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The Samus Mystique
Gamers with Jobs contributor KatarinLHC has an interesting piece looking at what she calls 'The Samus Mystique', the need for more female characters in games with the chutzpah and level-headedness of Metroid-killer Samus Aran. From the article: "Her independent streak is legendary: Samus always works alone. She explores caves, shoots enemies, and investigates secret passages, all on her own initiative. Her story does not revolve around her being kidnapped or needing rescue. Instead, she is a proactive force in a dynamic world; she does not react to her circumstances but instead interacts with them. She demonstrates a lesson not often taught to young girls, which is that working by yourself can be powerful, gratifying, even joyous."
boobs!
People who have no sig are cool
...in heroine attire.
Does the world need more female main characters in games? Maybe, maybe not.
If they're going to be heroines who both look an act like women, then yeah, I'll take that. But if they're going to be men with tits then I'd rather just have a male avatar.
I'm not sure what to think about this one... can somebody call up the grumpy clerk in the Gamestop in New York and ask him what he thinks?
Comment of the year
I think it would be pretty hard to teach that lesson without taking off her suit...
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
People always end up doing this when they make too many issues out race or gender.
She says she wants people not to judge others based on gender, than says Samus is THE ideal of womanhood. I mean, what's so great about rugged individualism? It doesn't seem so great to me, and it doesn't seem feminine either. I don't want women to become men any more than I want nem to become women, and I certainly don't want women to become Ayn Rand...
Just stick with the ridiculous clothing complaint, that one makes much more sense.
My joke got modded as Insightful and my insight got modded as Funny.
Yes it's a joke, but how many old-schoolers really finished the original game, with the proper hack, to know that in the US?
What I find to be more of an interesting character are the Phantasy Star Alis characters. The original is prolly the first RPG female lead. She's avenging the death of her brother, and does it in a pink dress. She's the swordswoman of the party and has more hp then the other characters. PS1 was also created by a lead female designer.
Then in PS4 Alys is strong older sister character who teaches the main character everything he knows, and is the strongest character until she dies saving the rest of the party.
Strong female leads don't have to conform to single feminist view, they can wear pretty pink dresses if they want, and still kick ass.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
It's good to give Metroid credit for Samus, true. She's not an overglorified sexual object (*cough* Lara Croft *cough* DOA/Soul Calibur *cough*).
;)
However, as has been pointed out, there is still the "hidden" (I use this loosely, since it's pretty much standard in every entry of the series and is well known) reward of beating the game in a short time frame which gives you Samus sans suit. This is nothing more than a fan service, and I have no idea where to place this. Is this objectification? Or not?
On the whole, Samus has been far ahead of other heroines in games. Much farther than most of those in Final Fantasy and the like. ALthough I will say, Paula from Earthbound is one you shouldn't mess with unless you want a frying pan upside the head followed by being scorched, frozen or electrocuted
Insert Sig Here
Who the hell describes playing video games as "joyous"? Don't undercut the valuable ideals of equality by pandering to women with vacuous, feel-good language.
While I agree with the author that more realistic renditions of females as people as opposed to objects needs to be done, I hardly consider Samus to be representative of this as her sex is completely arbitrary to the gameplay and in fact is only revealed in the very end of Super Metroid in a 'look whos inside' type of way. In fact, I would argue that No One Lives Forever, even with Cait Archer wearing her sexy jumpsuits, makes for a better female role than Samus as she actually speaks and makes her personality known throughout the game. While shes still representative of the sexual-object female spy, its done purposefully tongue-in-cheek the entire time, and her lines do not lend towards her being a 'dumb broad with guns'.
Another and better example is Alyx from Half-Life 2: Shes dressed sensibly and while cute, is not super-hot or a walking example of anatomical disproportion. Her lines are ones you'd expect from an intelligent person in her situation and shes more than capable of fending for herself as she does many times in the games, sometimes it seemed better than yourself as Gordon. Other than Alyx, its hard to name a female character that is like her in her sensibilities and generally realistic interactions; she was a person. Even Cait Archer is a purposeful stereotype for all her interactions & cleverness.
I look forward for the day that females in games are representated as people and not simply as women.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
SAMUS?!
I've been ripped off. Call my IP lawyer!
PS: I don't care about gender in a game. I care about gameplay and character development. And no, I don't necessarily want to play a fat chunky ugly female character rather than a hot big-titted one, but I don't want to play a fat ugly chunky loser male character either. Male characters in games are just as "stereotyped" and generic and unoriginal as the female ones. So what? So are magazine covers. So are movies. So are characters in most books. So are most anime characters. My vote goes to stop whining and start playing more.
