Duke Nukem Is Irrelevant

People often try to count Duke Nukem among the ranks of the most the most inflammatory anti female video games in the industry. To that I say... well yeah. Duke Nukem tries to be as controversial as possible. That was one of the driving allures of the game back in it 2D days. If anything I don't count Duke Nukem as a crime against women because it doesn't attempt to be taken seriously. The "Macho" Duke is a parody of the ridiculous nature of 80's and 90's action films. While his games are certainly offensive to many people, that is kind of what satire does a lot of the time. I would rather see people make games with objectified female characters and have people react with disgust than have people make games where the mistreatment of female characters slips under the radar.

Distracted by Breasts.

Suffering from the same development choices as poor Ivy many video game women find themselves dreadfully under dressed for the level of combat that they are going to experience. Now occasionally this is explained in one of two way.

1. The character is agile and will make up for being unprotected by being hit less. 

In some games that have fast mechanics and fighting I can see this being valid. I still don't see why a female heroine would choose to wear revealing clothing, but i have heard such explanations as: The provocative dress will distract enemies giving added advantage. Sounds like crap to me, but what do I know.

2. The female character is just so tough that she just takes the hits and is fine.

This one I actually did not respect for a long time. It was mostly used to explain the female characters choice of attire in games like Heavenly Sword, where the female lead is a one women slaughter house. However then I looked at similar games like God of War (Kratos wears no shirt and no armor) and I realized that while this idea might be a little silly, at least it is fair among those types of "bad ass" characters

I have also noticed that in games where the player has a great deal of control over the story; I.E. role playing games like Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, Etc how revealing female armor is seems to drop. However in RPG's where the player embarks on a designed story I.E. Final Fantasy we tend to see female character wearing more stylized skimpy outfits that cannot be changed. 

This is and example of male and female armor as depicted in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. While small adjustments are made to the female armor for anatomies sake, the level of protection it provides is no less impressive. 

Square Enix has no such qualms however about having their female core characters run around  in bondage like "armor". Now this isn't the case for all Final Fantasy females, but there seems to be at least on in each game that suffers from a tragic lack of functional armor. 

Women have valid input on female game characters. Who knew?

This series by Anita Sarkeesian is a pointed view of a women on the inequality of genders in video games. The first episode explores the idea of the Damsel in distress and how it relates to current video gaming. The most interesting and first point that she makes in this video is that of Dinosaur Planet. This is literally a situation where a female protagonist was given a valuable heroic roll and then at the last minute sidelined into the damsel in distress. Crystal, has come to represent the theft of female competence in gaming due to her staff of power literary being taken and used by the new hero Fox McCloud to rescue her in what was originally her own game.

BEFORE                                                                                

AFTER

IVY: A brief history of  a "fighting fuck toy"

When we look at the statistics of the game industry it is sometimes hard to find "measurable" examples of what it means to be a woman in a game. As game franchises lose popularity or change hands it is hard to really understand the thought processes. However Soul Calibur is one of the most popular fighting game series to date and Ivy is one of its oldest characters. Equally as old are the controversial ways in which Ivy is portrayed as a character. She has a deep and interesting plot arc that is completely undercut by her gradually more fetish oriented physique. The exception is Soul Calibur III where for once we saw Ivy wearing more cloths. Despite this game being regarded as the best in the series, Soul Calibur IV saw the largest breasts and least cloths yet on Ivy as well as the least story themed game play thus far in the series. Its not that Ivy is an incompetent fighter or the only example of this trend in Soul Calibur. However her main purpose in Soul Calibur IV at least is to serve as a sexual analog for the player to make jump around the screen for their amusement.

Female bodies in games. Why have them even talk really?

There was a time when G4 had a brain. It really did strive once to be a voice of wisdom for nerd culture. However no good thing comes without a struggle, and frankly G4 gave up. They transformed into a mirror of  the geek communities worst attributes, sexism, bullying, degradation, disrespect and disdain. They went from being a network that really tried to interpret a culture for those who didn't fully understand, into a machine that tried to control it with gimmicks and pandering. Case and point: Video Game Vixens.