Petition Demands Female Jarheads in Aliens: Colonial Marines

[Kukakkau]

If this was true I still would not sign the petition since it would just push this already heavily delayed title even further back.

But if the person who started it even looked around she would see on the gearbox site clear as day - customisable female marines, female marines in campaign pictures.

From what I can tell when the guy during the ea live Q&A said you can't play a female marine, I'm assuming he meant during campaign

 

[Hungry Donner]

I'm going to check a few things out.

Aliens Vs. Predator for Jaguar: Male Marine
Aliens Vs. Predator for PC: Male Marine
Aliens Vs. Predator 2 for PC: Male Marine
Aliens Vs. Predator multi-platform: Male Marine
ALIENS: Colonial Marines: Male Marine

Hehe. Wow. It's like nobody even cared or contemplated on having the option to play as a female marine. At least Star Trek: Elite Force was generous enough to allow players the option of choosing the gender of the PC, including full voice work for both genders!

That's a fair point, but none of these games gave you the option of customizing your character, and they were basically blank slates with no characterization. In fact, other than pain sounds most of these wouldn't even have determinable genders.

If you're going to give players options, then it rather sucks that they don't let you play as a female marine, particularly given the prominence of female protagonists and characters in the movie series.

But if the person who started it even looked around she would see on the gearbox site clear as day - customisable female marines, female marines in campaign pictures.

From what I can tell when the guy during the ea live Q&A said you can't play a female marine, I'm assuming he meant during campaign

If I had to choose between the option to play a female character in single player, and well-developed female NPCs, I admit I'd choose the latter. Particularly if "female PC option" just means they had a woman come in to re-read the dialogue/character they wrote for a default male protagonist.

However if we're given a blank slate, rather than an actual developed character, I'd wonder why they couldn't go the extra mile and allow female PCs.

 

[individual11]

"My name's Randy Pitchford, and I'm freaking out!"
Yes, Randy, you will be, after getting lynched for screwing up the greatest opportunity afforded to a game developer. Xenomorphs have acid blood, remember? Oh yeah, that's right, the fans had to remind you of that after that gameplay showing.
No female marines? Anything else you arbitrarily decided to retcon/re-imagine or otherwise change?
As an Alien fan, I am expecting Aliens: The First Person Shooter. Do not disappoint the fans.
There has been much disappointment in AAA videogames lately.
Don't let this be another.

 

[teebeeohh]

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

Any particular reason why?

Any particular reason why not?

 

[CardinalPiggles]

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.

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"

You know what, I don't think I would have enjoyed games like Tomb Raider or Portal if I could choose to play as a male equivalent, so I really don't get where you're coming from. Like, at all.

 

[Sylocat]

Yikes. They take a film franchise with a colossally recognizable and popular female main character, and they remove female protagonists from the games?

Why is anyone in this thread claiming that Gearbox isn't sexist, again?

 

[Ramzal]

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

Given that this is the internet, and many people indulge themselves often in out of the normal fantasies in real or drawn pornographic sense, it wouldn't surprise that there are people who do. (I won't judge them, due to the fact that we all have -something- odd there.) But you bring up an interesting point. So are you stating, right now, that it is okay for rape to happen to a woman in a video game so long as it happens to a male in higher numbers?

And what do you mean by "not glorified." I am comparing this to the recent fallouts over the new Tomb Raider game, when surely her being molested is not glorified, but rather is an act of her being used. And yes, it's eroticism, due to the molester intending to violate her. However, wouldn't you say it's the same for the Aliens in the movies/games? The fact that it's a different species may draw a certain barrier however the intention is the same, using someone's body against their will for sake of an agenda.

Are you willing to say that this is fine in media only if it mainly happens to men? Or as long as men are on the receiving end of this?

 

[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.

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.

My point was that Vasquez and Hicks where the only two legitimate badasses in the group and that Aliens historically does not have a lot of competent females in the cast.

The first three Alien movies have only a handful of notable female characters: Ripley (survivor first, badass in the end, Lambert (She spent most of the film cringing and went down without a fight), Dietrich (gets pounced on, directly kills Frost and indirectly kills a third marine (who's name escapes me)), Vasquez (Badass from start to finish), and Ferro (Unknown as she got killed while strapped to a chair - her failure to secure the dropship or listen to the concerns of her copilot don't bode well for her status though). Out of five females, you've got one verifiable badass and one eventual badass (but only in one case when her daughter analog was threatened).

By contrast, the male cast (minus the androids) gave us Dallas (Went into the ducts to flush out the alien - the closest thing to a heroic act in the film), Hicks (the quiet hero of the film), Gorman (eventual badass), Drake (intentional rearguard action - also one of the only marines to actually fire a weapon and hit/kill a xenomorph in the initial encounter), Hudson (eventual badass), and most of the prisoners on Fury 161 in the third act.