Fester's Quest.
If Samus's abilities make her worthy of feministic respect, surely this guy represents hope for the end of annelid disenfranchisement everywhere!
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
is that her femininity isn't shoved into your eyeballs every 5 seconds. It's not 'SAMUS IS A WOMAN, SAMUS IS A WOMAN', only at the end do we find she's a she. It's cooler that way because you can kind of forget you're playing as a woman and concentrate on the *game*, which is most important.
The first RPG female lead I can think of is Maria from "Legend of the Ghost Lion" for NES
- lion
http://nes.mobygames.com/game/legend-of-the-ghost
Instead, she is a proactive force in a dynamic world; she does not react to her circumstances but instead interacts with them. She demonstrates a lesson not often taught to young girls, which is that working by yourself can be powerful, gratifying, even joyous.
They missed a great chance to use the word "empowering" there. And no "paradigm"? Amateurs.
Metroid can't be a girl. It's a freaking robot; it's not even human.
Now you're going to tell me Mario and Luigi are really girls (explains why Mario never gets the girl), or that the Ikari Warriors twins are women, despite the fact that we've seen them topless?
You won't hear any complaints from me about the Valkyrie on Gauntlet being female: we've all heard her voice, and we've seen her picture on the arcade box that shows a bit more than the 8bit rendering on the screen. You cannot make the same argument about this "Samus", a name that sounds suspicously male (or at least tomboy).
I only played about $1.00 at a time, so I never even got any hints that the main character of Metroid was not a robot. Therefore, to me Metroid is a robot. Case closed.
(* I'll start with the "lalalalalalala I can't hear you" argument if you try to claim there was a backstory printed on the arcade box. I didn't read backstories in when I was in elementary school, so they cannot be used as supporting evidence.)
Ah of course, it's pixels that look like women that have been the cause of all their problems. I mean back before we had sexist games, and movies, and TV shows and radio programs women lived in a utopia where they frolicked hand in hand with gay compliant men dressed in floral printed smocks and floppy hats. No one ever exploited them or treated them badly back in the good 'ol days. It wasn't until the media came along that women's lives became a drudgery of washing dishes and sucking cock all day. Heck I've seen it happen myself. I watched an innocent young girl play Mario when he had to rescue princess whatsername, and before I knew it that poor little girl was begging to wash dishes and suck cock. Shocking.
Samus is cool, but the way she's played her Gender doesn't matter. She is a strong professional, but the games are designed is most of the time her gender is irreverent.
I'll never forget that friend of mine who played Super Metroid unknowingly, up until he died and Samus' suit flying off death sequence appeared.
"Why's there a girl in Samus' suit?!"
Classic.
Samus' gender has sweet FA to do with how good or bad a game Metroid is, and whether or not female gamers will like it. Female gamers, like males, will play and like good games. The industry still hasn't realised this.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm going to ramble here, but here's the problem as I see it.
Game developers are basically in a no-win situation. From one side of the issue, they get "That female character was just a guy in a female mesh, she should have been more feminine!", when they create a strong capable female character who doesn't have to rely on anybody else. From the other side of the issue, they get "She's yet another female stereotype, give us a character who isn't so weak!". Now they're getting props for making a character that doesn't *have* a gender aspect until after you beat the game, and making said character female?!
Seriously, throw us a bone and give us something substantial to work with. What do female gamers actually want? We can't use classic female stereotypes to form the basis of a character, and we can't make a character who isn't immediately identifiable as being female.
The same people who complain about women 'having basketballs strapped to their chests', wave off the equivalent male physical stereotype of a massive barbarian in a loin cloth with biceps as big around as my car, and at the same time dig for any stereotype they can find to write off a 'strong female character' as not being good enough.
Seriously, Lara Croft is both held as a shining example of a strong female character, and looked down upon as yet another set of tits to be ogled by men. But she's really no different than Samus. Both games would be exactly the same if you simply swapped the gender of the character, because there's not really any character development going on.
I do believe you rely too much on strawmen. Show me examples of the former case, where people complain of lack of femininity on the parts of characters such as Samus.
The "massive barbarian" stereotype isn't a sexualized image for girls (and one-in-ten boys) to oggle at, but a projection of strength. The message being sent here is not "OMGLOOKATMYPECS", but "Look! I'm ultra-tough and can crush your skull with my finger!" There is just no comparison. You might have a point with the "bishounen" image (c.f. Gackt), but that is largely a result of Japanese cultural norms, and no less objectified than their scantily-clad female counterparts.
"What to women gamers want?" Why don't you ask the multitudes of women on this thread? Oh wait...