Petition Demands Female Jarheads in Aliens: Colonial Marines

[Eleima]

Signed. Seems like a pretty big oversight, I'm surprised at Gearbox.

 

[Mr Grey]

I have a feeling we'll mostly come out in support. Mostly

I see what you did there, this made my morning

 

[Lyri]

When you post stupid shit and then defend it by not really thinking it out you must get used to it.

You did compare women to dogs because you compared what some women might want to dogs wanting the same thing. And taking a shot at the petition in that way was a comparison.

Saying "I didn't compare anyone to anything, I was taking a shot at how silly the petition is." is BS because the two are not mutually exclusive. Logic. Use it.

I could have used anything, anything at all and you would still have said I was comparing, do me a favour and stop the white knight bullshit.

All you're doing here is trying to defend the female point of view instead of a general point of view.

what some women might want

See that?
That right here just shot your argument in the knee caps as you're defending solely a womens point of view, when in fact the petition isn't strictly aimed at women.
There will be male signatures on there too.

Just to inform you too before you go jumping down my throat for some other bullshit, I genuinely think it's silly petition for this shit.
As long as there is nothing incredibly offensive about how your game is designed then I don't really care if they leave out certain groups.
I wouldn't petition to input a white guy in a game about African-American all female hit squad because I felt left out.
I don't petition to add homosexual characters and I wouldn't petition to add straight characters if it was the other way around.
I'm not 12, I don't have to be first picked for the dodge ball game every time.

 

[PaoloSanscho]

Muhahhahahahaha really a stupid move... : DDD

 

[Risingblade]

Is it even worth it? Are these alien games ever that successful?

 

[Gabanuka]

Kinda interesting that they didn't given that sigourney weaver was the best part about Alien... kinda a stupid move actually. Then again this late into development it might not be easy to make a main character, no speaking side character could be done.

 

[WindKnight]

I just find it hilarious how the majority of people were against what happens to Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider game, but are good to go to throw women into a situation where they are killed, strapped to a wall, and face raped while being impregnated against their own will.

The screen writer had the intention to mess with men on the subject.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18932_alien-film-franchise-based-entirely-rape.html

Of all the double standards... this is the strangest one. XD

you are kind of missing the point. the alien franchise has always had strong female characters in them. And while the sexual violence aspect of the Xenomorph reproduction is undeniable, geuss what, its equal opportunities (most people I can remember being face huggered were male), and its not glorified, eroticised or gratuitous. Unless, you know, the idea of an alien spider thingy wrapped around your head gets you off

 

[Moromillas]

I highly doubt devs would be so keen as to make female characters, given the recent "sexist" nonsense. They probably won't be touching anything that isn't create-your-own (MMO style) for a long loooong time.

Thank you internet.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I have a feeling we'll mostly come out in support. Mostly

I say we take off and petition the website from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

At the very least this request does make sense. The original movies prominently featured badass women, so why don't the games?

Properties within a franchise should adhere to the rules of that franchise. In Alien, women can be marines. Similar to how Resident Evil must always have zombies, or how American blockbusters must always feature generically handsome white blank slate protagonists killing the evil darky or aliens representing Communists or terrorists.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It's definitely a very odd omission. The female marines from Aliens were freaking badass.

Not really. One of them was a badass. The rest of the female characters in the first three movies were mere fodder. The other female in Alien spent most of her time panicking and ended up going down without a struggle. Deitrich was the first Marine known to have been grabbed in Aliens and worse, when she gets grabbed she sets another marine on fire which results in an explosion that kills a third marine. For those keeping track, that gives her a body count of two to the aliens zero at that point in the movie. Ferro may well have been a badass, but being strapped to a chair certainly reduced her ability to fight the single alien.

That leaves Vasquez who was certainly a badass but inadvertently got Drake killed. Of course, I'm not sure how the balance works with male characters when you consider Burke (he more or less got everyone else killed) and Gorman (he was incompetent and nearly got all the marines killed) or any of the male characters who tried to play hero and generally just ended up as fodder themselves. Hicks was the only male character that managed to be both badass and useful without having at least a few moments of utter uselessness.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Is it even worth it? Are these alien games ever that successful?

There have been two attempts that I felt were pretty good. The first was Alien 3 for the SNES and the second was Alien Versus Predator (1999).

 

[Legion]

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.

Nobody? Ever?

I am sure there are many, just not a significant enough proportion willing to go all out and demand it.

I also do not see the relevance. This is a story of a gaming fan asking for a female character option in a game, they are not crying out for gender equality, and claiming the gaming industry is sexist. They merely want to be able to play as their own gender in a series they are looking forward to.

I do not see why anybody has an issue with it. I have never understood the idiotic 'internet attitude' where people object to other people doing things that do not affect them and have no negative consequences.

