people were given formal warnings. The game is a God of War style action game about a witch called Bayonetta who was specifically designed to be sexy (fair enough) with exaggerated body proportions and a 'sexy librarian' kind of look, as well as a British accent (all fine by me). When she attacks, her clothing, which is made (somehow) out of her long hair flies up around her and she attacks naked but covered up by camera angles, using her hair as the conduit for her power. So, fanservicey but not too bad. Then there's her fight with Joy, an angel who...um, basically mimes masturbation and then orgasm before being killed really quite brutally and in a sexually suggestive manner by Bayonetta. The thread began as a discussion of the game from a detached, academic perspective on the representation of women in video games. The problem was,

[kitty_purrfect]

Note how I carefully and cleverly avoided having to use the plural ;)

Haven't played Borderlands. I've been a little unenthusiastic about it since people pointed out the trailers with eagerness, and I just kind of went, "meh". The post-apocalype thing is always a recommendation to me, but with Borderlands I've always thought it was an interesting aesthetic and nothing more to make it stand out.

I am amused by a mental scene of a team of developers sitting around going, "So, what do we do about the girls?" Blank looks. Someone pipes up, "Can't we just leave 'em out? I mean...what do they do? How do you...I dunno, make them?"
Shrugs all round and then someone says, "Well, they have boobs, right?"