Jimquisition: Vertigo

[Jimothy Sterling]

Vertigo

Let's look for a playable woman protagonist in a videogame that doesn't rely on the same pool of restrictive stereotypes as every other playable woman protagonist.

Watch Video

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So the only female character in gaming that breaks out of the usual female character template is a fucking DINOSAUR? That's pretty sad Games Industry.

 

[Fappy]

I don't know about you guys, but Vertigo's pretty sexy. Check out dem glutes!

 

[Arfreid]

Hmmm how about Xel'lotath from Eternal Darkness... then again... 'she' and Vertigo have too much in common.

http://eternaldarkness.wikia.com/wiki/Xel%27lotath

 

[DTWolfwood]

What about Lizzie from Rampage?

 

[Tombsite]

If looks doesnt matter, why cant women be "attractive" so to speak?
Why is the concept of Saints Row and other types of games such as MMOs completely discarded because theyre our creation not the developers?
Can then only good female characters exist if they're created by the developer and not the player?

They can, Jim doesn't have a problem with that. The problem is that apparently they can't be anything else than attractive. That is a problem.

 

[Tombsite]

Hmmm how about Xel'lotath from Eternal Darkness... then again... 'she' and Vertigo have too much in common.

http://eternaldarkness.wikia.com/wiki/Xel%27lotath

She is not player controlled.

 

[88chaz88]

If looks doesnt matter, why cant women be "attractive" so to speak?

Can we all stop with the "If 'X' doesn't matter..." defense? It's completely ridiculous.

'X' does matter, else we wouldn't have so many examples of one subset of 'X' yet so few of the other. It clearly matters yet it damn well shouldn't, and the only way we're going to stop it from being important is to have more diversity.

And diversity matters.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Spoiler: *cough*

I like to think that The Boss and Ammy fall into this category.

Have you seen The Boss? She's built like a fucking horse, and Ammy is...

Well she's Ammy!

 

[Chessrook44]

What about Lizzie from Rampage?

When she "dies" she turns back to human form, shuffling off screen in naked, blonde-haired, generally-attractive-as-far-as-we-can-tell form. So that might be why she doesn't count.

 

[wwmcfar]

There's an indie game on the PC called The Cat Lady by Harvester Games with a female protagonist that pretty much qualifies. She's not exactly a strong female character as she's suicidal and borderline insane but she's a unique character with great motivation.
Seriously it's a great game and it's been green-lit on Steam.

 

[Weresquirrel]

Of Darkspore's 4 female characters, at least 3 of them fall under the same blanket as Vertigo. I'd argue the full four, but Andromeda is fairly feminine looking, and as near as I can tell from her back story is a bit of a goody goody.

http://darksporegame.wikia.com/wiki/Jinx

http://darksporegame.wikia.com/wiki/Seraph-XS

http://darksporegame.wikia.com/wiki/Arakna

 

[Bigwig]

What about Ammy? Or is she too attractive to count?

 

[Erttheking]

If looks doesnt matter, why cant women be "attractive" so to speak?
Why is the concept of Saints Row and other types of games such as MMOs completely discarded because theyre our creation not the developers?
Can then only good female characters exist if they're created by the developer and not the player?

They can, Jim doesn't have a problem with that. The problem is that apparently they can't be anything else than attractive. That is a problem.

Thats up for debate however and not an objective fact, especially if you just consider that to be the one part that matters to a player, regardless if its being marketed to you as such. Its a woman, shes attractive.
I like to compare this debate to the new steam controller rage:

oh my god look how bad this controller looks it must be shit.

While im thinking instead: I wonder what it feels like to use it for play though since i will use my controller for a game and not to look at.

Look you can split hairs as much as you want, but it's pretty hard to deny that a massive majority of female characters are designed with the intention of people trying to make them look good in mind. And a good looking character isn't a bad thing, a lot of people really like Mitsuru from Persona 3 and she's hardly lacking, but good looking for female is become ing what "White, brown haired thirty something" is for male. There is nothing wrong with a character like that but the sheer number of them is ridiculous and something ELSE would be nice.

 

[Weaver]

Spoiler: *cough*

I like to think that The Boss and Ammy fall into this category.

Have you seen The Boss? She's built like a fucking horse, and Ammy is...

Well she's Ammy!

Amaterasu is a pretty good choice! She also, despite being a dog, has even some personality to her expressed via body language. That's more than you can say of Vertigo!

There is also the Broodmother from DOTA. She's really just a big spider though.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Just wanted to add this, Anita would hate this revelation a bit more than you Jim. She hates seeing women used as villian characters.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Spoiler: *cough*

I like to think that The Boss and Ammy fall into this category.

Have you seen The Boss? She's built like a fucking horse, and Ammy is...

Well she's Ammy!

The Boss isn't a playable character nor a protagonist. She's a great character, to be sure, but not quite what Jim's talking about. I've got nothing on Amaterasu though.

In this thread I expect plenty of people to say that plenty of male characters are sexualized, completely ignoring the fact that they are male empowerment fantasies (ie, something to aspire to, rather than something to desire), where few-to-no female characters are female empowerment fantasies.

Well, I suppose she doesn't count if she's not playable...

Damn it!

Ammy, save me!

*falls back on Ammy point*

 

[bafrali]

Huh. Your ideal woman is actually huge skank Jim. Don't think I haven't seen that victory pose. I will be damned if she wasn't turning her back just to show her lovely lady humps. Waving the tail if you will.

Well I was expecting Miss Pacman to appear then I realized she is just a distaff counter-part to her more popular male character and she doesn't really have motivations of her own and actually depicted with make up, high heel shoes and a boa in her concept arts.

Maybe Sarah Kerrigan in her new design but abominable high heels truly ruin that image...and inexplicably well preserved face and overall features that survived the mutation process.

A long way to go indeed...

 

[88chaz88]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sarcasm

There ya go, the joke flew right over your head like WOOSH :U

I'm not even going to take it as sarcasm even after you claim it is. Seems like more of a copout than anything.

 

[Steve2911]

Yeah I too can not think of a single example. I was tempted to say Ellie from that bit where you play as her, but I suppose I'm only not thinking of her as attractive because she's too young for me to see her that way. She is the game's protagonist in my eyes though, but I can't honestly count her when she's only playable for an hour of it.

And discounting player made characters is important, because a fully rounded and crafted character as part of a linear narrative is dependant on things like gender, race, appearance and whether they go for Paragon or Renegade points. If the developers didn't create a character in a certain way (female, not conventionally attractive etc) then how can it possibly count as a progressive protagonist?

Still trying to think up more examples as I type. Maybe there's some fairly obscure indie games or Japanese stuff that I don't know of... But as far as Western AAA I'm drawing a thousand blanks.