Petition Demands Female Jarheads in Aliens: Colonial Marines

[Scars Unseen]

Am I the only one who get's irritated with Andy Chalk's news articles?

It's like he just can't help himself but drip his irrelevant opinion all over every single news article he writes. Where the heck is the editor?

"I don't like consumers making demands of developers but..."

Who cares what you don't like?! It's a news article not an editorial or opinion piece!

News articles contain the facts as far as a journalist knows them, and thats it.

Exactly how many Escapist "news" articles have you read? Every article on the Escapist contains the opinion of its author. This is in not new. This is not madness. This is the Escapist.

If you want neutral, opinion-free news, go to... well actually, I can't think of anywhere that has that.

 

[Nexxis]

Signed this a while back. I don't really plan on playing the game myself, but I wouldn't mind watching a few good let's plays of it to see what's going on. Last I heard, there were female characters in the campaign but not in the multiplayer. Not sure why they would have it setup that way and it may have changed by this point. I don't feel like checking at the moment.

 

[sneakypenguin]

So a female is in campaign and co-op but not MP. Could this just be a simple balance thing? I suppose you could re-texture a character to look female, but that seems kind of pointless if you are just going to keep the same hitboxes.

 

[Gitty101]

It's not as if it'd really be that difficult to do a couple of new character skins and animations. Gearbox should just go ahead and do this if only to keep the masses quiet.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

You're getting "tired" of using male avatars in video games? Is the experience of playing as the opposite sex mentally draining? Sounds a bit petty to me. But then again, internet petitions usually are.

While I'll admit that it seems strange not to have female playable characters in a game based on a movie that had female cast members, it's not exactly important is it?

 

[Scars Unseen]

So, they want women to be raped killed in this game?

Thats not just distorting the events, thats quite obviously what goes on in these games. Yeah, people want it like Ripley, but you may remember that Ripley was not one of the people being slaughtered willy nilly. This is about the cannon fodder - remember, in the main storyline, there are women already, this is just about the multiplayer, where the humans will spend the bulk of time getting raped killed.

Poor choice of wording considering the topic.

Accurate choice of wording, you mean.

The Aliens franchise is about rape - I thought everyone has been clear on this for the last 30 odd years. What the facehuggers do? That is rape. The way the full grown Xenomorphs like to kill their victims? Rape. Everything they do, is rape. And women are arguing to get female characters into that?

In the main storyline, where the humans are triumphing, I could understand. But women are already in that. This is about the multiplayer - the Xenomorphs all-you-can-rape buffet.

It's a good thing that Freudian psychology is pretty much a joke at this point. He would have raised an eyebrow at your take on the movies.

 

[Scars Unseen]

So, they want women to be raped killed in this game?

Thats not just distorting the events, thats quite obviously what goes on in these games. Yeah, people want it like Ripley, but you may remember that Ripley was not one of the people being slaughtered willy nilly. This is about the cannon fodder - remember, in the main storyline, there are women already, this is just about the multiplayer, where the humans will spend the bulk of time getting raped killed.

Poor choice of wording considering the topic.

Accurate choice of wording, you mean.

The Aliens franchise is about rape - I thought everyone has been clear on this for the last 30 odd years. What the facehuggers do? That is rape. The way the full grown Xenomorphs like to kill their victims? Rape. Everything they do, is rape. And women are arguing to get female characters into that?

In the main storyline, where the humans are triumphing, I could understand. But women are already in that. This is about the multiplayer - the Xenomorphs all-you-can-rape buffet.

It's a good thing that Freudian psychology is pretty much a joke at this point. He would have raised an eyebrow at your take on the movies.

A quote from Dan O'Bannon, the man who wrote the script for Alien.

"One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.'"

You were saying?

Oh, and to make this easier on the both of us, please reply with "Well, i guess I was just really that dense. I should have known not to argue against something that is so painfully obvious.

Or I could simply go with script != movie; Whatever the author's intentions, the movies were overtly violent. I never perceived them as being sexual. So it seems that he failed to make me "cross my legs."

 

[Paradoxrifts]

They certainly could do it by randomising the playable character generation in multiplayer whenever a player respawns, or if they're deliberately going for a more Team Fortress approach where the character's silhouette is all part of a prepackaged class. If they're going for a more traditional Call Of Duty style with this one however, radically changing the hit-boxes to accommodate significant differences in silhouette is a big no-no. The whole point of those sorts of games is that you cannot bring any innate advantage to the game that isn't available to everyone else.

 

[Tradjus]

You know, I see a lot of these internet petitions as superfluous, but this one I can agree with. They have gender-integrated combat units in the Alien universe, it's totally common and accepted just like it is in many sci-fi future universes, like Starship Troopers. The absence of females in combat in this game is just not in line with everything we have come too accept about the whole mythos, and that Gearbox is willfully ignoring it is.. odd, at -best-.

 

[r_Chance]

I don't understand what Ferro did that made her badass. Either way, I don't see the issue. Nobody complains that women aren't allowed to serve in the front-lines, and I think that's a bigger issue of equality that this. At least in the U.S.

I gather you haven't talked to too many career female military officers lately. Cobmat experience is important in promotion. They're working their way closer and closer to combat in the U.S. military even as I type this. And yes, the issue is important, both in terms of full equality and in service to your country.

 

[Sparrow]

I seem to remember the developers of Brink saying that their customisation could be really deep if they focused one just one gender. And hell, let's not kid ourselves. It's a video game. Women play video games, I know, but don't lie to yourselves. Men play a hell of a lot more of them than women do.

Still, the Alien franchise is known for strong female leads. Maybe free DLC down the line?

I don't care I think I've become burned out on sexist stuff. I just really don't care anymore. It sad becuase I use to belivie men and women deserved equal rights not I really just tired of hearing about it.

I get what you mean, man. I am seriously running out of fucks to give right now. I had such a bountiful supply of fucks before, but since the 'Pist has gone into anti-sexism overload my vast array of fucks has been sucked dry.

 

[TheMann]

I genuinely am getting pretty sick of the sexism debate threads here and also think petitions are usually pretty stupid but, come on, this is an Aliens game. If there's any game that pretty much requires a badass chick, it would be a game based on Aliens. This is especially true for one that concentrates solely on the Colonial Marines.

Yeah, after 25 year Vasquez (Michelle Rodriguez) is still T.H.E. bad ass women. And she managed to get this icon in an supporting role!!!! How more bad ass can ANYONE get?

Jenette Goldstein, actually. Aliens came out in 1986, Michelle Rodriguez would've only been about eight years old at the time. Interestingly enough, she was also in Terminator 2, but you'd never recognize her after her role in Aliens.

 

[venn2011]

I don't understand what Ferro did that made her badass. Either way, I don't see the issue. Nobody complains that women aren't allowed to serve in the front-lines, and I think that's a bigger issue of equality that this. At least in the U.S.

Don't you remember from the movie?

"In the pipe, 5-by-5."

I say that's a pretty cool line on its own. I believe they even used it in Starcraft... LOL.

Anyway, I signed the petition too. I fully support it.

 

[Yokai]

Sometimes I think these petitions smack of knee-jerk political correctness ("add minorities and non-straight characters regardless of their relevance to the story and setting!") but this is as reasonable as it gets. I have difficulty understanding why Gearbox would even consider an all-male cast in the first place. The Alien series has never been about the guys, and Vasquez and Ripley are still two of the most badass and capable female characters I can think of.