Girl on Girls

I love Bayonetta. I think she is the sexiest videogame character I have ever seen and I can’t wait until January 8th, which makes me a complete hypocrite because I hate almost every other female character ever created.

Some argue that women don’t find female characters appealing because they can’t relate to them. Most have ridiculous bodies and unsuitable clothing, are overly sexed and cater to men’s tastes rather than women’s. No one can relate to the bountifully bosomed fighters and cute but helpless JRPG princesses of the videogame world, but that’s not why I dislike female characters as much as I do.

Fighter Ivy from Soul Calibur IV
Ivy from Soul Calibur IV

I can’t relate to Bayonetta in any way, she wears nothing but hair and shoots angels in the face with boots, but I still think she’s fantastic. She’s the star of a great game. Famitsu have given her game a perfect 40/40 score and the only reason I’ve stopped playing the demo is because my Xbox 360 red-ringed.

bayonetta

Samus also stars in great games, the Metroid series is extremely high in quality, but Lara? Her latest adventures aren’t anything special and I find her annoying because of it. I had fun with the original Tomb Raider and thought she was great, but now all I do is scream at her because she misses ledges, her camera is never where you want it to be, and she never does anything new. She’s boring.

It’s the same for Faith of Mirror’s Edge, Sheva of Resident Evil 5, and Nariko of Heavenly Sword. I didn’t like the games so I don’t like them. Maybe that’s catty of me, but the failings of their respective games made the characters seem useless and unappealing.

True, the same can be said of male characters, but because there are so many of them they’re instantly forgettable. The only male characters worth getting excited over are Dante from Devil May Cry and Mario. Fat plumbers are hot.


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4 responses to “Girl on Girls”

  1. John avatar

    OK, there are a couple of things I’d like to say here… Firstly, GREAT TITLE!! I try to construct interesting, engaging and serachable titles for my posts.. I’ll stop now. There’s no way this one’s going to be topped!
    Secondly, Where ever possible I create female charaters to play in my games. Mass effect’s Shepard is always depicted as the crew-cutted chuncky-hunk, but mine is a lithe-loking girl with a pony tail, a kick-ass attitude and a penchent for heavy weapons. I like that she’s different and I also like that she still fits into the game itself – no heavy-breased bimbo here.
    I think point you made about game = character, dislike one dislike both is well made. It’s easy to feel that these folks are personally letting us down when they screw things up (I was particularly ticked-off at Ezio last night for being crap at making the most OBVIOUS jump!). Sometimes they redeem themselves, sometimes they don’t. Lara has become a bit ‘Indiana Jones’ for me, take away the whip and the pistol and they’re just running around like headless chickens.

  2. Fran avatar

    I actually love Lara croft and Ivy from Soul Caliber. They are two of my favourite game characters. And I love the fact Ivy wears nearly nothing, and nothing falls out, I also think that the newer Tomb Raider games are really good fun, and I always put Lara in her in her Camo bikini whenever possible ;). I love the rediculous huge boobs and non exsistant clothing in games.
    Bless poor Lara, I don’t think she’s purposly sabotaged her own camera, that’s just game mechanics. 🙂

  3. Michael avatar

    Hello Daniella; long time! You still writing in print? Anyway…

    I always found the female characters in MGS to be a bit more rounded than the usual woman in the mad world of videogames; after all, most of them have a pivotal role to play in the games. The only exception that I can think of is Rose and she’s only seen in codec conversations!

  4. Pdizzle avatar
    Pdizzle

    I completely agree Daniella,

    Personally I think female roles are lacking even a basic grounding in gender realities, cooking mama is probably about the best use of a female lead in a game.

    Lets take Bayonetta for example, a librarian faced late 20’s something with an eating disorder – she’s lanky and ridiculous looking and completely out of place in the world a world of violence.

    Lara Croft, toffee nosed brat with a branch up her arse. If she was dedicated to a life of exploration, climbing, pillaging of ancient artefacts and murder of endangered species then she would have gotten a boob reduction, again leading to a completely unreltable character.

    Female Amazon Warriors would often amputate their breasts as they hindered their use of a bow – this is something we should see more of in games. Until the portrayal of the female form is used respectfully in games I will be boycotting any titles that uses a female on the cover.

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