Games with Bad Female Characters

Save Your Money : Games with Bad Female Characters by Geek Woman 10/03/05

Strong, convincing, logical, female game characters are in demand. Signals around the industry now seem to be indicating that it is time that more energy was put in the direction of making games for men and women to play together. Games now challenge boundaries and gender roles with online role playing. Women have many different views about what types of entertainment are fun or offensive. With all of the varying views about what is sexist and just what constitutes pornography it is difficult to find a middle ground. Women want to be portrayed as sexy and have fun, while at the same time we want to be respected and feared in games too. Never the less we can find examples of female game characters gone wrong in both games that haven’t even been released to the old school classics from years past.

If progress is to be made in the gaming industry it is important to look at some of the mistakes that have been made in order to improve from them. There are several different ways how the representation of female characters is annoying in games. Female game avatars aren’t automatically good just because they are just dropped into a game. Some of them are awful. Others were put in incidentally without much attention, and that shows. Characters are cloying when they are just window dressing like the blonde elven bar maid in Baldur’s Gate. Another widely shared concern is that female avatars don’t wear clothing and armor that suits the style of fighting that the character has to do in the game. There are several female characters that are even exhibiting psychosis or criminal behavior.

Elven Bar Maid

Some games have weak useless characters such as Gabriel in Xena Warrior Princess for PS One and Yorda from Ico. Others have ridiculous costuming such a the elf women in soon to be released Kingdom Under Fire : Heros. Some female avatars such as Nina Williams from the Tekken franchise and her own game Death by Degrees is an example of how mis – proportioned a female figure can be.

It is disappointing to see that new games such as the forth coming Kingdom Under Fire : Heros. The game is the prequel of the first edition from this franchise. In Kingdom Under Fire : Heros female elves in metal bikinis are leading an RTS strategy war. The preview of this game prominently displays the silver butt of the leader Ellen. The game has female characters that are wearing metal thongs and beaded, well – necklaces instead of tops on. How can they fight in that? Even if they are some sort of alien infernal elves, just how exactly would they be able to do anything with that massive sword in an outfit that shouldn’t be worn anyplace outside of the bedroom? Why would anyone wear elaborate shoulder armor with spikes and finials wear nothing but a thong on thebutt.

Morene

Kaede Smith in the new game Killer 7 is flat chested as well as personality-less. I don’t know if our collective complaining about female avatars helped at all here in the case of this new title by Capcom. Her face is featureless. She is shoeless, and wearing a white sheath of a “dress”. Kaede Smith is a completely uninteresting character. This game seemed like it would have so much going for it. With the cell shaded ‘maji noir’ art style and the bizarreness of it all. Instead the female assassin character that was so looked forward to is missing everything that makes an identifiable avatar. The story line in this game is about madness and murder, and it seems intriguing enough, until you try to play it. Definitely a rental before buying.

Kaede needed shoes and a makeover to be a character that women would enjoy. Her dress, ok if white was important, could have had some detail to it. Would have putting a hair style of any kind on her have slowed down the production of the game all that much? Her posture and body could have been made to look stronger. If she were conveying a tougher body language she would be transformed from a ragged non entity to a cool looking assassin character.

Why the doltish female-skinned-bagage for side kicks? One of my favorite games of all time was the PS One version of Xena Warrior Princess. In that game Gabriel’s character pops up along the way. It is a typical example of how not to use a female character in a game. She follows Xena around and gets in the way. She attacks when she is outnumbered and out classed and makes a mess of Xena’s attempts to protect her. The AI that they assigned to Gabby’s character doesn’t have the sense to swat a fly. It is so bad that it was insulting. Granted it was a game that came out in 1999. though even with the rudimentary PS One technology they could have done a better job. It could have been turn based. Or a macro control could have been set up for Gabby.

However that type of female character persisted into other games such as Ico. Both of these were extraordinary games in other aspects. that old Xena game is known for a great fight system that was advanced in it’s day. Ico was well known for the sensitivity of the story telling in it. The girl named Yorda is totally useless though. She can do absolutely nothing for herself and is constantly in danger of being kidnapped. That spoils the game. If you think about it, her character is tacitly reinforcing a stereo type of a female needing a male to save her. On that level Ico. looses it’s charm. It could be interpreted as yet another male fantasy about being the more powerful and sensible protector.

