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Five Ways To Save Video Games
Games.net has an article up with the somewhat dramatic title of Five Ways to Save Video Games. The piece doesn't feel the need to pull any punches. From the article: "#1 Stop Treating Women Like Whores - Sexy is fine. Titillating can be fun. But when you show stupid jiggle-physics and scantily-clad girls cooing and moaning and wriggling, you show yourselves for what you really are: sex-crazed children. And don't think for a minute that the mainstream media doesn't pick up on this. If you can't stop demeaning women (with skimpy outfits and hyper-sexuality) and men (by glamorizing massive musculature and testosterone-dripping masculinity), then get the hell out of the industry."
It seems 90% of the world is a sex-crazed children, if advertisments are anything to go by. From cars to perfume to... yeah pretty much anything adheres to the "skimpy outfits + huge muscles" trend. Don't even get me started on movies.
"#1 Stop Treating Women Like Whores"
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On the grounds of taste, I'd like to agree, but I don't think it matters overall to gaming's future successes. There are plenty of films and music videos that portray women as sex objects and do well out of it. Here's a great example:
http://www.internetdj.com/watch_video.php?op=watc
I am a Man , I like seeing women in skimpy outfits .I do not view them as inferior or lessor beings because some women choose to wear something titillating . In fact I admire their courage and their bodies. .. It's natural for straight guys to like these types of things.
.. but the most important thing is the game-play . Sure a few stories are rather similar and have some plot holes .. but you would think that these people have never read works of literature .. I can tell you from experience that the same things happen even in the greatest of literary works .
I like jiggling breasts
It is not Evil or wrong for Games to portray this .
They are not treating them as whores , they are treating them as beautiful examples of the female form.
I am not a sexist and believe women deserve equal rights in all things. The fact remains that men like to see scantily clad women and that is not going to change because a few prudes consider this demeaning .
We are not immature idiots , we know that most real women are not like this , but let us keep our fantasies please.(some women also enjoy scantily clad men , look at the success of male strippers )
The complaints about the story lines are silly , some games have better plots than others
After all these are just games and centre around the interactivity aspect of the story . Sure they do sometimes follow the Hero save damsel from villain plot but honestly it is a tried and true format that works well.
Special effects can be rather cool , So long as they are not over-used or inappropriately used (or lacking inappropriately ).
Cinematic experiences can be part of the games style , what is wrong with that . I don't have much to say on this part as it's really not worth commenting on
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Hey, I've got an answer for him...they don't. Using hyperbole like this to establish an argument when there are actual real issues that could be discussed is simply bad writing. There are many ways to see that this is a straw man argument. An examination of the past year's releases and the upcoming year's releases shows how lame this argument is. Of the Top 10 releases of 2004, none involve a character who is the "sole survivor of some holocaust." Actually, none are close, though we almost got a holocaust in Halo 2 and we likely will in Halo 3:
(Note: I'm not interested in his other points at the moment, but it doesn't look like jiggly boobs and a cinematic experience hurt GTA sales all that much and I'm not sure that any of the other titles included T&A. Heck, less than half of them featured a "hero" as the main character. GTA, and arguably the Halo games, feature an anti-hero. The sports games don't focus on a single character, nor do the racing games. So, only Halo, Halo 2, Spiderman, and Pokemon have the player playing as a hero. Only GTA features T&A. Only GTA, Spider-man, and the Halo games feature cinematic cut scenes. Of those, only the Halo games commit his sin of being, God forbid, Epic. I'm not aware that any of the games have you getting captured half-way through the game and having to recover your weapons. I've played lots of games that had you do that back in the 90's. I don't think I've played a single one on the current consoles, but I might be forgetting something.)
Additionally, here is a list of the upcoming releases on the PS2 as previewed by one of the major video game sites. I have marked the ones that don't feature a solo hero in a post-holocaust setting.
Wow i've seen this same article written by 15 different people. Its ironic to see a writer complaining about originallity as he writes the same complaints that have been posted dozens of times on a number of different sites.
And for the record I LOVE having hot busty women and big testorone filled guys in my games. I dont want to play DOA with some 45 year old fat chick that looks like the lunchlady from my old high school. And i dont want the hero of Far Cry to be some gangly redneck with a beer belly.
We are playing games to escape into a fantasy world and I want to see fantasy characters. I love the hot chicks in revealing clothes and the tough guys with big muscles and so do most people i know personally. In fact I have never met anyone who complained that the chicks were "too revealing in DOA" or that the main character in Halo was "too tough"
If you want real life go walk around outside. If you want hero's and fantasy worlds and hot women with unrealistic proportions play games.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be. -PF