are there any non-sexualized/stereotypical female characters in games?

[ENKC]

Has anyone mentioned Beyond Good and Evil yet? If not, they should.

 

[likalaruku]

i havent seen any... most female characters i see are highly stereotypical (ex: See all JRPGs) or highly sexualized (ex: See all JRPGs and Lara Croft)

or they're just there to be there (ex: Dana Mercer in Prototype)

i designed some myself and tried to make them as NON-SEXUALIZED and NON-STEREOTYPICAL as possible, but it's really difficult when you suck at drawing...

i guess the best example of a "normal" female character would have to be female Commander Shepherd (she's a good character all around). but i dunno if she counts since "default Shepherd" is male.

This one:

 

[Double A]

I'd say... uhm... dammit, I can't think of anyone not named.

Err... Amanra from AoM?

Alyx Vance is the prime example of a non-sexualized/stereotypical female character. She has a purpose and a key aspect to the story.

I wish I could say the same for Zoey and Rochelle, sadly. They are truly token girls.

But every single playable character in both games is a token character.

 

[Death God]

The Boss, Metal Gear Solid 3

Yeah. One one that I can think of right now.

 

[microwaviblerabbit]

Judith Mossman wasn't sexed up, well besides her voice. Michelle Forbes voice does strange things to me *embarrass*

She really is a strong female character, and is very realistic with her human relationships and actions.

 

[Lullabye]

Every female pilot in Armored Core series.
Lots of personality, lot's of skill, damn essential to the stories, and because they never actually show them, they leave the physicality up to your imagination.

 

[Lord Rothschild]

what about the girls from dynasty warriors i mean sure there are the twins that are ditzy as fuck zhu rong the nanman queen and posibly dioa chan but she wasn't realy sexulized but hell look at yue ying shes zhuge liang's wife not realy hot not realy ugly just there to stand by the one she lov... oh wait
screw it i still think the dynasty warrior girls where fairly ballancet to not seem one sided

 

[Belbe]

As said, Samus (originally),Chell and Faith are all decent it's kinda sad that in order to not draw attention to their gender they have to be mute and not on the screen most of the time.
But idk... the girls in stuff like Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age maybe...

 

[Kermi]

Alyx Vance is the prime example of a non-sexualized/stereotypical female character. She has a purpose and a key aspect to the story.

And yet, people still sexualise her.

The fact is, a large chunk of people playing video games are male in the age range of 13-40, and the majority of them are, to some extent, perverts. Maybe it's conditioning of years of video games where women were oversexualised, but they tend to latch onto anything female and assume it's there for their titillation.

Alyx in her modest attire, demure proportions and plain-but-pretty facial features is every bit the subject of sexual idolatry as Kasumi from Dead or Alive. Probably even more so, because closeted perverts will choose to appreciate Alyx "innocently" on the basis that she's viewed as non-sexualised and therefore. Don't be fooled.

You're aware you're basically saying that a man who finds ANY woman attractive is perverted?

Failure in logic here.

Absolutely not what I said. Failure in basic comprehension here.

Finding a woman attractive is not perverted. By and large, this is what men are designed to do (homosexuals and so forth notwithstanding).

Sexualising a woman, particularly a non-existant video game model, one that was probably designed by committee to be non-sexual (but still attractive) is where perversion starts to creep in.
It doesn't matter what you put in as a placeholder, someone somewhere is going to find it sexually appealing and probably make sexual fanart of it. I've seen Weighted Companion Cube erotica but I hope like hell it's been created ironically - then again the Companion Cube was meant to be the subject of our obsession.

Sure, there's a big difference between your Alyx Vance and your Kasumi or Bayonetta - the latter are designed to excite. Short flapping skirts + high kicks? Body suit that flies off when you do a special move? Bayonetta in particular has a one-handed play mode, and we know that was deliberate.

On the flip side, Alyx Vance was supposed to be a regular girl so that when we put on our Gordon Freeman persona we can believe that her appeal to us is natural, based on her accomplishments as a person and a genuine personality rather than how much of her digital cleavage we can see. We know we're supposed to like her and that she likes "Gordon", but she's not getting her tits out to prove it.
She shies away from the very idea with embarassment it when Eli hints that he'd like Alyx to bear him some grandchildren some day with the heroic, legendary and above all fertile Gordon Freeman right there in the room. Her shy reaction only serves to make us like her more, but at the same time we're thinking "ohh yeah, I am - uh, I mean - Gordon is totally gonna tap that".
Right there, Alyx ceases to be generic girl in grey and becomes Gordon Freeman's love interest. Even so, it was free flowing, and natural, and one of the few things I actually liked about playing Half Life 2.

