What’s this? Organizational uniforms that are not illogically altered for the women to be hot? The exploration suit even gives both the women and the men a slight heel, probably for that much-needed rocket boost.
I am sad that the bridge crew lady gets tights instead of pants, and the artist is definitely hit-and-miss when it comes to their lady characters, but I still like these designs overall. The iron legion is, of course, my favorite. I just can’t say ‘no’ to a woman in combat boots and a gas mask.
-Icy
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Okay, so I know what you’re thinking – this game that is named uncomfortably close to the female wing of the Hitler Youth but is probably aimed to capitalize on League of Angels is clearly just a cheap porn game right?
Well, based off the visuals yes… but if you were were using a screen reader you’d be forgiven for understanding it was going to be an action orientated first/third person shooter (though according to the Twitter it’s a superheroine game, and the Steam “mature content” screen says battle arena) and even though the game isn’t out their site advertises:
Of course, the last patch to the game was over a year ago but apparently it’s coming soon to steam and was high up on the “female protagonist” tag search.
So glad that Steam doesn’t see the need to do any manual curating.
So instead of toning down the monstrosity, I decided to just make the monster half Hotter. Instead of tentacles on his chest, I gave him a zerg tiddy, because we all know how much the zerg love those tiddies. (And yes, that’s a nipple.) I also got rid of his shirt, because it’s not like he needs it. It’s all torn up by the infection anyway.
I reduced his pants to a thong (trust me, it’s a thong in the back), made his boots into thigh-high high heels, and added some hair on the visible skin. After all, we have to remember that Stukov was a man once. It’s all part of his Character Development.
Oh, and we can’t forget the little tentacle dick in his shorts. Or is it just a tentacle down his shorts? It’s for the Fans to figure out!
Overall, I had fun with this one, since it was pretty silly, but I hope that Blizzard realizes what the people want.
-Icy
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Bingo-ing her was a bit of a challenge. Not necessarily because Slash checks out too little or too many squares, but because a lot of elements, like the original’s crotch window and the new version’s crotch belt would require custom bingo to actually score.
~Ozzie
So, some of my friends started Quake Champions and I figured… this should be relatively safe game. I mean, the original Quake guy had a cube for a head and Quake 3 was… well for you kids who don’t remember the 20th century, it was what we killed our friends in before Fortnite and PUBG. The games industry has moved on in a lot of ways since then.
But apparently Slash’s outfit design (originally from Quake 3) has not moved on… just like, weirdly sideways and swapping out a garter-belt dress for a crotch belt. (and like… a leather garter belt under spandex shorts as well)
Please take a moment to consider how uncomfortable that would be to wear normally. Like, just standing around.
Now remember that Quake is the property that originally popularized (in first person shooters anyway) the gaming stunt we know as the “rocket jump” where one sets off an explosion underneath themselves mid-jump so the force of the explosion will launch them up.
For those of you typing comments frantically, yes it is true that Quake has never placed much emphasis on realism or even making sense – but I’m supposed to grimace in pain when I get gibbed with a rocket… not when I open up the character selection screen.
Hence it is now one of the few games/properties/products which I truly wish would return all the way back to it’s roots and the glory of 1996.
This is truly fantastic not only for the authentic touch of the culture, but also for the excellent choice of a dancer outfit for a character who has elegant dancing sequences as her emotes. This is really the sort of thing I’d hope to see in a game as touted for diversity as Overwatch is.
I really do wish that Jeff Kaplan would look to these kinds of designs and priorities for his goal of “trying to do women characters better” rather than looking for ways to make their previous design standards seem more acceptable under casual examination.
And on today’s episode of Doing Women Better™, Blizzard finally granted us the much requested Magician Symmetra. Only instead of going for something super classy like the many fan interpretations out there or even just ladies in suits from real life, they went with…this.
Lack of pants and framing her bust (what is even with those metal plates) aside, the fact that this is a legendary skin and costs 3000 credits when it’s so close to her default skin makes this whole thing very disappointing.
