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Genderplay in Videogames
thenovacrisis writes "Game Girl Advance has an interesting article about the various female characters in videogames. She talks about the important balance between alienation and identification, the Aesthetics of Sexy Girls, and various MMORPGs. An interesting read for all." A lot of games are compared, and issues raised. Good food for thought for character design.
Yeah I'm all for gender play. Remember when Tomb Raider first came out and you tried to get her backed into a corner so the camera would focus in on her wonderful coneshaped cleavage?
:)
Yeah, we need more gender play.
Come on, Tinkler, Tink!!
The best equality computer game was Leisure Suit Larry. Plenty of chicks in that game!
Bad ass yes, sexy no. I never was "into" pixels myself.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Thats about as close as a gamer will ever get to a good-looking woman.
Hm, Game Girl Advance....I know! They put out this little gem.
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
'cos they certainly don't use sexuality to push their own site.
Banaaaana!
Who wonders how those game chicks with 40DDD bazooms and the 20 inch waists can do flips and the like without falling on their faces?
Yeah, I thought I was. Carry on.
First, the jokes!
;)
the original Xbox controllers which are too big for my hands,
actually, that should read too big for human hands.
Regardless of the veracity of her points her delivery was flawed.
For example: the laughably phallic joystick,
with subjectivity bleeding through in the first paragraph, you know you aren't being given a fair shake- this is not a truly academic analysis- this is just a rant. Joysticks haven't been phallic since the war pilots who came up with the name.
Most controllers have some variation on the 4-way cross, or a small, stubby analog thumb controller. These modern day controllers can only be construed as phallic by those with millimeter peters.
And around every corner is a highly personal take.
For example:
"
But the hype surrounding Lara Croft was gross. The hype undercut
her image as strong smart archeologist. The hype made her into a
sex kitten. "
I had no idea lara croft was an archaeologist, so you are correct that the 'hype' (or 'advertising', as I like to call it) under cut that. But she wasn't presented as merely a sex kitten. No, she was presented as a BAD-ASS Sexy action hero. NEWSFLASH! Strong is sexy- always has been, always will be. THe strong/sexy woman has been a dominant character type in contemporary fiction; especially science fiction (with the venn diagram of Sci Fi lovers and gamers being significant).
While I admire someone's effort to bring to light something I take for granted (gender issues in games) I really would hope for a bit more rigour in the work (and no, defining "genderspace" doesn't count as rigour unless this is a freshman year undergrad writing course. and then you would only get a C...)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Jeez. I thought the /. crowd was supposed to be a bit intellectual, but most of the posts I've read about this thus far are mostly knee-jerk, anti-PC, mysogony....The article isn't claiming that she feels victimized or 'whining' about the portrayal of the female body. It's actually quite good,
Let me help you out. First of all, this is slashdot. My guess is 20% of the people actually read the articles. About 1/4 to 1/3 of the time, its because the article has been slashdotted, so they cant get to it. Some people treat not reading the article like a badge of honor.
The funny thing is, more people probably read THIS LINK instead, about the game girl vibrator, including image of girl in panties using it.
As much as nerds love reading, they love porn more.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
"it might get you a bit how under the collar"
Try typing with BOTH hands.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
This is more of a complaint about a common practice on Slashdot, rather than this particular story.
When posting stories, the original poster often puts in too many links. For example, the above story has a link to Game Girl Advance even though it has the link to the story itself, making the first link redundant.
Enough with the promiscuous linking!
the laughably phallic joystick
Yes, just like the laughably phallic handle on my frying pan, the laughably phallic handle on a tennis racket, or the laughably phallic bannana I had for breakfast today.
I think it was John Lovitz in an interview that told a story about the time he went to see "Crimson Tide" with a girlfriend. When he asked her what she tought of the movie she answered something along the lines of "It was a phallic movie. Subs were phallic shaped, torpedoes were phallic shaped, etc". His reply was "Thanks god it wasn't vagina shaped or it would fill with water and sink."
My point is, those who see penises everywhere are just plain obsessed. Even Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
No sig
I stopped at the above quote. So much for objectivity. I think the author needs to get laid.
in video games they do!
har har
You know, almost every food sells more with cheese on it (except root beer).
And everything sells better with a girl on it.
I'm going to start renting cheese-covered girls to auto shows.
-- We're not civilized. We just have better toys.
Yes, just like the laughably phallic handle on my frying pan, the laughably phallic handle on a tennis racket, or the laughably phallic bannana I had for breakfast today.
Oh come on, I'm sure the handle on your frying pan or tennis racket don't look like this.
And if your bananas do, you should seriously consider shopping somewhere else.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
I'm not too impressed with their Samus try at a female character. The only way you knew the character was female was by winning the game, and then it was IIRC, just long hair. For all I know, it could have been Fabio.
I basically tried to set up my roommates as friends who got along well and they started making out and sleeping in the same bed.
That game is shit, though, I got bored of it after a day.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
When you fired your gun the recoil would shoot you to the other end of the room.
Oooohhhhh we could simulate disabled in first person shooters by randomizing the keyboard every 3 minutes. At exactly the same time you figured out which one was your 'see through walls/auto-aim' key it would randomly switch. That would make you look retarded and play retarded.
I got too distracted by this article. I especially liked the pictures.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Only one word and it's misspelled?
:)
Damn
> GRAB PENIS
I don't know what that is.
Guess you're right!