Best and Worst of 2019

So a new year is upon us, it’s a good time to reflect on our best and worst of the past year.  There’s always plenty of good stuff in our positive examples, and sexy male armor, tags of course.

The Best of 2019

Pretty good year for video games and other media in that more studios seem to be trending towards creating more equitable attire for characters to varying degrees.  Even Games Workshop has released some new Sisters of Battle that look like formidable warriors (as opposed to well…), and have promised more. There are a few stand outs:

Captain Marvel by Marvel Entertainment

This movie was a great start to the year and addition to the dialogue regarding the Marvel movies.  Representation of women and same-gender relationships were great discussions sparked by it, and it smashed a box office record in the process.

Control by Remedy Entertainment

Weird, compelling and a whole lot of destructive fun – the adventures for Jesse Faden warrant almost infinite exploration and interpretation – all without needing to engage in exploitation of women.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood by Arkane Studios & Machine Games

The iconic game of killing Nazis provided as with the new and exciting opportunity let the players co-operate as a pair sisters killing Nazis for themselves.

Apex Legends by Respawn Entertainment

Battle Royales are a big market right now, and it’s nice to see one that embraces diverse characters and provides the female characters with interesting roles and equipment (that is also practical looking)

And because I’m not too proud to admit to schadenfreude: 

Sex Sells – Confirmed invalid, again

Amongst others we took great delight in that the attempts to use sex to sell by EM83R completely fall over, along with the release of the Kill la Kill video game going pretty much unnoticed.

The Worst of 2019

For simplicity I’ve limited this to major media and not the various groups of the worst people supporting the worst celebrities – because those people don’t need  our platform and never change.

Mortal Kombat fanbase highlights general toxicity in gamer culture

So, Mortal Kombat 11 came out and it’s… well it’s a Mortal Kombat game, but a few changes to default designs and made a few female characters have less conventionally sexy outfits… and well, capital G gamers did not take it well:

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(And of course, Final Fantasy had a small riot due to a portion of the cis male fan base having no idea of how boobs or bra sizes work)

League of Legends studio, Riot Games, confirmed as misogynistic cesspit

Throughout the year various details came out about the studio being a horrendous to female staff – to the point where a judge ruled they have to pay ten million dollars compensation to female employees.  It’s good that they received some compensation, but it shows how the video game industry still has a long way and how if a studio’s products look like it doesn’t care about women… it probably doesn’t.

Media and platform capitulation to Nazis

If you’re wondering why you hadn’t seen more on Wolfenstein: Youngblood or Control, it’s because pretty much the vast majority of platforms such as Steam and rating services such as MetaCritic still want to take a hands-off approach to their communities because they just don’t care.  Of course, there’s also the issue of how Kelly Marie Tran was all but written out of Rise of the Skywalker.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Well the game is out now and while it was celebrated for its nostalgic qualities, it sadly also carried along all the nostalgic ideas on how female character’s costumes should just be generically sexy without anything thought on… anything else at all… not even whether the clothes can even exist.

Of course, the comic industry remains a trash fire… for many years running now.

– wincenworks

So Wolfenstein: Youngblood has been out for a few days, and the fact that it exists has been driving alt-right, capital G “Gamers” nuts.

It’s a fun action game where a pair of fictional women, who are not designed as Sexbot 3000s, kill a whole bunch of Nazis. As well as that, they work with a primarily female main cast, including a young black woman (voiced by a black woman – yes this is rare in games!) as their super genius handler. It’s great, and that Nazis hate it makes it even greater.

How batshit are they going? Well on top of trying to bomb the Steam reviews and turn the Discussion boards into a cesspit – they’re trying desperately to bomb the Metacritc as well… like no one will be suspicious.

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Of course, in the reviews they’re claiming a variety of contradictory issues which I’m not going to go into here since experience tells me they’re going to spam them regardless of how often they’re countered.  It’s a thing.

Now, while I’m not a fan of the outfits having plating to essentially showcase where the boobs are – otherwise this is basically how to do any sort of form fitting “soft” armor (chainmail, kevlar, etc).  It sits on the body without pushing boobs and butts into display, and the natural light means it’s rarely titillating and definitely not designed for suspicious camera angles (pay attention Mass Effect)

On top of that, the other costumes for the twins and many other female characters are great and the twins are some of the best characters introduced into the FPS genre in a long, long time.  So of course bro-dudes hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.

So if you’re looking for a game you can play with a buddy, or just one you play with a female AI companion who isn’t also a Sexbot 3000, and you’re as against Nazis as we are – consider: Youngblood.

– wincenworks