Jimquisition: Let's End the FPS Sausage-fest

J Tyran

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undeadsuitor said:
Terminate421 said:
You forgot Halo! Look at the difference between Spartans!

Female:
-

Male:
-

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? I kind of like it. The armor is made for duty, not looks. It would have been hilarious if female spartans lacked waste armor to show off their stomach because.....female
Armoured female characters in games are only supposed to wear bikini armour, female Spartans should have only had a metal bra and hotpants. Its ok though they have shields.

In all seriousness when I first got Reach I played a female Spartan in the campaign, I thought it was pretty cool it was done.
 

Clearing the Eye

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Unrealistic? There aren't many women in the armed services and none in front line combat for the countries you play as. That's entirely realistic.
 

Serfix

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Frostbite3789 said:
I didn't bother reading every page, but through four pages of this thread everyone seems to forget you play a female character in Battlefield 3. In the bombing mission, you're a lady.
I scrolled every page and you are only one I think who remembered this. But then again you don't have female option on multiplayer. And what is more funnier about multiplayer skins is that people are more anoyed that US assault is black and you can't change it, that's why some on BF community wants customable characters, not because there aren't females.
 

WindKnight

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Smilomaniac said:
Gordon_4 said:
Dude Vasquez and Drake were blood brothers; if not for them, that movie would have been over really quick. Don't forget, Vasquez had the SmartGun as well; they were they squad assault gunners :)

You're right though, biggest pair of badasses in the bunch.
I forgot she carried one as well... :( I just remember when Apone confiscated all the ammo, Drake just fished out a new coupling.
it was vasquez who fished out two couplings, and gave one to drake. I remember him telling her 'you're just too bad!'
 

Twinmill5000

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I know alot of people who didn't play the campaign in BF3 at all. Personally I did, and the only parts I do remember well are the ones where you played as Dima, and the last mission, and the one right before it. Also the tank mission.

Out of the whole series though, the only characters I found remotely memorable were the main character for obvious reasons, and Dima and friends.

Also, seriously, people are mad that the US Assault is black?
He's probably the most memorable multiplayer character too.
 

Sedrine

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Thanks for this, Jim. If I could play as my own gender while gunning down aliens, zombies etc I would totally buy more fps games. That way it'd be so much easier to imagine that that's me doing all that merciless killing (mwahahaha)! Also, Ripley is my hero.

Side note: The idea of 'crotchless' underwear baffles me... What is the point of even wearing underpants if there's no crotch-coverage? *shrug*

You make an absolutely stunning woman, by the way.
 

Twinmill5000

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Another reason why you won't see females in grungy multiplayer FPS' any time soon:

Fox news would be all over it. They'd create topics like "New Game Published by EA Promotes Misogyny and Mass Murder of Women." Or "New Game Encourages Women to Leave Kitchen and Go on Rampages."

I almost wouldn't believe it myself, but this is Fox we're talking about. They go lower than that on a daily basis.

And Nobody would listen to them, except for the old people, but, you know the what one thing that's left for old people to care about in this world is? It's politics. They're the ones who actually take the time to write angry letters to their senators when it comes to anything other than SOPA and its clones.

Remember one thing, as well. Most AAA shooters are very high production projects. If the stupid people that are even stupider rich, and therefore funding the project, think that even for a second, that a female character would hurt sales, they won't do it. Really, with millions and millions of dollars on the line, would you take risks when you know nothing of the field the money relates to, or would you stick to what you know?
 

Clearing the Eye

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Scrumpmonkey said:
Clearing the Eye said:
Unrealistic? There aren't many women in the armed services and none in front line combat for the countries you play as. That's entirely realistic.
Are there many women serving in the future wars where people wear nano-suits and flay around with jetpacks? Couldn't someone squeeze a woman protagonist into something as realistic as a re-born mobster possessed by the devil's arms?

FPS is a broad church. Bringing up the 'realism argument' only works if you are talking about ARMA II or anything meant as a simulation. Is anyone going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that Call of Duty or battlefield offers us a truely realistic picture of life on the battlefield? Would you find a female soldier more unrealistic and off putting then an unkillable man who gets covered in jam when he is shot and sets off about 12 nukes a day?
I was refuting the OP;

"Not only is that unrealistic, it's exclusionary, silly, and lacking a decent excuse. The FPS sausage-fest should come to an end."

Jim claimed it was unrealistic for no women to be on the front line (in a round about way) and I made the point that it's not unrealistic, as there are no women on the front line in almost every single armed force of the world. Nothing more. Nothing less.
 

Lt._nefarious

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Speaking from the view of a guy who plays as a woman whenever the option is given to I agree that we need more female characters in FPS's...
 

WindKnight

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Twinmill5000 said:
Another reason why you won't see females in grungy multiplayer FPS' any time soon:

Fox news would be all over it. They'd create topics like "New Game Published by EA Promotes Misogyny and Mass Murder of Women." Or "New Game Encourages Women to Leave Kitchen and Go on Rampages."

I almost wouldn't believe it myself, but this is Fox we're talking about. They go lower than that on a daily basis.
I don't really remember them making a fuss about gears of war 3 having female multiplayer characters, and this is the game that encourages you to execute your foes in MP and has a rifle with a chainsaw built in.

