Critical Miss: Mortal Kombat

[[zonking great]]

Nice ripoff from Family Guy, there.

 

[The Wooster]

]Nice ripoff from Family Guy, there.

*shrugs* Never seen it.

 

[superbatranger]

It thanks to Rooster Teeth Immersion episode on female fighting clothing, the skimpy clothing cannot stay on!
Still I laugh at today comic strip. It remind me of this other similar one but with Ivy and Cervantes from Soul Calibur.

Wasn't that from Ctrl+Alt+Del?

 

[Scarlet Mongoose]

"... held tenuously together by wishful thinking."

Clearly the wishful thinking of the female fighters.
Because if they were being controlled by the wishful thinking of all the gamers in the world... well.... those strips of clothing would fly off at the speed of light.

Nope. It's the wishful thinking of the males. In reverse. We want it, therefore we aren't going to get it. Simple as that. If it was a god awful ugly chick in a simply outfit she'd be flashing us right and left.

Actually wait. It's both. The female fighters wishful thinking working positively and the male characters and gamers wishful thinking working negatively.

Hmm... I may have made this entirely too overwrought and strangled any of the humor that may previously have been present to a horrible asphyxiated death.

you did. it's fine though.

 

[Screamarie]

That said, I never even noticed the outfits with the women in MK9, even when some folks point it out. Sheeva's, maybe, but everyone else's didn't bother me at all, so I don't get what makes the ones in this game stand out when there are so many other examples you could use.

Still, this is a very old topic, so I should be too surprised.

What makes Mortal Kombat 9 stand out is saturation. I have no problem with skimpy outfits. What I dislike is when there isn't a single female character who doesn't have her tits hanging out (This includes the Special Ops operator who's wearing what appears to be the worlds skimpiest life jacket). There is one female character in the game who isn't wearing high heels. She's barefoot.

Anyone notice how no-one ever makes the point that Johnny Cage and Lui Kang are forced to fight completely without a shirt? So, what, beefcake is fine, but we're not allowed cheesecake?

Actually whenever this discussion comes up someone always brings up that one of the male characters isn't wearing a shirt as if it's a counterpoint. Counterpoints, in order.

A Saturation, again. Johny Cage is one male character out of about twenty. The rest are mostly clothed, if not armoured. None of the female characters are wearing even reasonable clothing.

BCharacter. Johny Cage is a humongous douchebag. So his bare chest and honking great tattoo fit his character. Sonya, on the other hand, complains bitterly about people not taking her seriously and is offended when Cage assume she isn't a badass super soldier and is in fact an exotic dancer. The fact she's dressed like a military themed stripper never seems to occur to her.

C Bare male chests are not the same as bare female chests. Physically and socially (perhaps unfairly) when a man rips off his shirt in a public space (that isn't a beach) in my experience it's for one of two reasons. Either he's on fire or he's about to get in a fight. Can you say the same for women? A topless man is interpreted by other men (the target audience of MK I might add) as aggressive and confrontational, not so for topless, or nearly topless women.

The physical aspect is easy. Tits are big bags of fat. They are heavy. They are mobile. It'd be like fighting with two weights attached to your nipples by strings. If Kitana tried to throw say... a hook in that outfit the centrifugal force of her massive norks would send her hurtling off the side of the arena like one of those pod racers from star wars.

Oh my God...it's a reasonable, intelligent man that gets that there is a reason why wearing a bikini to a kung-fu fight wouldn't work! What form of advanced life are you?

All kidding aside, this is perfectly what the comic is saying and what I believe when it comes to scantily clad women. I don't mind a little eye candy for both men and women, but at least make it within reason and at least give SOME of the girls armor.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

All kidding aside, this is perfectly what the comic is saying

There's a reason for that...

And some men get that...it's why we don't fight in budgie smugglers.

 

[OmegaAlucard777]

I've always wondered how those outfits stayed on

Even more so with the battle damage. Makes you wonder how the females aren't topless at the end of the fights. Everything is held on by the strongest strap ever made it seems.

Wait, have you SEEN Mileena's outfit?

You mean the 2 or 3 bandage straps around her? The outfit that some JRPG game developer is now slapping himself because he couldn't make one of the girls in his game that scantaly clad? Yeah, gotta love the Challenge Tower.

But like I said... those straps are powerful. Especially looking at battle damage Sheeva, Kitana, Mileena (non 3rd alternate) or Jade. One strap keeps everything on.

