nerdiecake submitted:
*sighs* smh.
Angela Balzac from Expelled from Paradise.
Explaining the half-X: There is no male version of the outfit, but her male companion is dressed, well… normally.
So looked this up… and you really are not kidding when it comes to the comparisons of wardrobe:
Seriously, this is terrible – why do so many people always think of the future as men wearing more or less what we do now and women wearing… stuff like that? Why not imagine a better future?
– wincenworks
Lady Soldiers from XCOM: Enemy Within
I’ve meant for a while now to offer a writeup for the XCOM
games for a while now. My brother picked it up a couple years ago, and I
was immediately impressed with the armor designs for the women soldiers
in the game. Unlike other science-fiction based games, where skin-tight
catsuits and shorts with unzipped jackets over tube tops are considered
effective combat attire, ALL of the armor in XCOM
offers full body coverage for both male and female soldiers. I picked up
a copy from a Steam sale last week and found myself infinitely
addicted.XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion Enemy Within
are turn-based sci-fi strategy games featuring excellent squad-basted
tactical combat on various urban and wooded environments. In Enemy Unknown,
players are in charge of the XCOM Project, a secret multinational
organization formed to combat an alien menace responsible for abductions
and experiments on human subjects across the globe. The Enemy Within expansion
adds a new level of story and challenge with the addition of EXALT, a
secret organization aiding the aliens and attempting to undermine the
XCOM Project. In both games, players recruit, manage, and deploy elite
special-ops units against alien invaders while studying captured alien
technology in order to better combat this unknown menace. As the game
progresses, players are able to research and create improved weapons,
armor, and facilities to better equip their soldiers.All screen captures taken from game play. XCOM was produced by 2K Games and developed by Firaxis Games and Feral Interactive.
It was particularly great since that X-Com’s original game was pretty awesome for not just female armor but also diversity in general. Soldiers were hired with randomly allocated names, nationalities, gender and stats.
I am very pleased that they have maintained this tradition – unlike some other games attempting to emulate the original.
– wincenworks
As excited I was about ME:A being announced, this (i’m sure very fast) concept art put a bad taste in my mouth. Just goes to show how silly poses for women are so ingrained into artist’s heads that they probably did it without thinking, not realizing how they broke her out of perspective (check her shoulders and feet against the man) just to achieve it too. I mean they were probably drawn separately but no one was like wait a second… lol
Happy space adventuring!
Even with equal amounts of body coverage, Mass Effect characters can’t escape the double standard.
I think kaaaaaaaaaaaaaldwin puts the problem with original picture really well in here:
~Ozzie
Personally I am hoping that the E3 demo armor was chosen for conveying more dynamic motion and this is just a side effect of marketing people going overboard with it.
It is good though that they’re now promoting the female option right away and I do hope that the rest of the armors will be more like what we saw last year.
– wincenworks
Women at E3 2015
Anonymous submitted:
Hey, awesome blog! You’ve already made a post about Emily Kaldwin in Dishonored 2, but I just wanted to ask your opinion on this year’s E3 in general. Not only were there more women presenters than ever, but signs of real progress when it comes to representation for women:
As noted, Emily from Dishonored 2!
The shieldmaiden from Eitr!
Lara Croft from Rise of the Tomb Raider, having finally exchanged her 90s male-gaze outfit for something one would actually raid a tomb with!
Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn! I think there’s still a discussion to be had here about cultural appropriation, but at least she was designed as a hunter rather than eye candy.
The protagonist from Recore!
Evie Frye from AC: Syndicate! I’m still really cynical about the fact that she’s more or less an add-on to her brother’s story and that she does the stealthy bits while her brother does the punchy bits, but her outfit is very reasonable.
Rae from Beyond Eyes! It’s great to see more non-violent games on display too.
The mercs from Dirty Bomb!
And of course, Faith from Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst.
The majority of characters on display are still white and slim, but it’s a noticeable improvement from last year – and it was nice to hear cheers from the audience when it was announced that women were playable in FIFA and Fallout 4.
Thank you the line up. While certainly are issues with each individual game and depiction it is great that this year E3′s character line up included many badass women who are dressed to get shit done.
I sincerely hope this will become an ongoing trend in video games and one that lasts a long, long time. We shall certainly have more to say on various titles as time and further information is released.
For those interested, the Mary Sue also did a post on games with female protagonists that includes the promotional videos.
– wincenworks
Women at E3 2015
Anonymous submitted:
Hey, awesome blog! You’ve already made a post about Emily Kaldwin in Dishonored 2, but I just wanted to ask your opinion on this year’s E3 in general. Not only were there more women presenters than ever, but signs of real progress when it comes to representation for women:
As noted, Emily from Dishonored 2!
The shieldmaiden from Eitr!
Lara Croft from Rise of the Tomb Raider, having finally exchanged her 90s male-gaze outfit for something one would actually raid a tomb with!
Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn! I think there’s still a discussion to be had here about cultural appropriation, but at least she was designed as a hunter rather than eye candy.
The protagonist from Recore!
Evie Frye from AC: Syndicate! I’m still really cynical about the fact that she’s more or less an add-on to her brother’s story and that she does the stealthy bits while her brother does the punchy bits, but her outfit is very reasonable.
Rae from Beyond Eyes! It’s great to see more non-violent games on display too.
The mercs from Dirty Bomb!
And of course, Faith from Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst.
The majority of characters on display are still white and slim, but it’s a noticeable improvement from last year – and it was nice to hear cheers from the audience when it was announced that women were playable in FIFA and Fallout 4.
Thank you the line up. While certainly are issues with each individual game and depiction it is great that this year E3′s character line up included many badass women who are dressed to get shit done.
I sincerely hope this will become an ongoing trend in video games and one that lasts a long, long time. We shall certainly have more to say on various titles as time and further information is released.
For those interested, the Mary Sue also did a post on games with female protagonists that includes the promotional videos.
– wincenworks
A few people were concerned that we shouldn’t be harsh on Nova as she (or at least her boobplate) appeared in a recent Blizzard ad. However given that Heroes of the Storm got it’s own concept art and many people did write in to tell us how awesome Johanna’s (bottom right) design is… it just begs one question.
Does Blizzard actually have an official policy of “One or two good examples so we can get good press and a feminist cookie – then go back to sexy designs.” and if so is it posted to the walls in their art department? Also do the have one that says “Remember: Female midriffs are impervious to damage!” ?
Because I Johanna’s outfit certainly shows a lot of promise but… why is the least armored part of every character the squishy bits where they keep the vital organs?
– wincenworks