I do find it kind of ironic that with the dudebro fist-bumping rep gears has, the female characters in 3 are so very well done. Heck, it actually has distinctly older women (Myrrah and Bernie) in its roster, and not just pretty young women.
 

Something Amyss

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Bobic said:
I'd say picking a fight about it over the internet would be pretty militant.
Yeah, you're definitely using the word "militant" wrong.

But yeah, I get you were being ironic. And you're also right, it didn't exactly show.
 

Something Amyss

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jmarquiso said:
Also, a women meeting physical standards in an army, futuristic or current, is going to be a woman of a certain size.
I don't think you know what the standards are for women in the military now.
 

RC1138

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Treblaine said:
RC1138 said:
Yes, women are generally weaker than men, and so too were the guerillas of the Viet-cong generally smaller and weaker than well fed American Marines in the Vietnam war yet they fought a stand up fight and inflicted heavy losses, so many battles were won by the Americans only thanks to the entire military force working in coordination such as artillery and air support. The battle of Khe Sanh was won by brilliant military planning of defences with artillery and carpet bombing with B52 bombers so that Khe Sanh didn't end up like Dien Bien Phu. There is a good case to be made that almost every battle is won by who has the best use of heavy artillery.

It's not about being the strongest.

I recall part of the standing orders for US Marines when they were in Iraq was "do not die". To make it clear that it was part of their mission to absolutely minimise casualties and fatalities in their ongoing battle against the many insurgency factions. Being protective is part of the deal of modern combat where missions are about minimising losses. A common creed is "no man left behind". America's involvement in the Battle of Mogadishu was all about trying to rescue a few pilots who'd crashed in enemy territory, didn't make a difference they were all men and open homosexuals were banned from service.

The thing was, it wasn't an issue for the Viet-cong or the Red army to have mixed gender units, they were highly effective against a much better trained force.

Women in frontline combat may not be realistic, but it is at least practical.
I'll take this one point by point.

Khe San was a frontal assault done by the NVA, that is, the Army of North Vietnam. That was the regular Army, same as the U.S. Army, British Ground Army, German Heer, and the like. No women served in any capacity in the NVA. The VC, Viet Cong, were the insurgent forces of the Vietnamese people, obviously consisting both men and women (as well as children and the elderly). Casualty figures also need to be kept in mind. While it's true that strategically, American forces never really gained ground in the entire war, Tactically, American forces remained almost universally victorious (Even the Tet Offensive would be considered Tactically a Victory) That is all to say, Americans by and large always out gunned and thus, out killed, any aggressor in the entire Vietnam war. That's true now. While yes, Strategically, we are doing little to nothing in the mid-east, tactically we win every single engagement. We always kill more of them then they kill of us.

As such to the grander idea, women, even part of a insurgent unit, would not fit in a modern setting FPS as you would ALWAYS be on the losing side tactically. I can't think of a game where your team receives greater losses then the enemy team and you still "win." If anything the casualty comparison is GROSSLY, sometimes in the 100's to 1 range in favor of the player character's side.

Next, speaking as someone who was in the military, leave no man behind is a core concept, but, as with EVERYTHING in the military, their is a hierarchy of needs and orders. Some things supersede others. The Soldier's Creed, which all U.S. Army personel memorize, goes as this:

I am an American Soldier.
I am a warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

The order is as important as the words. The mission comes *first.* The only thing that can come between you and the mission is doing your duty to the United States. You *can* and may *have* to leave a fallen comrade should the mission demand it. For example, you're mentioning of the Operation Irene. Assuming you've read/seen more than just Black Hawk Down you may know that in fact, *many* U.S. Soldiers were left behind, at both crash sites and isolated pockets of soldiers. Additionally, securing the crash sites of the first, and then the second, helicopter had nothing to do with removing or recovering bodies. Standing military orders demand that *no* property, especially technology and vehicles, can be left to be looted by the enemy. Helicopters have secure satellite and radio uplinks built into them. That needs to be destroyed above all else as it can hurt OPSEC for soldiers any, and everywhere.

For the record, I went to West Point, military history, hierarchy, and strategy is kind of something I qualify as a true expert on. Women do not, nor will for the foreseeable future, have a place on a battlefield of this reality. It's not even their fault. There is no fault to be had, it's just how the pieces lay on the board. You wouldn't expect a quadriplegic to work in a coal mine, women cannot properly be integrated into an *effective* (key point) fighting unit. Rescuing survivors was a secondary, and in the eyes of the Ground Operations Commander. And that's how it always works. If we have a vehcile rollover (which I have hand many). First mission priority is to call the dozer's and flatbeds to recover the vehicle and get it back to base. We have to, in fact, call that in BEFORE, we can call in a CASEVAC.

How does this relate to the grander idea? Leaving no man behind in fact cause a number of extra casualties that were unneeded. The fact such extra resistance was present at crash sites while casualties were trying to be evacuated resulted in *more* casualties for the Americans then would have been necessary. A pilot captured during a failed attempt to rescue him (which resulted in deaths of his rescuers) ended up being returned to U.S. Custody. And that was just between friends and battle buddies. Imagine if it's a romantic interest. To great of a danger for high ranking members of the chain of command to risk. That is the reason we *still* and *will not* integrate women into combat units.

