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Why women criticise sexualised character designs |OT2| I have no pants and I must scream (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Weird take: I like playing as women in story-driven games because it helps me think the way my character would. The extra degree of "disconnect" is better for role playing.
Also men who don't play as female characters because they "can't relate" but can relate to grizzled space marines who fight aliens are weird.
Also men who don't play as female characters because they "can't relate" but can relate to grizzled space marines who fight aliens are weird.
Yeah. I play a female character in FFXIV.
Though I'd say most guys in FF14 play female characters for less than savory reasons.
There is so many cool female outfits in the game and yet a good solid 70% of the playerbase (maybe more) that play female characters go for low hanging fruit skimpy outfits.
You know, it's funny how dressing up dolls is marketed towards little girls but boys too like to play dress up, especially in games. I'm curious, when I was a kid, you couldn't really change the outfits on action figures. Is that still largely the same or can you put all sorts of clothes, armor, and accessories on your toys nowadays?
This is kind of where I'm at too. In Skyrim I get to be a lizard person, in Pokemon I get to be a girl. (Well, unless it's the BW2 female trainer...idk what's going on in that design.)
oh man you haven't seen the figma line of action figures, you can even change their faces:
I play as a male because even though it might be realistic and helps differentiate picking different genders, I get unreasonably annoyed if the NPCs say something like "man, it's impressive that a woman can do this." I recognize this is my specific hang up though.
When I wa a kid I always felt like I was getting the shorter end of the stick with action figures, when compared to dolls like Barbie. Most action figures don't get many options and accessories.
When I was in university like 12 years ago, some stupid guy in class said something about how he wouldn't let his future kid play with dolls if they were a boy but the classmate zi was closest to in that class pointed out to him that action figures are just dolls and that certainly shut him up XD
I prefer default female protagonists but if the game presents me with a choice, then it depends on some factors for me. In RPGs I'll probably choose to play as a woman, even if it only affects the romance options and nothing else. My only gripe is that sometimes I can't create a character I want (no long hair options/moles) so I go for something similar but no quite. So yeah, a customized female character should be like me or an ideal version of me. Sometimes I can make a male character because I find men attractive and I may want something cute to look at. A macho white man is still the standard in most games (a different story for Japanese games which I'll mention later) and I find this archetype rather bland than attractive so if I can make a character that suits my tastes, why not. It's also interesting to choose both genders for different walkthroughs and compare them to see if choosing one or the other is meaningful plotwise or dialogue options-wise.
The Japanese games I'm interested in don't have the option but it's fine especially if it's party based and you can choose the leader. If the main character is a heinous pervert though, it's a pass. Games like Code Vein that do have the option but don't have any good outfits for women don't help the cause either (made a male character there so now I only cringe at the bosses and NPCs).
The Japanese games I'm interested in don't have the option but it's fine especially if it's party based and you can choose the leader. If the main character is a heinous pervert though, it's a pass. Games like Code Vein that do have the option but don't have any good outfits for women don't help the cause either (made a male character there so now I only cringe at the bosses and NPCs).
I have to play as so many men that I take every chance I get to play as a woman, especially when I can be lesbian. Playing as any ethnic minorities is refreshing too. Nakoruru and Rimiruru from Samurai Shodown are the only Ainu characters I have ever heard of.
I see games as movies when it comes to stories and therefore have no problem playing the characters on offer. However when games have female main characters, I truly enjoy and treasure those games. When games give you the option to pick from different characters, a female character is almost always my first pick. And when games give you the option to make your own character, I always make a female character that resembles me.
Yeah i find it ridiculous. I appreciate when games give people more options. I actually started playing as a girl since pokemon Ruby as I did not like the clothes the male trainer had. Nowadays I tend to pick to play as a woman when the choice is there as to support the choice. I mix up if the character creation for women sucks. Like the fact that women get shit sexualized outfits on monster hunter turns me off the game.
I did play as a woman of colour in Pokemon X but gotta admit the options for race can be pretty bad. The simple skin swapping doesn't work well. Japanese games are behind with that. It is mostly idealized fantasy western features with the option to change skin tone and colours.
I like playing women in story-driven games and always have BUT they need to be pre-existing characters to do that. I naturally started RE 1 with Jill for example and also did Dishonored 2 as Emily before doing an evil run as Corvo to give a modern example. Long story short, kid me realized in the late 90s that female characters are somewhat rare so I had to even the scales myself. The female characters also tended to have a personality. Just look at Jill´s campaigns to see what I mean.
