giantpurplecat submitted:
I got an email notification from Sideshow Toys and saw this statue featured in my email. I’m just questioning how that bra stays on and doesn’t snap and how the bones aren’t piercing her skin. (I imagine they would if she were to move around.) This also feels very BABD Bingo worthy.
It always disappoints me how much detail goes into making high quality figures of such shitty character designs.
Clearly people who translated this atrocity from the comic Fathom into 3D form put a lot more thought and hard work into the toy than late Michael Turner who came up with Aspen’s appearance in the first place.
I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be revisiting at least one figure from that collection sometime soon:
~Ozzie
Speaking of the description:
The Aspen Premium Format™ Figure stands 22” tall atop a helix of water, which swirls and swells under her command. Aspen is stepping through the surf with ease, with windswept hair and a comfortable, confident pose featuring semi-translucent legs as her aquatic abilities are at work. … Fans of the Fathom legacy will recognize Ernie the seahorse frolicking in the waves beneath her feet.
If that is indeed what the creators consider a “comfortable pose,” then they might want to consider doing professional gymnastics. But Ernie the seahorse is indeed the best part of this disaster.
Can we get a solo Ernie statue, please?
-Icy
I have to admit that Oraco has been impressive in their dedication to minimizing the amount of creativity in their designs. Sometimes I joke about some studios using a spinner to pick random design elements, but it seems genuinely possible (example: nature + League of Angels)
Seriously the recycling art assets on the front page and committing to this level of generic imagery, is impressive in a terrible kind of way. Not to mention the combining with @eschergirls type anatomy.
No surprise that it’s not only incredibly generic in gameplay, but often accused of another game which is essentially a game that plays itself (so not quite an asset flip, but close enough it may was well be).
This is why we say that if you’re counting on sex to sell, it’s probably because you don’t have anything worthwhile in your game.
– wincenworks
New SMITE skins
Nais submitted:
So, I was watching the Smite 4.21 patch notes, and I was really impressed by the quality of the skins.
Nemesis’ new skin actually looks like half decent armor, minus the high heels.
Discordia looked cute and mage-y.
And then there was this.
This is “Exterminator Kali”, who is supposed to have a “superhero feel”. She looks like one of those flag girls from car races. Had me going there for a minute with the improvement, Smite…
Ok, that Nemesis skin looks surprisingly interesting and not particularly sexualized in SMITE’s very low standards, especially compared to her default design. It’s not perfect, of course – you mentioned high heels, but there’s also spandex chainmail on her legs and skin-tight material around waist… Though this is probably the closest they ever got to practical female breastplate.
Dicordia could use a longer skirt, but her design at least has some personality, something nonexistent among other goddesses in this game.
As a side note, her lore starts as a coherent story (Eris flees Troy after successfully spreading chaos of war there, reinvents herself as Dicordia) and quickly spirals into something that spits into face of everyone even remotely familiar with Greco-Roman myths and history (she makes a character who is neither the ancestor of Romulus nor
and
Remus the original founder of Rome instead of the twins).
Sometimes I feel this game exists only to troll mythology nerds with blatant disregard for everything that makes those stories and characters special.
Speaking of which, can we ALL, as the humanity, please stop sexualizing the Hindu goddess Kali FOREVER?
What’s video games’ problem with her? There was a super-porny version (NSFW link!) in Rise of the Incarnates (the game doesn’t seem to exist anymore). Overwatch also felt justified in turning this powerful female deity of a living religion into a “sexy” skin for Symmetra, because the character is Indian.
We referenced SMITE’s disgusting treatment of Kali in this 2015 post about exotification and it’s as topical now as it was then:
Other than sporting four arms and blue flesh, that “Exterminator” skin doesn’t even have anything to do with Kali’s default SMITE design. And what’s “superhero” about it, too? The biggest connection I can think of is that she looks like an ultrasexualized Guardians of the Galaxy reject.
~Ozzie
edit: A reader informed us that SMITE Wiki misspells the character’s name in Discordia’s lore: the article says Aeneus, an unrelated Greek mythology character, rather than Aeneas, the protagonist of Virgil’s Aeneid, bridge between Greek and Roman myths and ancestor of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome.
Okay, so predictably Blizzard has used Blizzcon to announce a new Overwatch character, and now Talon (the bad guys) have a support healer – and surprisingly despite them clearly having recycled a lot of Mercy’s look (with more than little bit of Zarya and a lot of David Bowie… I mean a LOT), they’ve managed to avoid the Evil is Sexy trope this time.
Honestly this design is pretty good but I get the feeling that the boobplate is literally a case of “if no boob, how woman!?” given how refreshingly androgynous Moria looks in most of her origin story and lineup pic
It’s also pretty cool how she fills a big hole in Overwatch lore and meets the outspoken player demand for an evil/amoral healer.
Of course Blizzard took Blizzcon as the opportunity for demonstrating how they’re doing representation of women better in their games and media.
They also, a few hours earlier, released what is essentially Reinhardt’s origin story, which features exactly one female character:
An unnamed* redhead with a Disney face who is there to tell him that he doesn’t need to be hero so he can tell her that he totally does.
This is why it’s difficult to believe that, while many of their staff may be trying hard, Jeff Kaplan and Blizzard as an entity care about representation beyond marketing sound bytes and feminist cookies.
– wincenworks
Oh, what could have been.
I wish they would have pushed the medical tubing further, instead of just giving her a little tube backpack. Like maybe extending the tubing down her right arm to emphasize that she deals damage with it. Overall, the design is just very…. Safe. And also not angular enough. Look at the origin story screenshot above; angles!
I’m just kind of disappointed, honestly. One more thin, young-looking white woman, and her black/purple color scheme is giving me Morgana flashbacks.
Also, her powers are very reminiscent of Hel from SMITE and Seris from Paladins. We’ve almost achieved the originality singularity!
-Icy
I see this as a consistent problem with many female character additions to Overwatch… Individually, they’re pretty interesting designs (though it’s guaranteed that they looked better, less “safe”, in concept art), but when put together in a group, they turn into this boring blob of young-looking, thin, mostly pale ladies with a token unique feature here and there.
As I said before, I’d take so much less issue with D.Va (cause her pretty girl design is consistent with her teenage idol persona) if she didn’t follow after introduction of Mercy, Tracer, Widowmaker etc, who all have fatal flaws dictated by “sex sells” in their designs.
~Ozzie
*We understand that Brigitte has a name (thanks for all the readers for informing us of it); however that actually confirms our criticism regarding the supposed need for “doing the research” – the animated short can’t even bother to put her name into dialogue. The audience has to read some auxiliary non-game material beforehand to know who she’s supposed to be.
ORCISH BEEFCAKE CALENDAR (2018)
ORCISH BEEFCAKE CALENDAR (2018)
There’s less than 48 hours to go, so we felt the need to make a bonus post to promote this very, very worthwhile Kickstarter – that takes two of our favorite topics: Male empowerment and sexy, sexy, sexy ORCS – to the apex.
Check out the talent they’ve got lined up!
And, for variety, there’s also a powerful orc woman:
We just felt you guys had to know.
– wincenworks