Brink : No Girls Allowed

[Vivace-Vivian]

I apologize if this had been done before, I did take a look at the forums to see but I might not have looked back far enough.

The upcoming title Brink is based largely upon customization. You can be just about any race, with any style of clothing, hair, the works. But you cannot be female.

Now I?m sure we?ll see a lot of retaliation against what I?m about to say, such as adding in females would have taken time the devs didn?t have. Such as more males game then females. As true as they may be however they do not make the fact that a game, largely based on customization, is excluding half of the human race.

It?s true, we have seen this before in many games. But even shooters such as Halo and Gears of War have stepped up to include female avatars or multiplayer options. Those games don?t have customization passed some colour and load outs.

I am personally very, very disappointed that you cannot play a female in a game based on customizing your character to represent what you want.

Discuss your thoughts on the topic.

Splash Damage has gone very in depth on this topic if you would take the time to research before posting your uneducated opinion.

The way they see it:

Also, throughout the entire development process, they are going to produce X amount of customization features for their male models. If they included female models it would mean that each sex would only have .5X different features. Its a choice between one in-depth system or a system that may potentially be slightly in-depth or two lackluster systems. Considering that the target demographic is substantially male its no surprise what they decided on.

I'm not sure if they mentioned this but it would also double the amount of animation work needed, which is another factor.

All of those reasons, though quite logical, won't stop me from being disappointed.

That was my point, I am disappointed.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Not every game has girl characters. Why is this so shocking?

 

[Duskflamer]

Well I could argue the same for non-male games. Mirrors Edge, Portal, Tomb Raider, Metroid Prime, Beyond Good & Evil, Diablo 1&2 (I wanted to have a male Sorceror or a female Necromancer, Buuuut NOOOOOOO says Blizzard), Eternal Darkness, Heavenly Sword, ect.

The thing about those games (At least, the ones I'm familiar with) Is that there is little or no aspect of character customization to them. in Mirror's Edge, it's not just that you have to be a girl, you have to be Faith, because that's who the story is about. Portal is about Chell, Metroid Prime is about Samus, these games do not have any character customization in the slightest.

When you do add character customization, and a more vague main character, forcing certain limitations on the customization becomes noticable. Nobody cares that you can't play Mario female, but if you could design your own character for play in a mario-esque platformer, and you were limited to making a male character, people would take notice and offense.

 

[Irridium]

Did Halo have female charecters in IT'S multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

The last one did have females, didn't it? Or was that just the campaign?

In Halo Reach you can set your Spartan to be male or female at any time. All the armor attachments worked fine with the models as well. In Halo 3 all you could do was set your voice to be female in the multiplayer.

 

[Edwin Maya]

Does Halo have female charecters in ITS multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

Brink is the upset because, aside from forcing your character to be male, it has a very robust character customization aspect. The fact that it put so much focus into character customization, yet forced your character to be a guy, makes the issue (which is still present in other shooters mind you) more obvious.

Imagine if Bioware came out with a new RPG with their standard level of customization, but decided that your character had to be a girl, how do you think people would react? It's the same issue here.

Well in both portal games you play as a girl yet no one complains about it. You also have to consider the story of the game. It's possible that there aren't that many women on the island and they don't want to get them killed or maybe there aren't any left which I doubt but then again they probably didn't have time to make them if they were focused on getting the game out on time.

 

[LHZA]

I actually made this exact same thread some months ago. I'll say now what I said then, I prefer to play as a female but I am willing to over look that fact if the game turns out to be awesome. After all I have had to play as a male character plenty of times and still managed to have fun. I've read why the developers choose one gender, to allow for greater customization, and that's not a good enough reason for me. However, if including females meant taking away from some element of the game play, then I would understand.

 

[Saelune]

Did Halo have female charecters in IT'S multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

Uh...yes they did. Well, Halo 3 was half assed with just female groans, but Reach had more official female spartans.
WHen you take steps forward, it is unwise to take steps back, in terms of innovation anyways.
A game about customization is being foolish to not include female models. It is just laziness.

 

[Duskflamer]

Does Halo have female charecters in ITS multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

Brink is the upset because, aside from forcing your character to be male, it has a very robust character customization aspect. The fact that it put so much focus into character customization, yet forced your character to be a guy, makes the issue (which is still present in other shooters mind you) more obvious.

Imagine if Bioware came out with a new RPG with their standard level of customization, but decided that your character had to be a girl, how do you think people would react? It's the same issue here.

Well in both portal games you play as a girl yet no one complains about it. You also have to consider the story of the game. It's possible that there aren't that many women on the island and they don't want to get them killed or maybe there aren't any left which I doubt but then again they probably didn't have time to make them if they were focused on getting the game out on time.

The developers have been quoted as saying that they would have added female player characters if they had the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they're terrible people for not following through on that, I'm just explaining why people find this particular case offensive. When you're playing a defined character, people will accept whatever gender/race they are. But if you add incomplete customization, it makes it more obvious.

And the fact that the developers were even considering adding females to the character customization means there was no in-story reason for the player not to be able to be a girl.

 

[kzeelio]

imagine a female heavy :S that doesnt really fit.

It sounds like your imagination is limited.

 

[s0meNo0b]

Well I could argue the same for non-male games. Mirrors Edge, Portal, Tomb Raider, Metroid Prime, Beyond Good & Evil, Diablo 1&2 (I wanted to have a male Sorceror or a female Necromancer, Buuuut NOOOOOOO says Blizzard), Eternal Darkness, Heavenly Sword, ect.

But in this case...yes...Brink is just being lazy

Ehh, I'd like to think this has to do more with customization. Mirrors edge, Portal, Tomb Raider, Metroid, Beyond Good and Evil, those have a story to tell with their own characters, there's no customizing them, (Those are the ones I know well of.) You could wish to play as a male in those games, but you can't, there's a story in there. I don't think in the multiplayer of brink you play as a certain person out of the list of characters you choose, you make your own, but it's not really a "Make your own" when you can't choose to create a female if you wanted to.

Diablo on the other hand, yeah, I was dissapointed that the classes were the way they were, but I went with it anyways since Diablo classes could be seen as characters.

 

[Ham Blitz]

It is unfortunate for those that want to play as a woman, but if the gameplay is good, it shouldn't matter. Granted, the characters seem quite vocal, maybe they couldn't get someone to do female voices in time.

 

[BigKush]

God forbid we should get up in arms and create threads every time we want to be a male in a video game.

Here's one girly: Don't play Brink.
Pretty easy, eh?

Typical also that you would give such an evocative and inflammatory title to a non-topic.

Drama queen.

 

[zombiejoe]

Did Halo have female charecters in IT'S multiplayer? What about Section 8? I don't know why Brink is the upset. Of course, it is a little more jaring since there isn't power armor for everyone. Despite Spartans in Multiplayer looking male, it doesn't take much to imigine one as a girl.

Halo 3 did let you play as a female. Can't say the same for Section 8 however.

 

[high_castle]

I'm female. I don't always play female characters when given the choice (for instance, I prefer m!Hawke to femHawke in DA2 because of the VA), but I prefer having the option in a game like this (story-based games centered around a set protagonist are another matter). Being outright excluded from representing my gender in a multiplayer title bilked around customization...that's just tacky and a little offensive. So nope, won't be buying or playing Brink.

 

[Weskerbot3000]

PEOPLE CHILL THE FUCK OUT!!!!!
The devs will probably fix this either before the game launches or release a patch later