You may remember when Codemasters put out their press release for the Damnation announcement, we felt inclined to mock it everso slightly. Codies responded in generous good humour, leading to this madness. Well now some more screenshots have appeared, and as excellent fun as this game looks like it could be, there’s some more mocking to come.
Specifically about the above.
Damnation is to be a large-scale action shooter, set in levels that boast their vertical as much as their horizontal, bursting with physics-defying stunts. Such as driving along walls on a motorbike. Now, we’re not Tim Gunn or anything, but it would seem that for flinging yourself from rooftop to rooftop, performing daredevil feats, and having shoot-outs in mid-air, this isn’t possible the most sensibly designed outfit for the task.
HELLO CODEMASTERS! IS IT 1972 IN YOUR OFFICES?
Do you see how you’re really rather enforcing the reputation we wish this industry didn’t deserve? Do you not want to offer female characters some dignity?
Er, okay, so that was ranting. But come on.
A rather more respectable collection of screenshots, all of them enormous, here.
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@ape
Only halve as alarming as the amount of readers the The Daily Sport has.
@Ape: “Actualy, I am hoping for ugly characters too. Especially ugly protagonists.”
Go play Arx Fatalis, you can choose the character’s face and one of them is really ugly, always my first choice.
I’m just waiting for a game where you can finally have a gunfight between people only wearing thongs and nipple-tassels. Where else but in a video game could you have such silly things?
Also I find those describing the female clothing in such games as “whorish” and the phrase “slut” to be sexist in their own special little way, as that brings about the idea that a woman dressing up to willingly seduce men for pleasureable sex is Wrong and Immoral. Not a very 21st Century notion, especially considering as many men who do the equivalent are lionised. Of course this depends on how the character is represented and for what purpose, if it’s purely eye candy for using tissues then that’s not quite as woman’s liberation as representing a character who is open-minded or sexually liberal.
“Wish fulfillment indeed. But isn’t the fact that so many gamers want this slightly alarming?”
Oh, definitely.
That picture made my tummy go funny. I’ve not had sex for a while, though.
Huh. I go away for three hours and I miss an argument.
Anyways, I think the problem with saying “Look at the MEN in videogames” is that while they may be idealized, they aren’t sexualized. I think the only time I’ve seen this (Outside of maybe Conan) is in some Asian art styles, with the men wearing bare-stomached armor and such. And the response to that is overwhelmingly that it looks “faggoty.” Which it does, because, well, they’re sexualized and we are the male half of the audience.
I mean . . . poses of several female characters in games could be pulled straight from Maxim. But if poses of male characters ever started being pulled from Playgirl . . . ?
this may be a bit pat, but isn’t this basically all comic books’ fault? having ridiculous adventures in half an outfit and all that? the omnipresent whiff of the v-card and stale sweat?
on the other hand, this is a company called “codemasters” so…yeah.
“are you guys any good at coding?”
“good at it? we’re fucking *masters*, dude.”
@Malagate: Or play Morrowind or Oblivion, everybody’s ugly there…
Even if the women have a myriad of products getting them to their ‘utmost quality’ the difference of the wish-fulfillment in games is that the handsome male lead usually has some poor lady wanting to hop down his pants. Most of this wish-fulfillment seems have a requirement to objectify women.
Looking at game above, the men look handsome and macho *and* they have that scantily clad female trailing with them which makes them even more macho. That is wish-fulfillment to the max, me thinks.
The classic example of that, Noc, is when Blizzard buffed up the male blood-elf player models thanks to people shouting their homophobic abuse. They used to be skinnier, and that to be was a breath of fresh air.
even forgetting how silly and infantile this makes the game look, has it not occurred to them that a fair chunk of gamers are people my age, married, or living with their real life woman, and who just wont buy a game if it means lots of disapproving looks or sarcastic comments from the other half?
I’m ashamed to be part of an industry that resorts to such tragic attempts to get attention.
Of course, Blizzard caved in. Because to a gamer, LOL FAG is the most powerful incantation imaginable.