 

[DTWolfwood]

wishful thinking i c that does explain a lot!

i had a very good lol on this one. Most excellent comic

 

[Soak]

yesyes, the dresscode in games, always something like this, men: have to look as stylish or freakish as possible, women: less is always more! also for women the term "breastplate" is to take literally and has to cover the breasts only.

 

[[zonking great]]

]Nice ripoff from Family Guy, there.

*shrugs* Never seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyhn1IGgnsI

 

[Rect Pola]

And she can't complain because he's wearing straps and a loin cloth too.

 

[Tjoubou]

Completely reversed xD

 

[Therumancer]

I like Daddy's thinking.

It's hard to fight fully clothed.

While the strip is funny, you do (perhaps accidently) make a very valid point missed by a lot of these crticisms. It *IS* hard to do serious fighting in regular clothing, which is why when people seriously fight in tournaments they tend to wear boxers, a Gi, or tights. It's also incidently why super heroes traditionally wore tights and shorts, a lot of them were acrobats and such and that is the kind of thing people who rely on flexibility wear when performing. Wearing something like that is actually going to give someone a bit of an advantage over a guy wearing street clothes or otherwise dressed up.

When it comes to women, it's important to understand that girls and guys are differant physically. There are a lot of reasons why women have been "second class citizens" throughout most of history, and why it remains that way through most of the world (first world countries actually representing something of an exception, people tend to forget how badly outnumbered Americans and Europeans are by Asians, Africans, Arabs, and Latinos throughout south and central American especially when you consider them cumulatively). People will point out the differances and size, and physical strength, but even if a girl is flat chested the breasts for women are a VERY, VERY sensitive area. "sensible armor" which people argue in favor of in RPGs doesn't work for women, a blow to a breastplate that would give a guy a bruise underneath will take a girl out of the fight permanantly. Also the wrong clothing up there can lead to a lot of constriction and limitations on mobility.

Girls wearing tights, or various skimpy outfits, makes a degree of sense when your looking at combat, whether it's with melee weapons or martial arts. The bottom line is to get support when and if nessicary, with as few limits on mobility as possible.

The whole "skimpy costumes" arguement can be flipped around very easily, by argueing why women should be concerned about Modesty more than guys are.

Now granted, some costumes are better than others, but the basic bikini, unitard, or scarves are all actually fairly sensible for these kinds of situations. In various "Conan" type fiction a lack of armor can be justified by simply pointing out that chances are it wouldn't help much anyway at the presented tech level.

 

[Ghengis John]

I'm reminded of this video by rooster teeth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwXdxRuk_Dg&feature=player_embedded

 

[Screamarie]

All kidding aside, this is perfectly what the comic is saying

There's a reason for that...

And some men get that...it's why we don't fight in budgie smugglers.

Dude, I'm not an idiot. I know Grey Carter works on the comic, I'm just saying that he's explaining it out. It's not about feminism or respect for women or something that people often misconstrue these arguements about, it's about being realistic.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Dude, I'm not an idiot. I know Grey Carter works on the comic, I'm just saying that he's explaining it out. It's not about feminism or respect for women or something that people often misconstrue these arguements about, it's about being realistic.

Can't blame someone for checking up on these things.

 

[dyre]

Dreamfall:TLG, right?

Ironically, the dad in the game was saying pretty much the opposite of what was in the comic

 

[The Wooster]

Dreamfall:TLG, right?

Ironically, the dad in the game was saying pretty much the opposite of what was in the comic

While I'm a huge fan of TLG and Dreamfall the strip isn't taken from it. The "dad looking over the newspaper" trope is as old as dirt. Speaking of TLG. Where's my 3rd game, Ragnar?

All kidding aside, this is perfectly what the comic is saying

There's a reason for that...

And some men get that...it's why we don't fight in budgie smugglers.

Dude, I'm not an idiot. I know Grey Carter works on the comic, I'm just saying that he's explaining it out. It's not about feminism or respect for women or something that people often misconstrue these arguements about, it's about being realistic.

I think you're reading me wrong there, mate. Realism is a secondary concern for me. What I take objection to is a game that disrespects it's audience (be they male or female) which I think Mortal Kombat does when it comes to the female character design. It's a shame because it's otherwise a superb game.

That being said, it's not that big of an issue and the strip is chiefly meant to entertain rather than make a political point. No one likes being preached at.