Then people went and made a nude mod.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

to OP: You should actually take into account proportions. (NO, not those proportions). I mean proportions of girls to guys in games in the 1st place. I mean, how many stereotypical/sexualized/testosterone-loaded guys do u see in games anyways. For every stereotyped girl out there. For every Gears of War, Dead to Rights, or Devil May Cry type male protagonist, how many girls do you get that fit this bill. The bayonettas and bloodraynes don't really stand out that much to me. If there were as many girls as guys in games (NPC's, main characters, whatever) then I'm sure there would still be some sort of a balance. Although the Resident Evil franchise seems to have lost it a bit...

And there's nothing wrong with Zoey and Rochelle!

 

[JeanLuc761]

Absolutely not what I said. Failure in basic comprehension here.

Finding a woman attractive is not perverted. By and large, this is what men are designed to do (homosexuals and so forth notwithstanding).

Sexualising a woman, particularly a non-existant video game model, one that was probably designed by committee to be non-sexual (but still attractive) is where perversion starts to creep in.
It doesn't matter what you put in as a placeholder, someone somewhere is going to find it sexually appealing and probably make sexual fanart of it. I've seen Weighted Companion Cube erotica but I hope like hell it's been created ironically - then again the Companion Cube was meant to be the subject of our obsession.

Sure, there's a big difference between your Alyx Vance and your Kasumi or Bayonetta - the latter are designed to excite. Short flapping skirts + high kicks? Body suit that flies off when you do a special move? Bayonetta in particular has a one-handed play mode, and we know that was deliberate.

On the flip side, Alyx Vance was supposed to be a regular girl so that when we put on our Gordon Freeman persona we can believe that her appeal to us is natural, based on her accomplishments as a person and a genuine personality rather than how much of her digital cleavage we can see. We know we're supposed to like her and that she likes "Gordon", but she's not getting her tits out to prove it.
She shies away from the very idea with embarassment it when Eli hints that he'd like Alyx to bear him some grandchildren some day with the heroic, legendary and above all fertile Gordon Freeman right there in the room. Her shy reaction only serves to make us like her more, but at the same time we're thinking "ohh yeah, I am - uh, I mean - Gordon is totally gonna tap that".
Right there, Alyx ceases to be generic girl in grey and becomes Gordon Freeman's love interest. Even so, it was free flowing, and natural, and one of the few things I actually liked about playing Half Life 2.

Then people went and made a nude mod.

Ah, I see what you're saying now. My bad, guess I misinterpreted your intent.

 

[RelexCryo]

Alyx Vance is the prime example of a non-sexualized/stereotypical female character. She has a purpose and a key aspect to the story.

And yet, people still sexualise her.

The fact is, a large chunk of people playing video games are male in the age range of 13-40, and the majority of them are, to some extent, perverts. Maybe it's conditioning of years of video games where women were oversexualised, but they tend to latch onto anything female and assume it's there for their titillation.

Alyx in her modest attire, demure proportions and plain-but-pretty facial features is every bit the subject of sexual idolatry as Kasumi from Dead or Alive. Probably even more so, because closeted perverts will choose to appreciate Alyx "innocently" on the basis that she's viewed as non-sexualised and therefore. Don't be fooled.

You're aware you're basically saying that a man who finds ANY woman attractive is perverted?

Failure in logic here.

Absolutely not what I said. Failure in basic comprehension here.

Finding a woman attractive is not perverted. By and large, this is what men are designed to do (homosexuals and so forth notwithstanding).

Sexualising a woman, particularly a non-existant video game model, one that was probably designed by committee to be non-sexual (but still attractive) is where perversion starts to creep in.
It doesn't matter what you put in as a placeholder, someone somewhere is going to find it sexually appealing and probably make sexual fanart of it. I've seen Weighted Companion Cube erotica but I hope like hell it's been created ironically - then again the Companion Cube was meant to be the subject of our obsession.

Sure, there's a big difference between your Alyx Vance and your Kasumi or Bayonetta - the latter are designed to excite. Short flapping skirts + high kicks? Body suit that flies off when you do a special move? Bayonetta in particular has a one-handed play mode, and we know that was deliberate.

On the flip side, Alyx Vance was supposed to be a regular girl so that when we put on our Gordon Freeman persona we can believe that her appeal to us is natural, based on her accomplishments as a person and a genuine personality rather than how much of her digital cleavage we can see. We know we're supposed to like her and that she likes "Gordon", but she's not getting her tits out to prove it.
She shies away from the very idea with embarassment it when Eli hints that he'd like Alyx to bear him some grandchildren some day with the heroic, legendary and above all fertile Gordon Freeman right there in the room. Her shy reaction only serves to make us like her more, but at the same time we're thinking "ohh yeah, I am - uh, I mean - Gordon is totally gonna tap that".
Right there, Alyx ceases to be generic girl in grey and becomes Gordon Freeman's love interest. Even so, it was free flowing, and natural, and one of the few things I actually liked about playing Half Life 2.