Thanks for submitting this highly requested post, including some quality scathing commentary! The Saga of Pantless Symmetra continues.
This would be insulting enough just by the virtue of being a fetishy leotard instead of a suit, but what the hell are those boob-holder bars?! They’re some sort of garbage afterthought slapped on to make this look more “sci-fi”, I guess? Why would a costume need that? Because you can’t be science fiction without framing the tits with random pieces of metal?
Since the bingo lacks a “What the fuck am I looking at?!” square, I marked “Boobplate” instead.
Fun fact: a convention I attended last week had an Overwatch: Character design done right! talk that I just couldn’t subject myself to come to, both out of the fear of my brain melting on sight and because I didn’t want to rain on some enthusiastic fan’s parade when the time for Q&A comes.
I’m still amused that at the same time Blizzard made THIS, easily disproving the “character designdone right” claim.
I think it’s been long enough but if you find yourself getting ready to type up a comment related to Mass Effect: Andromeda’s animations please consider watching this educational video from Extra Credits and not commenting here instead. This post is going to be a clarification of what we mean when we say Creepy Marketing Guy, and since the first post on this topic featured Samara, it’s only fair that Cora be the star of the clarification.
First, let’s start with what we do not mean when we refer to Creepy Marketing Guy. It does not refer to:
Using distinctly porny ads to promote products (be they porn or not porn), particularly if they’re generic images from a clickbait ad company
What we instead refer to is a product where you can see the development team’s intentions are to create something where every element is involved in telling a specific story – and then someone (usually marketing) steps in and makes the change specific parts of them with the assumption that the cishet male demographic needs the sexual availability of at least one female character broadcast to them in order to be interested in the unrelated aspects.
In this case, they pick Cora Harper, who is an ultra-professional soldier (one of the most battle hardened in the team), introduced as being calm in a crisis, the second in command on the mission, and seems to use “male” set of animations for her running, etc (instead of the elbows-in butt wiggle run generally assigned to female characters, including fem!Ryder).
Then you see in the outfit in the top of the post before launching into the tutorial mission, during which she appears in cut scenes like this:
Pretty much every other female character in the establishing chapters of the game has pragmatic, non-gendered attire on and off the battlefield. But, since Cora is a romance option for bro!Ryder, she apparently needs to wear a fetish outfit sculpted around her boobs and butt, while on the battlefield. The other female member of the away team who is a romance option also similarly needs to broadcast she’s got a sexy side (she also only owns one set of clothes).
All other traits other than romance option to bro!Ryder are considered secondary – to the extent now Cora looks not just contradictory to her character but out of place in the game about exploring a new galaxy, finding wondrous alien technology and shaping humanity’s future.
(This does not seem to apply to the male romance options, examples 1 & 2)
Ironically this now means she is so out of place cannot be included in marketing material without making the game look a ridiculous parody of a dramatic adventure exploring alien worlds in a new galaxy. It’s almost like they should have just given her one of the dozens of pragmatic outfits I am sure the concept artists designed for Cora before being told to sex it up.
– wincenworks
What is it with the “above boobs and under boobs belts” design feature that’s become so popular lately? Also, I thought Ashley’s outfit in Mass Effect 3 was insulting; the new BioWare studio really took it up a notch, though. … Good job?
I’ve read none of the promotional material for ME:A before it came out, so when I watched part of a Let’s Play of it out of curiosity, I couldn’t believe that Cora was this battle-hardened badass soldier type; I thought she was just another human on the ship. Her design makes me think of EDI before anything else. Those really sad attempts at actual armor pieces (like the baby plates on her shoulders) somehow make it worse, like Creepy Marketing Guy begrudgingly allowed it.
Also, send help, that butt window is staring into my soul.
This throwback is as the reminder that the problem of ridiculous female armor design is a wide spread enough probably that even studios known for being progressive end up falling prey to it.
That and well I recently acquired the Mass Effect Adult Coloring Book, which features Cora in it, but she’s clearly more inspired by the costume design than the writing in the game…
So much good work can be lost by pandering to an unappreciative demographic.
