Earth Defense Force 4.1

@lysander-gustav submitted:

Oh hey! Earth Defense Force, that gleefully bonkers game about shooting lots of giant bugs and other kaiju, has a sequel that just came out on Steam?  Let’s check out the store page!

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Well, okay.  I’m intrigued.  To the official website and the wiki!

Let’s take a look at all the character classes.

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Three classes where any gender is possible, and one that makes sure you know it’s a woman.  Well, that just raises more questions.  Let’s see what the official site has to say.

Wing Divers:

An all-female special forces unit equipped with jetpacks. This unit was formed as a secret weapon for annihilating giant creatures. They use super weapons born from extraterrestrial technology.

*This soldier class is swift and deadly. However, their low armor strength makes them particularly susceptible to attacks.

Wing Divers appear to be a new version of the Jet Armor, a character class that appeared in the previous game.  What did that look like?

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Ordinarily I’d say, “More Advanced = Skimpier” and leave it at that.  But this has another layer to it.  You see, in EDF 2 there was the Pale Wing character class.

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We went from the unisex freedom of “Insect Armageddon” to the flying-cheerleader throwback of “The Shadow of New Despair.”  But that’s okay. It’s a high-camp comedy, so anything goes.  Right?  Right???

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Rocket pigtails!

So… how does this game describe itself on Steam?

I’m guessing the depths of despair comes when you realise what the female character options are… and frankly that leads me to doubt their ability to bring me back from that.

Personally I think it says a lot that marketing image focuses almost exclusively on the title and showcasing how the female costumes are about boobs and the male costumes about being badass.  They don’t even take the time to give you some hint about what you’ll be fighting.

– wincenworks

Battlefield 1 doesn’t have female soldiers because ‘boys wouldn’t find it believable’

Battlefield 1 doesn’t have female soldiers because ‘boys wouldn’t find it believable’

Battlefield 1 doesn’t have female soldiers because ‘boys wouldn’t find it believable’

Battlefield 1 doesn’t have female soldiers because ‘boys wouldn’t find it believable’

feministgamingmatters:

“One might think this is because women didn’t serve combat roles – which isn’t true – but according to former DICE coder Amandine Coget, it’s because the project leads thought boys wouldn’t find it believable.

…Coget adds that DICE made several decisions for Battlefield 1
which have nothing to do with historical realism – including how tanks
function or the lethality rates of early parachutes – but female
soldiers still wouldn’t appear in multiplayer.”

Heavy sighing. (h/t @cypheroftyr via Twitter.)

What’s a worse argument to not have women in your combat-heavy game than “they’re too hard to animate”? “Historically, female warriors are unrealistic”, of course! And how to add to the injury? Insult your intended demographic by saying THEY are the one who won’t believe it! 
It’s not like games have potential to educate and widen the player’s horizons, right?

Considering the developer is so totally concerned with “realism” (as understood by pubescent boys), @pointandclickbait has a great suggestion to what historically accurate thing should be included instead of soldier women:

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~Ozzie

more warrior women and history on BABD

fixc:

Look at some of the Lovely armor in this game I found

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Some of these games I swear that the game story aspects and the actual game art must be designed by two different teams.

– wincenworks

fixc:

Look at some of the Lovely armor in this game I found

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Some of these games I swear that the game story aspects and the actual game art must be designed by two different teams.

– wincenworks

Tidy Up Tuesday #45

When submitting a post with images in it, please don’t insert pics from external sources, like Photobucket – they’re super unreliable. When uploading images from your own hard drive isn’t possible, it’s best to make a private post on your own tumblr blog and insert pictures from there.


You are always welcome to direct people to Bikini Armor Battle Damage as a resource for information about gender issues in fictional armor or tag us into anything that you feel we might be interested in.


If you have general questions about armor or how to adapt in fiction, you can send your queries to @how-do-i-armour-and-stuff


Things we addressed before:


~Ozzie & – wincenworks