Games with only male characters.

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TheMysteriousGX

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Apothecary2 said:
Hawki said:
Darth Rosenberg said:
Other than sometimes my XCOM squads, is there any game with only female characters, and no men? I wonder how many games dev'd primarily or exclusively by women feature worlds with only their own gender present, or overtly prioritised.
The only ones I can think of are Metroid II: The Return of Samus (if we treat Ridley as male, that invalidates most Metroid games from being female-only) and maybe some Tomb Raider games.
Come on dozens of games with all-female casts come out of Japan every year. No they aren't meant for female audences at all but still.
Most of those have at least one dude. For plumbing related reasons.
 

Dalisclock

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Morgoth780 said:
I think star wars Republic commando didn't have any female characters in it. Been a while since I've played it though.
Maybe some of the enemies were? Possibly some of the wookies? I'm not up on what females of Star Wars non-human species(other then Twileks) look like.

Considering your squad are all Jango clones then yeah.
 

NeutralDrow

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Hawki said:
Gennadios said:
Also, 1337 posts! I don't think this is the thread in which I envisioned this milestone taking place.
What's special about that number?
Not sure if you got an answer to this. 1337 spells out "leet" in leetspeak alphabet.
 

Hawki

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Morgoth780 said:
I think star wars Republic commando didn't have any female characters in it. Been a while since I've played it though.
IIRC, there's a female kaminoan at the start that greets one of the clones.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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B-Cell said:
CritialGaming said:
late 90's early 00's go ahead..
late 90s and early 00s era is much better than today. there was time when developers focus on good level design instead of focusing on love interest and romance.
What did you accidentally buy a shitload of visual novels? I can count on one hand the amount of games in the mainstream that contain romance in any meaningful capacity - and that's largely because I count BioWare games to a single entry with many different dresses.

Honestly some games feel like they fall short when I think they've been building some kind of romance and then don't pay it off: the rebooted Tomb Raider felt like that.
 

Elijin

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B-Cell said:
CritialGaming said:
late 90's early 00's go ahead..
late 90s and early 00s era is much better than today. there was time when developers focus on good level design instead of focusing on love interest and romance.
This was the end game of this discussion: Older games didn't have women in them. Older games are better. therefore, games without women are better.

So saeth B-Cell, official coolness arbitrator.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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the December King said:
I don't think games need to hit some gender quota that may or may not exist, certainly not as a parallel of the real world (which, again, could be debated). Now, it's nice to offer this, as well as racial diversity, and with certain game types the notion should be given especial weight, but no, I don't think it should be some sort of default starting point.
When I say default, I do keep in mind situational and tonal context, as well as authorial agency with basic regards to self-expression (i.e. the right to tell narratives from gendered perspectives).

However, pop-culture/art is a reflection and byproduct of life, and life is lived day in, day out from birth to death in the company of other genders. That pop-culture is often so habitually poor at reflecting this is pitiful. That's what I mean by default.

In this one instance, I will say this: I like that this series persisted in using battle-hardened men as the only gender for soldiers, ex-military, and thieves in the demilitarized zone.
Why? If the sex of NPC's are a bonus, surely it means their sex was used for some purpose; what was gained by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. just including men? How would it have been different if female character models were included as well? Would the story have been different? The combat?

Women can fight and bear arms, and the game's world would've reasonably driven women into the Zone as well, for all sorts of reasons. Redo the game today and include women, and you suddenly create a more complex - ergo interesting - social framework around and within the Zone.

Charcharo said:
STALKER had so many things cut and the budget was so small. It is what is is. And STALKER was a mess due to bugs, it wasnt actually janky (bar a few animations). Adding females (looks at Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky's movie) would require a lot more writing. It is what it is.
Looking at it in historic context I wouldn't necessarily count it as a mark against it, btw. I would find another company doing the same thing again in 2017 less excusable.

For what it is worth, people of all countries and nations as well as women were supposed to be in STALKER 2. As is lore-wise correct. Sure, much fewer women than men and mostly Eastern Europeans, but others would have appeared too. Such is life, consoles killed it...
How did consoles kill the sequel? Frankly I'd have loved a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on console as I had nightmares getting the cursed thing to run on a Vista kit PC back in the day, and my laptops still rather struggled with it several years later... I loathe keys'n'mouse, too, so would've appreciated an official tailoring to a pad, so long as they kept the spirit of SoC.
 

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Charcharo said:
For what it is worth, people of all countries and nations as well as women were supposed to be in STALKER 2. As is lore-wise correct. Sure, much fewer women than men and mostly Eastern Europeans, but others would have appeared too. Such is life, consoles killed it...
Liscencing hell killed the possiblity, actually.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Darth Rosenberg said:
How did consoles kill the sequel? Frankly I'd have loved a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on console as I had nightmares getting the cursed thing to run on a Vista kit PC back in the day, and my laptops still rather struggled with it several years later... I loathe keys'n'mouse, too, so would've appreciated an official tailoring to a pad, so long as they kept the spirit of SoC.
Honestly, i wouldn't bother. There is a devout PC following that places the blame of everything they never got, upon the existence of consoles. The true unironic PC master-race personification in all its' glory. It's a rabbit hole best avoided.
 

the December King

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Darth Rosenberg said:
Why? If the sex of NPC's are a bonus, surely it means their sex was used for some purpose; what was gained by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. just including men? How would it have been different if female character models were included as well? Would the story have been different? The combat?