Also it is not presence of women that made the Red Army an effective fighting force. It was the sheer number and mass of people. In fact most military historians would argue the Red Army was probably the least effective fighting force in history, as combat related causalities it received were greater than those of all the major belligerents combined, some ten million killed/captured/wounded. That's *not* an effective fighting force, nor one I'd want to be part of/related to. The Viet-Cong have a similar situation, usually being massacred in any and all engagements. What made them "effective" was their ability to strike on their terms, when and where, which is a very effective Strategic goal to undermine an enemies fighting spirit, but due to their lack of training and poor equipment, they lost tactically every time.

Neither are indicative of a modern setting FPS, nor the world as we currently know it.
 

Paradoxrifts

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Treblaine said:
Paradoxrifts said:
I've never really understood the obsession people have with Vasquez. She is just simply there to die [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VasquezAlwaysDies]. Created solely to be contrasted against the main character Ripley, so that James Cameron can drive home a point that a woman's 'true strength' comes from her 'maternal instinct'.
TVtropes is a badly moderated open-forum, it doesn't even pass for a Wiki, it is the internet equivalent of "I heard from the guy in a pub".

Really the trope at play here is "main character lives" which is a bit of a no-brainer. Ripley was the main lead role and Vasquez was not. Hudson, Apone, Frost, Ferro, everyone on that drop-ship, they were all dead meat the second you saw the actors' billing. Are each of them going to get a trope "Aponealways dies" "Hudsonalways dies". No, the trope is "only the lead roles survive".

Hicks got melted, Bishop got bisected, only the Main lead of the Series and The Cute Kid survived intact. Duh.

Vasquez was not "there to die" any more than anyone else who didn't get top billing.
I get mad at people reading unnecessary subtext into films too, but this is a James Cameron film. Herein your argument is therefore invalid. He's just simply that kind of guy.

The stereotype of the 'macho military chick' has been subsequently been transplanted into other films, often by inferior filmmakers that either don't quite understand why Vasquez was written into the film to play the role that she does. Cameron's intent was not to 'bury the butch', but to create a mirror counterpart to the main female protagonist. In this role Vasquez serves to underscore that Ripley's awesomeness originates not from her desire to confront and kill the enemy, but from her desire to protect herself and others from harm. None of the other characters share that level of moral authority, hence everyone but the nice guy and the kid die by the end of it all.

Although, at least we can agree that I should watch Aliens again. It is a most excellent film.

jmarquiso said:
It's a particularly male genre that focuses on different aspects/tales of femininity, of which Vasquez represents one.
People will geek out over the unlikeliest of minor characters I guess. I understand that she's the original mould for nearly every subsequent macho military woman. The continued interest and awareness of the character after 26 years and many many imitations still surprises me somewhat.
 
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WaysideMaze said:
Kitsune Hunter said:
Good point Jim, but actually in Call of Duty, they do show women, well actually, a woman in CoD4 as she's hear in the mission, Charlie Don't Surf, then you have to rescue her from a downed helicopter in the mission, Shock and Awe
So the only woman is an earpiece and then a damsel in distress? Kinda just proves his point. And there's still none in the online component.

As a man, I prefer to play as men in online games. That character is my avatar in the world, and playing as a girl feels wierd. So yeah I can imagine some girls would feel the same way.

Although with CoD and BF raking in the money they do with their current gaming model, I can't see them changing any time soon.
Actually, Peyalo was kinda of a bad ass. She was downed, injured, dying and was still firing her serviceman pistol while you're trying to rescue her (Only survivor of the chopper crash). Plus, being a chopper pilot inherently means bad assery. Just sayin' really.

Mass Effect was much better in its treatment of women. Everyone in the game wore functional space clothes bar the rich patrons. Both women and men could be anything and anyone, bad ass fighters (Ashley for one) to deft politicians or reporters (Emily Wong). Mass Effect 2 kinda trashed that whole line with the whole "Hotter and Sexier" trope. Really, too many cat suits, though it's justified in Miranda's case. She is a infiltration specialist and a manipulator. Using her body as a weapon to influence others is a valid tactic.

Ashley, in the first game at least, before she was put on a bus for the second, was one of the better female characters in a while. Let's see. We are introduced to her early on as a tom boyish soldier, all serious, who'd never wear a skirt and seems most comfortable in armor. Later on, through dialogue, we learn about her family, her worries, dreams, and hopes. Her history with her grandfather and her own personal conflict over it. Her love for poetry and epics. Her belief in faith in a human world that is mostly atheist (going of apparent source material) and her own questioning if she's silly for believing in faith after all that's she's seen. Her own problems with Xenophobia and learning to trust the crew you build up, till the point where by Virmire, if you leave her to die, you learn she's become quite friendly with the aliens you recruited and considered them her friends. It was remarkable growth for a character and a great plot to boot.


So we have Halo:Reach and Mass Effect 1. Any others.