Games, where you have to build an avatar, are male-only for me. I really like it if you can mix gender traits when you build your MC due to having hair down to my hip, so I either need generic long female hair or one of those Ronin hairpieces. I only play as a woman in such games on the 2nd run, which is usually evil, so not that often. Currently in FE: Three Houses - Black Eagles (the zero dimensional baddies).
Games, where you have to build an avatar, are male-only for me. I really like it if you can mix gender traits when you build your MC due to having hair down to my hip, so I either need generic long female hair or one of those Ronin hairpieces. I only play as a woman in such games on the 2nd run, which is usually evil, so not that often. Currently in FE: Three Houses - Black Eagles (the zero dimensional baddies).
Me too, I always try to make myself if there's a character creator but otherwise I just seek our games with main characters I think are cool.
It took me a long time to play as anything but a male when given the option, since my natural inclination is to treat customizable RPG characters as glorified self-inserts, but what finally broke the spell were the superior clothing options the girl trainer had in Pokemon compared to the boy. Playing dress-up is too hard to resist!
Honestly I wish all games that have character creator would just let me swap characters on the fly. Sometimes I feel like playing as a man, sometimes as a woman... I don't really care about muh inmersion and I wish I could just swap whenever I want without having to do a whole new save.
It always amazes me how Saints Row (well, 3 and 4), of all things, lets you do shit like this. And it doesn't gender-lock clothing, either.
I love ittt. I jumped onto SR4 waay too late, but I've had so much fun with this game recently.
I don't think gender changes any of the dialogue either, and it's really refreshing to have a boss-bitch in charge while talking like a pirate. xD
Intro Scene:
(time stamped for 12:40)
Male ver. for comparison:
(time stamped for 16:40)
Bonus points for Vice President Keith David 👍
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OP
OP
It's always fun playing as a female character because usually the only difference in dialogue is that characters regularly throw out gendered slurs. Example: in Dragon Age II, there's a part where a male Hawke gets called a "Blasted turnip" by a bad guy. A female Hawke? "Filthy whore." Love it. Taste that egalitarian society. There's no sexism in Thedas! It must be true because the character creator flavour text says so. Never mind that the games are full of sexism, in-universe and out.
Dark Souls 2 has the sex change coffin:
If there's a choice, I always pick a female character. It kinda counter balances the vast amount of male characters I've played over the years, even though the outfit choices for said female characters have often been dire in some way.
Also I very rarely make characters that look like myself, but instead opt to make PCs of different races.
Also I very rarely make characters that look like myself, but instead opt to make PCs of different races.
If it's possible, I always play as a women. Always have, and most likely always will. Probably because of my self-insert tendencies. Also because playing the base male character in video game is oh so goddamn stale most of the times. Super boring to me, they're often a complete missed opportunity to make an interesting compelling male character (Ex: almost all AC male protagonists, save for Bayek). But yeah, the world already forced me to put me in the shoes of so many goddamn male characters, whether in movies, tv shows, books or games, ever since I've been born, and it's overwhelming as hell. So I'll always cherish and use the option to play as a woman whenever it's possible.
Whenever Kojima is brought up in these certain situations I bet nobody ever remembers Metal Gear Acid 2 and the "Solid Eye Theatre"
Let me give you a run down.
In 2005, Kojima created VR goggles on the PSP, the Solid Eye a peripheral attached to the PSP to view 3D cutscenes
That was the concept, the real version was more like nintendo Labo than anything else as it was a cheap piece of cardboard thrown into the game case.
players could switch on an option to display content side-by-side on-screen. Viewed through the Solid Eye's lenses, these images would merge together to create a single 3D picture. The entirety of Metal Gear Ac!d 2's single-player campaign could be played this way, with the title warning players as to when it would momentarily revert back to a single-screen sequence with the message 'SOLID OFF'. It was possible to peer into the HMD and see Solid Snake himself popping out from the birds-eye view.
Now there were only certain scenes and most of the game was just a turn based card game so it was very limited.
You could also watch select cutscenes from MGS2 and MGS3 (via transferring)
However the unlockable content for the peripheral was a bit more risque
These were unlockables throughout the game so the theater was mostly comprised of these jazzy gravure model videos.
Let me give you a run down.
In 2005, Kojima created VR goggles on the PSP, the Solid Eye a peripheral attached to the PSP to view 3D cutscenes
That was the concept, the real version was more like nintendo Labo than anything else as it was a cheap piece of cardboard thrown into the game case.
players could switch on an option to display content side-by-side on-screen. Viewed through the Solid Eye's lenses, these images would merge together to create a single 3D picture. The entirety of Metal Gear Ac!d 2's single-player campaign could be played this way, with the title warning players as to when it would momentarily revert back to a single-screen sequence with the message 'SOLID OFF'. It was possible to peer into the HMD and see Solid Snake himself popping out from the birds-eye view.