Also: there IS an important point here, and it’s that theres a tendency to equate “not sexist” as “sexless.” There’s nothing wrong, I believe, with having female characters be sexually confident. But for example, in the context of THIS game: they aren’t going club-hopping, they’re going out to kill people. Choosing that sort of clothing entails prioritizing being eye candy over staying alive. Which, well, doesn’t speak so much for their competence and professionalism, and renders the character as nothing but eye-candy. And it’s the “Nothing but eye-candy” bit that’s the core of the objection, not the fact that they’re looking attractive all.
It always has me confounded that people will jump at the sight of unsolicited breasts yet be entirely ok with incredibly graphic and detailed murder and maiming, no matter what the medium. I personally have no problem with either but there’s that line where it becomes ridiculous/contrived/distasteful and I’d say that outfit is definitely ridiculous.
It’s a bit strange to promote a game with boobs when the rest of the presentation raves on about how strong their gameplay, design and story is. To me it just sends the message that it’s “one of those games”, and makes it easy to just ignore it.
Oddly enough, when trying to think of a really compelling female in a game, GLaDOS comes to mind, with her personality and dialogue expressing every level between motherly love and crazed psychotic. Perhaps not distinctly female, but eerily human.
And she doesn’t have breasts.
@Noc:
I think that the men in Gears of War *are* sexualised. The absurd homoerotic overtones behind GoW have been much commented and ridiculed, of course, but they’re very real.
Sexualisation of men in games tends to be more subtle, because it has to be viewed through the developer’s own repression, sexual frustration and self-revulsion at being secretly turned on by burly men, but it’s still there, and in games like GoW, pronounced.
Marcus Fenix: bear icon.
lol ugly looking vidya games boobies cause agrument
im not fussed i dont really play shooters i play MMO’s now theres another kettle of fish, the diffrence in style between men and women in the same equipment is mental.
once again digital boobies LOL
“However, you simply cannot conflate this issue with their being presented as nothing but sexual objects. Their role in the game is not equivalent. They are generally intended to be power fantasies, allowing the male player to realise his inner beefcake. The barely dressed woman in her tattered bra and panties we encounter is no one’s power fantasy, but instead an objectified presentation of a sexual offer.”
Comments like this are one of many reasons why I love RPS. Good thread, provided your reading comprehension exceeds that demanded by a pack of Top Trump cards.
@Cullnean:
Do you do after dinner speaking engagements? Who’s your agent?
@MearCircus: If Marcus Fenix is a bear icon, then what is [insert any JRPG male lead here]?
@Okami
LOL FAG, presumably.
“Also I find those describing the female clothing in such games as “whorish” and the phrase “slut” to be sexist in their own special little way, as that brings about the idea that a woman dressing up to willingly seduce men for pleasureable sex is Wrong and Immoral…”
Eh, I’d still call it whorish if man did that as well. Jeanette’s outfit in bloodlines is indeed whorish and her goal seems to be just to sleep with anything that moves. And this is another issue I have, let’s just call a spade a spade. If anyone wants to be a slut, that’s fine, I refuse to get all pc and call them sexually liberal people.
As for ‘faggoty’, take a look at Magna Carta for the PS2. I thought Calintz and really all the males fit in that role well. You can see his hips because his pants have huge holes in the sides. I was surprised, it was more than I wanted to see but I grew to accept it, after all the women in that game have huge breasts. Equality??
@skalpadda: “GLaDOS comes to mind, with her personality and dialogue expressing every level between motherly love and crazed psychotic. Perhaps not distinctly female, but eerily human.”
Between motherly love and crazed psychotic, that sounds more realistically female than pretty much every woman in videogames to date. Women going batshit insane over something, possibly anything, is part of their endearing qualities, albeit it is a quality that pretty much all people share.
Also @ Klaus, fair enough if you apply the same label to everyone who share that behaviour. I was taking umbridge more at different standards between genders, where such behaviour in a man might be seen as acceptable but when a woman does the same it is seen as wrong. I was also using as neutral a language as possible, informally I’d probably just say they’re promiscuous.
