If I'm Gonna Stare At Something For Hours On End It Might As Well Be A Woman's Ass
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllshit. I call bullshit on this oft quoted excuse for men playing as female characters. Because in most games you rarely look at your character, you're focused on the environment, stuff and things. Also, depending on how you associate with your various avatars it's kinda creepy to perve on the character that you are playing. SO here's the reasons why, given a choice I'll probably play as a female character. ITS ALL ABOUT ME HOLMES.
Male Characters Are Boring. Dull, dull, dull. Chinned stubbly affairs driven by revenge or sometimes sheer gruffness. The mind numbing you-aren't-kidding-anyone shit that leaves their mouth, normally with a voice like a 40 a day batman with an acute throat infection, is nothing any man has ever knowingly uttered apart from actors in exciting action films with awful plots. More often than not they are the default character too. The guy will have the standard punch and the standard gun. They're the ready-salted of the video game character world and are boring.
Male Characters Are Unrealistic Not only do I struggle to relate to them at all but most male characters (there are exceptions) are one dimensional creatures. I'm looking for my daughter. I'm trying to save my princess. I'm seeking revenge because someone took or killed my daughter/wife. Fortunately, I've not had this happen in real life but I can relate. But I've played that character. A thousand times. Still, at least some motivation other than "I'm following orders to kill the bad guys" is better. The unflinching goody two-shoes all American hero. Boring and unrealistic. Only ever disobeying orders to save more people. Always the good guy. That's what made Fahrenheit so interesting to play because even after the day from hell, Lucas still opportunistically knobs his ex. That's much more relatable than the guy who just unflinchingly fights evil (they are the dudes wearing black). Snake is also interesting to play because throughout Metal Gear Solid he just seems to be completely fucking clueless about everything. Sure he's a killer but he just never seems to get what he is doing and why.
A Passion For Fashion Armour for male characters is boring. Sure it's more practical than the stuff that female warriors of sorts sport but nine times out of ten customising armour and gear for men results in changing the colour of the shoulder pad trim. Ladies get to wear bright, colourful and interesting gear. Sometimes their hair is colours other than brown or grey (so we know that a man is old). Monster Hunter Tri is a great example. Female characters get all sorts of interesting bits of armour, guys for the most part get slight variations on all covering plate armour. Just pretend you didn't enjoy the costume spheres in FFX-2.
Change is as good as a rest. It's fun to gender bend. Ideally games would be doing much better to enable proper role play. I am really curious about how gender affects the way the world reacts to you but most games aren't really capable of communicating this effectively. However, in online games you can experience life in another gender's shoes. The way the community treats females is still overwhelmingly negative but can be positive and increasingly in online games I've played it seems that actually gender doesn't really matter which is encouraging.
So there we have it. Of course, I'm not claiming that all the above isn't true with relation to female characters. It isn't that simple but I don't for a second believe that playing another gender has much to do with staring at asses.
UPDATED: Now with inspirational post art as suggested by Richie.
Male Characters Are Boring. Dull, dull, dull. Chinned stubbly affairs driven by revenge or sometimes sheer gruffness. The mind numbing you-aren't-kidding-anyone shit that leaves their mouth, normally with a voice like a 40 a day batman with an acute throat infection, is nothing any man has ever knowingly uttered apart from actors in exciting action films with awful plots. More often than not they are the default character too. The guy will have the standard punch and the standard gun. They're the ready-salted of the video game character world and are boring.
Male Characters Are Unrealistic Not only do I struggle to relate to them at all but most male characters (there are exceptions) are one dimensional creatures. I'm looking for my daughter. I'm trying to save my princess. I'm seeking revenge because someone took or killed my daughter/wife. Fortunately, I've not had this happen in real life but I can relate. But I've played that character. A thousand times. Still, at least some motivation other than "I'm following orders to kill the bad guys" is better. The unflinching goody two-shoes all American hero. Boring and unrealistic. Only ever disobeying orders to save more people. Always the good guy. That's what made Fahrenheit so interesting to play because even after the day from hell, Lucas still opportunistically knobs his ex. That's much more relatable than the guy who just unflinchingly fights evil (they are the dudes wearing black). Snake is also interesting to play because throughout Metal Gear Solid he just seems to be completely fucking clueless about everything. Sure he's a killer but he just never seems to get what he is doing and why.
A Passion For Fashion Armour for male characters is boring. Sure it's more practical than the stuff that female warriors of sorts sport but nine times out of ten customising armour and gear for men results in changing the colour of the shoulder pad trim. Ladies get to wear bright, colourful and interesting gear. Sometimes their hair is colours other than brown or grey (so we know that a man is old). Monster Hunter Tri is a great example. Female characters get all sorts of interesting bits of armour, guys for the most part get slight variations on all covering plate armour. Just pretend you didn't enjoy the costume spheres in FFX-2.
Change is as good as a rest. It's fun to gender bend. Ideally games would be doing much better to enable proper role play. I am really curious about how gender affects the way the world reacts to you but most games aren't really capable of communicating this effectively. However, in online games you can experience life in another gender's shoes. The way the community treats females is still overwhelmingly negative but can be positive and increasingly in online games I've played it seems that actually gender doesn't really matter which is encouraging.
So there we have it. Of course, I'm not claiming that all the above isn't true with relation to female characters. It isn't that simple but I don't for a second believe that playing another gender has much to do with staring at asses.
UPDATED: Now with inspirational post art as suggested by Richie.
Oh I also forgot to add Tits too. Body image whether you like it or not is important and most female characters tend to be generally attractive, you can see their breasts and often the rough shape of the vagina.
ReplyDeleteYou hardly ever see a guy's dick so I don't want to be playing a character who may or may not have hang ups about his anatomy. If it turns out that Chris Redfield has a small penis then I'd play his character a lot differently.
What about:
ReplyDeleteI can be a male every day in reality, but why not imagine being a woman from time to time. If I'm gonna play pretend, I might as well include that option too.
That's kind of what I was getting at with the last point in the post but unfortunately for most games it doesn't really make much of a difference if you play as a male or female character. Which is stupid.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eatliver.com/img/2010/5925.jpg
ReplyDeleteAgreed