Women can fight and bear arms, and the game's world would've reasonably driven women into the Zone as well, for all sorts of reasons. Redo the game today and include women, and you suddenly create a more complex - ergo interesting - social framework around and within the Zone.
This is an easy one.

Because when I grew up, the boys in my neighborhood fought and played guns, and girls... didn't. That's all there is to it. Of course women can do everything that men do, that's a default to me now, and western civilization in general (and often feels overhyped), but that's life.

If you redid S.T.A.L.K.E.R today and made sure to have everyone represented, as much as I loved the series and would likely support it out of devotion, I don't see this as a selling point for this franchise. The Zone never felt like it was about equality or fairness. It felt like a window to a time when, whether real or not, men had to do the heavy lifting.

So in summation, I guess I feel this way because it's a fantasy, and one I enjoy.

By the way, I well understand that this is not a PC position to hold, but I reckon it's an exception on my part.
 

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Borty The Bort said:
Team Fortress? Maybe? Unless Pyro counts, but who the hell knows about that one.
If we're talking TF2, then there's the Announcer. Of course, she's only there as a voice, but I'd say there's plenty of personality and character in those lines to count.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Xsjadoblayde said:
Honestly, i wouldn't bother. There is a devout PC following that places the blame of everything they never got, upon the existence of consoles. The true unironic PC master-race personification in all its' glory. It's a rabbit hole best avoided.
I'd generally agree, and that is an issue, but sometimes production cycles can be hampered or hamstrung by shifting platforms or trying to adapt, particularly if a company has little experience working with them. I don't know enough of a supposed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2's production/would-be production, so I'm curious as to what might be to blame for it not seeing the light of day (I'd guess, as ever, several things are to blame).

the December King said:
Because when I grew up, boys fought and played guns, and girls... didn't. That's all there is to it. Of course women can do everything that men do, that's a default to me now, and western civilization in general (and often feels overhyped), but that's life.
So it's little more than a hangover from social conditioning (fairly terrible conditioning at that, I believe)? I unfortunately grew up in that era, too, and I have no affection for it.

Personally (re what you said about enjoying the fantasy), I feel it's a bit sad/unfortunate to wish to escape into entertainment and have a landscape bereft of about 50% of our entire species, to want to escape femininity or femaleness or simply enjoy its lack.

Again, that has nowt to do with wanting to do away with stories where the focus on a given POV makes sense, or where authorial intent is pretty brazen, but I'd say SoC is a good example today of how not to build a world with regards to recreating a living, breathing society or series of communities. When you axe half of our species you're simply axing an equally significant part that defines all of us.

If I ever played SoC again I would notice their lack, but that's about it given I have far bigger, more important beefs with its core combat and ho-hum resolution to the story.

If you redid S.T.A.L.K.E.R today and made sure to have everyone represented, as much as I loved the series and would likely support it out of devotion, I don't see this as a selling point for this franchise.
It wouldn't be a selling point, it would just add to a more convincingly realised world.
 

the December King

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Darth Rosenberg said:
see above
But I do have fond affection for my childhood. Boys played guns when I grew up, and I found this game uniquely reminiscent because of it. It's not a 'hangover from conditioning', it just makes me nostalgic for my childhood. I... I have no problem with that. You do, or think it's sad, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Beyond that I'm largely in agreement with you.
 

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Xsjadoblayde said:
Darth Rosenberg said:
How did consoles kill the sequel? Frankly I'd have loved a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on console as I had nightmares getting the cursed thing to run on a Vista kit PC back in the day, and my laptops still rather struggled with it several years later... I loathe keys'n'mouse, too, so would've appreciated an official tailoring to a pad, so long as they kept the spirit of SoC.
Honestly, i wouldn't bother. There is a devout PC following that places the blame of everything they never got, upon the existence of consoles. The true unironic PC master-race personification in all its' glory. It's a rabbit hole best avoided.
Well for a few years pcs were literally an afterthought. We got very few aaa ports of games and the ones we did tended to be rather gimped in the settings department. It was around that time when cod didn't have fov settings. You saw an explosion of fps games on the consoles but not many of them made it to the pc, or made it there well.
 

sageoftruth

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Commandos: Behind Enemy lines. A female was not introduced until the expansion: "Beyond the Call of Duty".

Plenty of early Sonic games, unless we're counting the animals that get freed, but those aren't really characters.

Frogger

Gunstar Heroes

Chuck Rock

The Lost Vikings 1, unless there's an enemy I missed

Pitfall and Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

Bubsy
 

Darth Rosenberg

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the December King said:
But I do have fond affection for my childhood. Boys played guns when I grew up, and I found this game uniquely reminiscent because of it. It's not a 'hangover from conditioning', it just makes me nostalgic for my childhood. I... I have no problem with that. You do, or think it's sad, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Beyond that I'm largely in agreement with you.
Fair enough; nostalgia is inherently and subjectively irrational/emotive, after all, and it's not something I like (I had a good childhood, but I struggle to think of anything about society - social conditioning re gender 'norms' very much included - or pop-culture that isn't better now than it once was).