I recently saw people claiming that Skyrim should absolutely never have the option to respec a character despite A) It would be entirely optional and B) It would make some people happy. But apparently, because some people don't want to use the feature, the rest of the fans shouldn't have it despite it not affecting them in any way and being incredibly easy to implement.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

Wow, talk about sexist. People are demanding a sex be added to something? Here I thought people wanted everyone to stop treating each other differently and to ignore gender, to see everyone as a human being and not a penis or a vagina.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I'm not generally a fan of making demands of game developers (or of internet petitions, for that matter) but if the plan is to make customizable characters for online play, then why not include women too? It seems like kind of a no-brainer given the subject material, and it actually has me wondering if maybe there was a misunderstanding somewhere along the line.

*shrug* Because if you just want to re-skin the same model for all the playable characters, it's a lot easier if they're all the same gender.

That would be my assumption anyway.

aside form the fact that every game should have female avatars for MP...

Any particular reason why?

 

[itsthesheppy]

It's definitely a very odd omission. The female marines from Aliens were freaking badass.

Not really. One of them was a badass. The rest of the female characters in the first three movies were mere fodder. The other female in Alien spent most of her time panicking and ended up going down without a struggle. Deitrich was the first Marine known to have been grabbed in Aliens and worse, when she gets grabbed she sets another marine on fire which results in an explosion that kills a third marine. For those keeping track, that gives her a body count of two to the aliens zero at that point in the movie. Ferro may well have been a badass, but being strapped to a chair certainly reduced her ability to fight the single alien.

That leaves Vasquez who was certainly a badass but inadvertently got Drake killed. Of course, I'm not sure how the balance works with male characters when you consider Burke (he more or less got everyone else killed) and Gorman (he was incompetent and nearly got all the marines killed) or any of the male characters who tried to play hero and generally just ended up as fodder themselves. Hicks was the only male character that managed to be both badass and useful without having at least a few moments of utter uselessness.

So... is your point that none of the marines were badass? Because they pretty much all died. Even Apone went down screaming shrilly.

I stand by my assessment. Yeah Deitrich could have done better, but Ferro at least went for her gun and tried to fight, unlike her co-pilot who got smoked offscreen, and Vasquez who... come on. Boot to the head. She rocked.

 

[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?

theres nothing petty about...variety and all that is a wonderful thing...it gets fucking annoying seeing the same shit over and over

And by "shit", you mean male avatars in video games? Bit sexist don't you think? There are plenty of female characters in games, in situations where gender does not particularly matter.

I agree that variety is nice, but pressuring game developers like this is not the way to accomplish this.

 

[FitScotGaymer]

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.

I don't agree.

I come to The Escapist because I find it is one of the gaming journalism sites that is more balanced and "unbiased" than pretty much ALL of the others. IMO.

I don't expect journalists to be unbiased - but when you are doing a news article you are supposed to do your best to at least appear to not have an opinion on it, as much as you can. Opinions are for opinion pieces, editorials, or videos/podcasts; not news articles.
And for the most part I think that The Escapist is largely successful on that front, at least they do a better job than say IGNorant or G-Paid-4-Tv.

If the other journalists insert their "opinion" into the news pieces they do then its so unobtrustive that I haven't really noticed it with anyone else. Well, I noticed it a little with Grey Carter but not as bad as with Andy Chalk. His articles are positively reeking in his opinion.
And as Candace Bergen said to Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City: "This article positively reeks of Carrie Bradshaw's opinion. Who care's what Carrie Bradshaw thinks?"
And that's what I am getting at.

When I read the news I wanna read about whats going on, and unless it's something really really terrible, I don't expect or want to read their opinion.
A journo can put his/her "slant" on the article that's fine; but I really don't care what they think about it. I'd rather make up my own mind thank you very much.

 

[Vault101]

And by "shit", you mean male avatars in video games? Bit sexist don't you think? There are plenty of female characters in games, in situations where gender does not particularly matter.

I agree that variety is nice, but pressuring game developers like this is not the way to accomplish this.

huh...hold on..where did I put the the thing

...ah here it is

[img/]http://images.gaming-pics.com/files/2011/08/gaming-pics-033.jpg[/img]

as for those plenty of female characters? not many of them are playable...and even less are not optional

this has nothing to do with sexism and as much as I hate to pull this card your a guy, your plently represented in games and well..(not so much if your a minority though)

being desperatly hungry for anything that ISN'T the boring "safe" "weve done this a million times before" charachters

like oh god...Nathan Drake..the absolute epitome of "cliche main charachter" I don;t hate uncharted, and I get why Nathan drake has broad apeal but I swear to god I want to shoot that fucker in the face..I hate him..I hate the way he jokes, I hate the way he;s so "cool" and "lovable" I hate that fucker so much

but we are getting off topic here

thats not to say I can't identify with male charachters...(I wouldnt play games If I couldn't)

Adam Jensen, Altiair, Ezio, Cole ,Issac Clarke I all like in some way or another

but theres somthing so safisfyingly awsome seeing my Femshep or Badass gangsta from SR2/3 do their things....hell the fact that I could be whatever I wanted in SR2 pretty much made the game for me, if I couldn't play as some skinny brown haired girl then I would have been very "meh" about SR2...

or even Chell from portal...

as for preasuing game developers..I'm all for it..just somthing to show "hey...we like female charachters"