Then people went and made a nude mod.

You are trying to distinguish between attractive and sexual. Are you trying to distinguish between a romance and casual sex? Or are you trying to distinguish between attraction to a women's body and appreciation for her personality?

It seems to me you are saying, "It is perfectly natural for men to be "attracted" to women. But it is morally wrong for them to be sexually attracted to women."

You seem to perceive a relationship where women keep their clothes on, have purely platonic conversation, and serve in an almost purely platonic relationship with only hints of sexuality as OK...but anything more than that as exploitation.

Why?

 

[Dango]

i havent seen any... most female characters i see are highly stereotypical (ex: See all JRPGs) or highly sexualized (ex: See all JRPGs and Lara Croft)

Spoken by someone who's never played a Tales game, I'm assuming.

Or maybe took one look at Judith from Tales of Vesperia, and automatically assumed she overshadowed Colette, Raine, Presea, Sheena, Tear, Natalia, Anise, etc. Or maybe Xelha, Mizuti, or Milly from the Baten Kaitos games.

So even within those, the answer to your question is "of course." Even if you're one of those people who assumes that any female character who doesn't act like a man is "stereotypical."

Ah, ninja'd. Estelle immediately popped into my head when I saw this thread. Also, surprisingly, the girls from the Guilty Gear series are very non-sexualized and rather non-stereotypical (except for I-No, but that's just one of them). In fact, I could come up with a huge list of characters for this: Talim from Soul Calibur, Kat from Halo: Reach, Recette from Recettear, Commander Miranda Keyes from Halo, to name a few. And those are just off the top of my head.

 

[Kilo24]

The Longest Journey's protagonist. April Ryan's very well fleshed-out.

And Persona 4 (and 3 to a lesser extent) has a few unique female characters that feel realistic and break a number of stereotypes. I'm tempted to describe the last female character that joins your party, but that would involve character-defining spoilers.

 

[bob-2000]

aside from the obvious answers (Alyx Vance, Tali Zorah) there is Sarah Lyons (Fallout 3), A whole bunch of Mass Effect characters (aside from Miranda and Jack, of course), and Tenenbaum from BioShock. There are a bunch of non-hypersexualized women in games...

 

[Kermi]

You are trying to distinguish between attractive and sexual. Are you trying to distinguish between a romance and casual sex? Or are you trying to distinguish between attraction to a women's body and appreciation for her personality?

It seems to me you are saying, "It is perfectly natural for men to be "attracted" to women. But it is morally wrong for them to be sexually attracted to women."

You seem to perceive a relationship where women keep their clothes on, have purely platonic conversation, and serve in an almost purely platonic relationship with only hints of sexuality as OK...but anything more than that as exploitation.

Why?

Not exploitation per se. Of course attraction is sexual. There's no point to attraction without sexuality. When I refer to sexualization in the context of video game characters I refer to the sexual objectification of women - and by sexual objectification I mean consideration of a woman as only serving a sexual purpose.
Now fair enough, you see a nice set of legs, a pretty face, or a bouncy set of breasts move down the street with a woman attached to them, you're probably gonna be thinking about sex. You don't know that girl, good chance you'll not see her again, so if you've noticed her it's because of a physical characteristic. Unless she was reading your favourite book or you overhead your favourite band coming from her ipod headphones or something. Let's pretend we're not talking about those particular circumstances. Even if we are, the same rules apply. Something there appeals to you and without a deeper context for the characteristic you have developed an attraction that in 99% of cases is going to be a sexual one.
And that's normal. That's a matter of happenstance. It's naturally occurring.

In the case of video game a character is designed by someone who spent hours, days, months making sure everything about that character is to their exacting specifications. The shape of the eyes, the colour of the shoes, the exact amount of cleavage showing.

You accidentally-on-purpose look down a girl's shirt. Oops!
You look at a video game character's cleavage and you know it's been mathematically rendered as a visual representation of some hundred lines of code somewhere in a piece of software that some highly talented geek determined to be ideal for the purposes of being the cleavage you, the end-user, would appreciate the most.

The exact same level of effort was applied to making Alyx Vance the shy, demure, scientifically adept and physically capable persona portrayed by Half Life 2. And ultimately, we want to believe she and Gordon will be together.

She is sexualised. Just differently.

 

[Sarahcidal]

Anya from Gears of War
...also Mrs.Pacman

 

[spartan231490]

honestly, there aren't a lot of male main characters that aren't steryotyped as "the hero" or "the rebel." it's just kinda the way media works. u see the same thing in many movies and even books.

 

[AngelicSven]

I think if you take into account the whole 7/8 person group from L4D, Zoey and Rochelle aren't really sexualized at all, nor is sex/race token. They seem like a very balanced and realistic group.

If that doesn't work, I'll go with Faith from Mirror's Edge.