Some games have female avatars that can fight well enough for themselves, but they are just not well rendered. In her spin off game she joins in an underground fighting tournament to go after some underworld baddies. The covert operative of the CIA, Nina Williams is drawn over proportioned. She isn’t remarkably jiggly or even top heavy. Her legs are and torso are far too long. She has superior reach with her legs for kick moves. Repetitive button mashing and stick grinding get old fast with this monotonous long game. It has sluggish load times coupled with a dated look and feel. Both flaws seem like they are left overs from older games.

Nina doesn’t get much character development, but it is a fighting game after all. It was great that they did the spin off in the first place. More time could have been spent on the fighting engine. Her outfits could have been customizable. Some role playing aspects could have been included such as rewards, shopping and living quarters too.

American McGee’s Alice on PC has won much acclaim. Alice is a young girl who has lost her mind due to the trauma of her house burning down and loosing her parents. Alice is then orphaned and schizophrenic. It is a twisted PC game that takes the normal story of Wonderland and tweaks it around. It is a game that has been acknowledged to be one of the most twisted. After the accident Alice retreats into her warped version of Wonderland. She can only regain her sanity by defeating the Queen of Hearts.

This game was interesting and dark. It was ahead of its time in some ways. The graphics were primitive and polygonal. Over all it was well done. The success in this case, of this game begs the question: “Why does a female game character have to be looney to be so well received?” this is too often the case with many survival horror titles.

Soul Calibur 2 Ivy is an unapologetic leather clad dominatrix. Ivy has the longest weapon range in the game. but her moves are difficult to execute and clumsy to wield. She lacks a powerful attack once an enemy gets close in. Her kicks have to be well timed or they aren’t very powerful. However, Ivy’s weakness is her lack of logical moves. She has to move in or out which is counterintuitive. Her sword opens up into a whip like blades weapon. It is unpredictable and hard to control.

Cassandra is Ivy’s opposite and isn’t much better. She quotes biblical references that seem out of place. Her outfits are school girlish which is another area of concern. It is one thing to have sexualized adult female images in M rated games. But another to stereotype little girl’s outfits. The school girl and Lolita looks may be sexy on women in private. Those looks cross the boundaries and becomes imagery that exploits girls when it is in games. Fans of the Metroid games have Samus in the perennial favorite sci-fi series from Nintendo. She is a female main character. At the end of the original 1986 Metroid game there was a cut-scene of Samus Aran without the red and gold armor. Though some of us guessed that Samus was female anyway. The series encourages the voyeurism of the woman beneath the suit. Female characters are subjected to nude mods and hacks.

Is stupid offensive? Comedy stretches boundaries. It is funny because it contains truth. Comedians are often the harbingers of political change because they are the observationists in our culture. They are the town criers. In the interest of free speech the games that are offensive to every sensibility in every way, have a value. Grand theft Auto (GTA) Series has it’s Ho’s. Big Mutha Truckers : 2 has Ma. Eutechnyx’s Big Mutha Truckers 2 was released 8/23 /05. With the reappearance of Ma Jackson, the matriarch of the slovenly truckers in jail for tax evasion. The goal of the game is to raise money to buy off the jury. you can choose to play as Bobbie – Sue who is a trashy blonde.

The some games don’t make much effort to anything more than exacerbate the sexism and violence against women. Grand Theft Auto (GTA) has prostitutes that are routinely abused. In big Mutha Truckers 2 which was just released this summer, again the women are portrayed as stupid and criminal. Games like these and the upcoming X Box 360 title Rumble Roses XX demean and exploit images of women.

Instead of being a fun racing game that is about cars and having a good time the themes are demeaning. It is more of a red neck sim with bad jokes and sexual innuendoes. Game-play on this game has been widely criticized. It just furthers the stereo type that in order to be in games women have to be fat, trampy or insane. Or preferably a combination of all three.

Unfortunately, Rumble Roses, Konami’s all-female grappler, that has yet to be released doesn’t look like it will pull off being a game for women very well. While the game has a good wrestling mechanics engine it is all too distracting to be taken seriously as a game. The campy overt sexism in the game detracts from any game play credibility it could have. At least in Rumble Roses XX for X360 they have detailed shoes …

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I'm Geek Woman, a freelance video games journalist and author. Please buy my book First Person Feminist, by clicking the Book Tab above. I write honest game reviews and editorials. I interview women in the games industry, female gamer clans, and gamers. I provide articles about women in video games, as well as technology and gadgets. Grab my RSS Feed, follow me on twitter.com/geekwoman and plurk.com/geekwoman

Note : Unless mentioned otherwise, all games I review are rented from Gamefly.