The female characters in the Resident Evil series are, on the whole, highly sexualised. There are a couple of debateable exceptions. (Someone mentioned Resi as an example of female characters done non-sexually, earlier.)
Silent Hill 2 is about the most powerful sexual-not-sexualised game you could play. It has a heavily sexualised female character whose role is a to be a mysogynistic male fantasy, and that’s *part of the plot*, where she is contrasted with the other female characters, all of whom are profoundly non-sexualised (again, part of the plot).
oi!
If you keep mocking it then the boobs will go away.
SOME OF US DO NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN.
You know what we’ll be left with if they go?
Marcus Fenix Esquire.
@meat circus
yup give max clifford a bell reasonably prices and lots of stories that start “during the war”
also for sexualised men look at “clive barkers undying”
they gave him concept art and he told em to come back with a lead that he would like to fuck!
also as an ex squadie some of the best soldiers i knew looked like sacks of potatoes with a rifle straped to them but them boys could shoot and had the endurance of a god
Cullnean:
And what he got was a character who, all these years later, still provides us with a soundtrack for plot-locked doors.
“Stook!”
“Jaamed!”
“Won’t budge!”
I don’t remember anything else about the character, except that he wore his shirt open.
The fact of the matter is, there is a perception (which probably isn’t far off the mark, truth be told) that whether we be reading a book, watching a movie/TV show or playing a game, we want our heroes and heroines to be pretty.
In many cases it’s most acceptable to be a little less photogenic and desirable if you’d do the decent thing and let your character be a Rincewind or a Guybrush, the bumbling, incompetent sort. I can’t off the top of my head think of too many examples of the comedy, hapless sidekick being one of the beautiful people.
‘bursting with physics-defying stunts’ – There’s your reason, they need to show off how the engine defies normal laws of physics, I’m guessing gravity in this case. That’s probably a lot harder to show when any potentially wobbly bits are covered in kevlar…
(apologies for the following image) of course that line of reasoning would require all the male characters to be wearing thongs….
@jaxstrasi
also a tight ass i would imagine
Malagate: Woo misogyny.
Jaxtrasi brings up a good point, too. It’s not even so much a matter of what KINDS of characters are about, as long as the game is aware of it and it’s planned deliberately. The problem comes when it’s clearly not being thought through and you this sort of stuff in places where it doesn’t make SENSE to be and is clearly just a sort of reflex. “Female character, right, give her a midriff.” Impractical armors, for instance: it’s just bad character design, because there’s no way your competent swordswoman is going to want to get stabbed in the gut.
Demonic Succubus fights in a bikini? Fine, that makes sense. Throw an Incubus in along side it in a speedo, and have it’s spell effects work on female characters. But make sure you design is actually thought out, instead of just based on established (kinda sexist) conventions that people are used to enough not to question.
So, the solution, Radiant, is not to take them away. Just to make them less stupid.
@Ian:
That’s an American disease. In the UK, we seem more prepared to tolerate a certain degree of ming in our actors and actresses.
I think the disease came to a head with Heroes, a programme in which everybody was just so damn good looking, it seemed to shatter the willing suspension of disbelief.
BEST. COMMENT THREAD. EVER.
Seriously, this thread has done a better job of keeping me from work than all casual games ever, combined!
Add my vote to the “lol grow up” camp, btw.
@Meat Circus: That’s probably true to an extent. But even the ones who you probably would kick out of bed in the morning still rarely have a comedic foil who’s a hottie. We wouldn’t want to suggest the fuglies could be as competent than the poster-folk now, eh?
Let’s be honest, the world of celebrity has shown us there are at least as many thick-as-pigshit lookers as there are people who are that thick and half as attractive.
Big Trouble In Little China at a stretch. Though the genius of that movie is that the “lead” character doesn’t realise he’s really the side-kick.
