Well, I’m a little disappointed that they seem to have gone with three men and a token woman approach (not that I had high hopes for Gauntlet – one of the original “kill everything that moves or doesn’t move” games), but looking at the most revealing outfit they’re showcasing for her:
I can’t stay mad at her… look at her!
– wincenworks
Since it’s that time again where the popular rhetoric is “Why be so negative? Why not celebrate the improvements!?” I feel it’s time to bring this back.
So, the message to major studios that want praise for “trying to improve” while improving by only the slightest increments (followed by backsteps) remains the same:
..my move is just awful, it’s chauvinist! Every time I fall over my vagina and vulva is exposed. I might as well be an NPC that doesn’t know where to wander!
Felicia Day, playing as Tyris Flare in the original Golden Axe game, (x)
Golden Axe, the iconic side-scrolling hack’em up is also a pretty iconic example of bikini armor:
And yes, Dolph LundgrenAx Battler (that is his actual name!) is wearing a bikini too but as well as being a male power fantasy (or someone I’d expect to see featured at videogamesmademegay) he always looks badass posed like Conan the Barbarian or a classical mythological figure. He also quickly got an unsuccessful spinoff game and you had the option to play a dwarf who at least kept his shirt on.
Tyris on the other hand, despite having a much less ridiculous name, had to wait until 2008 when she would get to be the star. But hey, that’s like eighteen/nineteen years of social and artistic progress right? Let’s see how they portrayed her and promoted the game!
Yeah…
– wincenworks
I felt it may be time to bring this back, not because anything has happened with the Golden Axe franchise – but because there’s still apparently a wide spread believe that exposed skin is the be all and end all of sexualized armor design.
As you can see, they actually gave Tyris more clothes in her spinoff title, but less powerful presence simply by design decisions like making her muscles less defined, body language less intimidating and ensuring her extra clothes highlighting sexualized body parts.
As convenient as it would be – there is no one element of design that guarantees a design will work. Designs consist of dozens of decisions and each can improve or worsen it by degrees.
– wincenworks
Posted on
..my move is just awful, it’s chauvinist! Every time I fall over my vagina and vulva is exposed. I might as well be an NPC that doesn’t know where to wander!
Felicia Day, playing as Tyris Flare in the original Golden Axe game, (x)
Golden Axe, the iconic side-scrolling hack’em up is also a pretty iconic example of bikini armor:
And yes, Dolph LundgrenAx Battler (that is his actual name!) is wearing a bikini too but as well as being a male power fantasy (or someone I’d expect to see featured at videogamesmademegay) he always looks badass posed like Conan the Barbarian or a classical mythological figure. He also quickly got an unsuccessful spinoff game and you had the option to play a dwarf who at least kept his shirt on.
Tyris on the other hand, despite having a much less ridiculous name, had to wait until 2008 when she would get to be the star. But hey, that’s like eighteen/nineteen years of social and artistic progress right? Let’s see how they portrayed her and promoted the game!
Yeah…
– wincenworks
I felt it may be time to bring this back, not because anything has happened with the Golden Axe franchise – but because there’s still apparently a wide spread believe that exposed skin is the be all and end all of sexualized armor design.
As you can see, they actually gave Tyris more clothes in her spinoff title, but less powerful presence simply by design decisions like making her muscles less defined, body language less intimidating and ensuring her extra clothes highlighting sexualized body parts.
As convenient as it would be – there is no one element of design that guarantees a design will work. Designs consist of dozens of decisions and each can improve or worsen it by degrees.
I feel like the problem with unnecessary sexy womens clothing in many
games and comics is relatively well known and untill yesterday I would
have said that we are making progress in this area. This changed today
when I received an answer to a question that I had send Bigpoint, the
producer of “Drakensang online”, a free fantasy MMORPG.
The question I send
them asked something like “hey team, why are women now expected to fight without pants all of a sudden? I hope this is a halloween thing because I don’t really like it. I thought you were doing really well when you added more skintone options some time ago. It would be cool if you told me what changes you made in the male costume for halloween, I wasn’t really able to make anything out. Cheers, [my name]”
The answer they send, you can see above. It says: “Hello, a lot of users asked that it become better visible if a character is male or female. That is why this change was made. With kind regards […]” etc.
I don’t even know if I should be angry about this or just sad. Before female and male characters had basically the same clothing. There is no good reason (as far as I know) why gender should be made more vissible. Also, hoovering your mouse above a character will give you their name
and a (often gendered) title. This is much easier than zooming in to
spot the boob-window. You can see the changes in the pictures above. (The characters still look like before in the character menu, that is where I was able to make the before pictures.)
I really want to make a point to Bigpoint about this, so pleas reblog or like this post if you agree with me. If you play the game, it would be awesome if you left a message in their feedback-forums or tell them what you think via their support page
Developers got asked to differentiate gender of the characters, so removing women’s pants and adding cleavages was the best solution they could come up with? Really?
Assuming there truly is a huge demand for making female and male costumes more distinct, couldn’t they accommodate the designs in a more dignified way?
And if they really had to remove some items to make character’s sex/gender obvious, why not men’s shirts? Why it’s the female characters who need “adjustments”, while male ones remain the default?
