OK, fuck this. Stupid one liners I can handle. Meat-headed yeti protaganists I can handle. Stories so infantile a nurserty creche would look down on, I can handle that. But when developers pull shit like this:
Capture the Babe is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of a flag, players have to pick up a "babe" and bring her back to the home base. The babe will sometimes freak out, and players have to give her a "reassuring slap," which is "more goofy than offensive" according to OXM.
then games deserve all the media hatred they get. Is this what 15 years development time gives us? A tactless shooter using humour that was out of date twenty years ago?
They have a name for people who grap women against their will and use physical violence against them. They're called perverts, woman-beaters, and scum. Maybe this game won't allow you to clock a woman round the side of the head, but seeing how far they're going already, I don't see why the developers felt the need to stop. It's not as if the game could get any more tasteless.
This game is not a throwback to some golden age of shooters. It's a relic from a past which the medium should have abandoned long ago. Exploiting women is
not cool, be it for personal gain or entertainment. This slap-happy approach to women doesn't make Duke a cool, finger-to-the-PC-brigade legend, it makes him a fucking ignorant idiot. The only time it's cool to slap a woman is in the bedroom, if that's what she's into. It's not a technique you use to calm women down mid-abduction. The word for that is
abuse.
Ultimately, the fact that gamers are willing to play a game where the downright objectfication of women is
one of the goals of multiplayer... well, that speaks volumes about where gaming and gamers are right now. And it's not a good place.
EDIT
Reading some of the responses here confirms my worst fears about what gaming has become. There was a time the community of the Escapist would call this out for the bullshit it is. Sadly, the teenagers with no actual life experiences of their own seem to see this as a good idea.
Word of advice kids: When you grow up and enter the real world, you'll see that sexism still exists, in all walks of life, despite what that nice right-wing commentator on Fox or Youtube might say. We should be fighting against that, not welcoming it into our games.