You could go back to some of the early noirs I suppose; Bogart was a bit of stumpy troll (Or a ‘boggart’ if you’re feeling punny).
But yes, it’s getting rarer and rarer these days even on this side of the pond. Just look at how Doctor Who, over ten actors, has gradually turned into Casanova.
Perhaps Codies could redress the balance somewhat by making this chap into the hero?
http://www.b3ta.com/board/8516803
Looks like similarly sensible adventuring attire to me…
Meh. Alyx is just a mate. Nothing going on between her and me, though I’ll go for a pint with her any day.
Jade though… sigh.
As for male stereotypes, see FEAR. Men are either gun-toting muscle-laden supermen, or fat whiny nerds. Oh, or they’re Commander Butters, but he’s an antisocial dickwad, so he doesn’t count.
and on the topic of doctor who, its notable that he has to have suppressed desires to fuck his assistants. he never felt that way about roy castle, Bernard cribbens or the guy who played harry or adric (sp?)
Bah
@ bobsy
Fear = Special forces
so they should be pretty handy with a rifle
Now male stereotypes are another matter. Sadly they reflect the inner anguish of action game devellopers and certainly the plague that are focus groups.
and there goes my gag reflex.
@Schadenfreude: I almost cited Doctor Who, but I’m not sure where Chris Ecclestone counts in the grand scheme of things. To me he looks fairly average but a person who finds men sexually attractive might tell me otherwise. Definitely right about Tennant even if (for me, anyway) he plays a great part as well. I guess we’ll wait and see where they go for the next Doctor. Maybe they just went for Tennant because Russell T Davies really liked the idea of him and John Barrowman getting it on? ;)
I’m really struggling to think of “decent” female characters under this working definition we’re using. Put me in the “Alyx is a creepy fantasy” box. There are a lot of female characters who aren’t remotely feminised, but I’m not entirely sure they count; Alex D from Deus Ex 2 springs to mind, because male Alex D and female Alex D are essentially the same character with two different skins. They both wear a downright tasteless leather getup and have similarly comic sexual lines in about two places in the game.
Fall-from-Grace and Annah are just as much sex objects as Elexis is. They’re just much, much better written, but no more well-rounded as characters when we’re looking beyond their role as sex objects.
There’s New Lara. She definitely counts. She’s obviously overtly sexualised, still, but she’s also confident and assertive in a more-than-just-wanting-to-be-the-one-on-top sort of way. (Shame on you, Lilith!)
The funniest example I can think of is the female love interest in Far Cry. I assume she’s supposed to be enticingly sexualised, but for some reason they decided to model her face on Christine Hamilton. The result is something that reads like a deeply disturbing indictment of the objectification of women. A lot like Window Licker.
Presumably adventure games are rife with well realised remale characters. Cobbett would know better. Is that a target audience thing?
Hooray for the Aphex reference.
I seriously couldn’t sleep the first time I saw that video. So maybe Christine Hamiltonface isn’t as bad.
Male stereotypes. Uber-macho men, men who don’t take no shit from nobody. Also, men who still believe they’re fratboys.
Judith Mossman. *SWOON*
@Klaus
I don’t know about that last one being a negative. I don’t know if I’d play a game with a tag line like ‘average middle aged dad saves the little-league game to keep his slightly spoiled tot from crying, while dodging angry glances from the missus because it’s ‘her time of the month”
(post intended as humor, for those who need such clues :p)
Men are either gun-toting muscle-laden supermen, or fat whiny nerds.
that’s generally how it works, no?
@Ian:
Since Ecclestone’s a pretty average looking bloke, and the next Doctor is 97% likely to be this slug-browed twat:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/08/02/nesbitt460.jpg
I’m not sure being pretty is set to become a trend. Mind you, there were also rumours it will be:
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/00lncOA9Pa4Zs/340x.jpg
In which case, WOULD.
I bet she can pick up wifi networks with those nipples.
@Meat Circus: Who is that second picture of?
@feet
nah that’s just kevlar pads, who the hell goes into battle without kevlar these days………apart form the british