My point is, the Alien series has a strong female lead (in Aliens/Alien - Ripley is just a final girl in the first film) rather than a strong female cast. And, in the one film where we see colonial marines, one is a liability, one is unknown, and one is aggressive to a fault (she did get Drake killed after all). In other words, beyond the fact we can infer that there are female colonial marines, there is little reason to assume they ought to be present in the game.

That said, I don't oppose the idea of one being present. If you assume the ratio showed in Aliens is correct, then one in four marines would be female. Given the cast consists of four characters, it seems like it would fit.

 

[MetalMagpie]

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

Any particular reason why?

Any particular reason why not?

No particular reason why not. Just as there's no particular reason why all multiplayer games shouldn't include avatars for every major ethnic group, all readily recognisable "body types", someone with dwarfism, someone in a wheelchair, etc.

There are a lot of different avatar options that multiplayer games could offer. Why is gender the particular one that you think every multiplayer game should include? What's so important about having the choice of which gender your avatar is?

 

[teebeeohh]

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

Any particular reason why?

Any particular reason why not?

No particular reason why not. Just as there's no particular reason why all multiplayer games shouldn't include avatars for every major ethnic group, all readily recognisable "body types", someone with dwarfism, someone in a wheelchair, etc.

There are a lot of different avatar options that multiplayer games could offer. Why is gender the particular one that you think every multiplayer game should include? What's so important about having the choice of which gender your avatar is?

because almost half the worlds is female.
that and the option to determine the color of your skin should do a good enough job of shaping your avatar into something that looks remotely like you since that kinda thing is important to a lot of people playing MP
unless of course your game is set in a historic setting that makes the presence of female character implausible.

oh and dawrfism and people in wheelchairs are really not fair since their head will not be at the expected height and thus will ruin my headshot/miss quota.

 

[Vault101]

You know what, I don't think I would have enjoyed games like Tomb Raider or Portal if I could choose to play as a male equivalent, so I really don't get where you're coming from. Like, at all.

[i/]"uhhh....well I like apples, so I really don't get why you don't like apples"[/i] <-we all react to player charachters in different ways

I'm saying sometimes I really really really want to play as something different, and I really enjoy the chance to play as a female

when I get the chance..which isn't often

 

[DudeistBelieve]

...Um heres a thought, maybe it was a cost saving move? Instead of having to design shit for two different character models they only had to choose one?

Fucking aye, not everythings a battle ground for gender and race folks.... and if it was why the fuck would you start with Aliens? for fucks sake, ***** about there being no female marines in StarCraft II or the lack of a playable black albino male character in the new tomb raider.

 

[targren]

Signed. You see, unlike many other initiatives towards gender equality in video games, this is something that Gearbox can do right now to advance the medium. There's no downside to including female playable characters in the game. There's no downside to signing this petition. So why don't you go sign it as well?

Well, if one is going to be cynical about it, there is very much a possible downside. Considering the flood of QQing over Tropes Vs Women and everything involved with putting females in games, you know someone with a big mouth and a poor argument will probably end up making some noise. Make the females too feminine, and that lot starts wailing and gnashing teeth. Make them too masculine, and get complaints about that, instead. Leave them out entirely, get a wanking web petition.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Seriously? this is so stupid, what a waste of time. Lets hope this doesn't work because then more people will be encouraged to moan and complain when developers don't make games the way they wanted. Note I am not sexist or against women, I am against people whining to developers about how they have made their game. Just because you are a fan of something does not mean you are entitled to influence its creation, the people who make it are the ones who have the right to do that. So what if there aren't playable females? This doesn't make the developers sexist, in fact you have to be sexist to care about something so petty. I'm really sick of people pulling sexism, and racism for that matter, out of nothing. Sexist is a strong word, save it for real issues, the word has become devalued from overuse so much that it can now be used to describe someone who beats their wife and someone who holds a door open for a woman, one of these is a serious issue, the other is a completely insignificant example of courtesy. Grow up people.

 

[WindKnight]

Are you willing to say that this is fine in media only if it mainly happens to men? Or as long as men are on the receiving end of this?

again, its equal opportunities, and it happens to both genders. We've seen chestbursters pop from men and women, and in all cases its played as horrific and not a moneyshot. And again, its implications of rape, not explicit. We are not dealing with leering guys on girls/guys, we're not dealing with an impregnation process done on stripped women so we can leer at them in a manner that directly correlates to sex(again, its specifically stated that the victim was chosen as male in the original to make guys in the audience uncomfortable, so none would have gone 'y'know, thats kinda hawt' if it happened to a female character). We're dealing with something alien using human hosts for a parasitic gestation, kind of like how some real world insects do so.

This is not rape to propel a story forward. This is note rape to titillate. This is not rape being used to define a character and 'make them strong'.

This is something alien using the human body in a manner that's scary, horrifying and taps into a lot of fears

 

[Shinsei-J]

We just need to sign it.
It wont get a female PC at this late stage but hopefully it will get them to know that this is something that people want when they make their next game.
Bonus points if this gets big enough that some other game devs catch wind and learn from it too.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

but if you want to add your voice to the choir of people who only need to know one thing

Is he taking a jab at people who sign internet petitions?