Now there were only certain scenes and most of the game was just a turn based card game so it was very limited.
You could also watch select cutscenes from MGS2 and MGS3 (via transferring)
However the unlockable content for the peripheral was a bit more risque
These were unlockables throughout the game so the theater was mostly comprised of these jazzy gravure model videos.
Ooooh unfortunately thats only the tip of the iceberg.God fucking damnit Square Enix just because someone drew it in the 90's doesn't mean you have to use it 1:1 25 years later.
As someone mentioned it in the other topic, and not condoning it mind you, they're being absolutely ultra faithful to the original designs.
It's so weird because the Secret of Mana remakes also with HACCAN's art weren't so concerned with being 1:1 to the heroes' original designs and the new designs looked amazing.
Only thing I can think of is compared to the first 2 remakes, this one is an actual major budget effort and they wanted to remain faithful.
You can absolutely jump straight into Dishonored 2. However, even though you can only play as the father in the first game, I highly recommend it.
Not only is it a fantastic game, but I think it provides a lot of interesting lore and context to the characters of the second game and the world they inhabit.
My experience with the two games felt like a passing of the torch from the father in the first game to the daughter in the second, and that added to the experience.
I still recommend the first game but you can safely jump to the second after reading a synopsis of the first game's plot. The series doesn't have the best storytelling.
Dishonored 1 has lovely immersive sim elements
Each mission should be played at one's own pace
There are stuff to explore and unlock as well as helping out various npcs which the game wont tell you about so u need to observe the world and react accordingly!
Being able to do it stealth like is a useful bonus
Also the daud dlc are great.
Each mission should be played at one's own pace
There are stuff to explore and unlock as well as helping out various npcs which the game wont tell you about so u need to observe the world and react accordingly!
Being able to do it stealth like is a useful bonus
Also the daud dlc are great.
Dishonored's fun as 3D platformers go, but it's pretty one note. I feel like playing a Metroidvania like Hollow Knight or Timespinner is a better experience for that kind of gameplay (even if those are 2D). 1st-person platforming has always been awkward whenever I've played a game with a lot of it. It's just really difficult to gauge distance and placement in 1st-person (though it's almost assuredly the reason why your teleport ability has a very clear "THIS IS WHERE YOU'RE TELEPORTING reticle). Mirror's Edge is the closes to getting it right but even there it's awkward because it mostly just proves what the issue is more than anything else (you don't have a real sense of where your feet are, since you don't actually embody the character).
That´s a deep cut Joe2187 but I member. I member. Metal Gear Acid 2 is a sweet game with a shit story. Here is the Paz date from Piece Walker:
She only had plastic surgery to look 16 but you know, how is the 39 old Snake supposed to know? (You can also use the cardboard box to fuck Miller.)
The 4 PSP games went for the shounen demographic btw. to compete with Monter Hunter. That´s why Konami censored PW´s torture section in Japan and all 4 reduced the violence overall to get a Cero C/Teen rating. Yet the gravure idol stuff is kind of a big feature in both Acid 2 and PW regardless. And pantie shots. Hm.
You further get a trophy in MGS2 HD if you are caught masturbating to a gravure idol and... No stop. I need to stop or I will never stop with Kojima but have this page from the Snatcher promo comic to see how much untapped discussion potential remains with him:
Saint´s Row 4 has a trophy for playing as both gender for a time, so the devs encouraged players to try both options in the same run. Which I did.
She only had plastic surgery to look 16 but you know, how is the 39 old Snake supposed to know? (You can also use the cardboard box to fuck Miller.)
The 4 PSP games went for the shounen demographic btw. to compete with Monter Hunter. That´s why Konami censored PW´s torture section in Japan and all 4 reduced the violence overall to get a Cero C/Teen rating. Yet the gravure idol stuff is kind of a big feature in both Acid 2 and PW regardless. And pantie shots. Hm.
You further get a trophy in MGS2 HD if you are caught masturbating to a gravure idol and... No stop. I need to stop or I will never stop with Kojima but have this page from the Snatcher promo comic to see how much untapped discussion potential remains with him:
Saint´s Row 4 has a trophy for playing as both gender for a time, so the devs encouraged players to try both options in the same run. Which I did.
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I think it's perfectly fair to say anything Kojima worked on isn't worth anyone's time. Unless they're trying to get a lesson on how to constantly hamstring anything a video game might have to say. Or how to be a racist sexist hack. Don't feel like the game industry needs any help with either of those at the moment.
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