Poll: Let's Get Some Honesty, Shall We? (Regarding Big Breasts/Sexy Female Game Characters)

[Jynthor]

I will say however, I don't think it was a very good TOMB RAIDER game, if you catch my drift, too much shooting, not enough tombs and puzzle solving. But on it's own merits, very enjoyable, especially the battle up to the Monastery with all the risen Samurai Fire arrows and swords you say? I've got a fucking assault rifle with napalm grenades, fucking 'ave it!

Oh, it was the perfect Tomb Raider game - for me. Because I don't care much about solving riddles and raiding tombs, and even less about supernatural stuff and magic artifacts and vengeful gods and all that. That's just not my cup of tea, and, yea, pretty much the reason why I never played a Tomb Raider game before. And because I, of course, always condemned the sexualized portrayal of Lara Croft, even as a 13 year old buy. True story!
For me, it was simply an action adventure, carried first and foremost by the journey of its heroine. And the landscapes were really beautiful too, for a current-gen game.

So you're saying it's the perfect action game for you and you don't like any of the elements that make a Tomb Raider game a Tomb Raider game. So how could this possibly be the "perfect Tomb Raider game" for you?

 

[Zen Bard]

The big-boobed female gaming characters in and of themselves don't bother me so much as what they represent.

They represent a gaming industry that continuously misses the mark and misjudges its audience.

Yes, back in "The Day" when computer games were actually played on computers, the core consumer group consisted of horny socially awkward teenage boys (of which I was one). But that was decades ago.

As an equally old cigarette ad used to say..."We've come a long way, baby."

The gaming "community" is more diverse than ever with respect to age, gender, orientation, etc.

But the gaming industry constantly seems to treat it as if it were the same pimply-face geeky anti-social nerdy teenage boys (and again, I'll stress, of which I was one)in the 80's. They seem to pander to demographic that hasn't existed in over thirty years.

I get that we all like to see pretty people in our escapist (ha!) entertainment. But I think developers need to take a step back and re-evaluate what their core consumer group considers a good game.

 

[The Lugz]

I will say however, I don't think it was a very good TOMB RAIDER game, if you catch my drift, too much shooting, not enough tombs and puzzle solving. But on it's own merits, very enjoyable, especially the battle up to the Monastery with all the risen Samurai Fire arrows and swords you say? I've got a fucking assault rifle with napalm grenades, fucking 'ave it!

Oh, it was the perfect Tomb Raider game - for me. Because I don't care much about solving riddles and raiding tombs, and even less about supernatural stuff and magic artifacts and vengeful gods and all that. That's just not my cup of tea, and, yea, pretty much the reason why I never played a Tomb Raider game before. And because I, of course, always condemned the sexualized portrayal of Lara Croft, even as a 13 year old buy. True story!
For me, it was simply an action adventure, carried first and foremost by the journey of its heroine. And the landscapes were really beautiful too, for a current-gen game.

So you're saying it's the perfect action game for you and you don't like any of the elements that make a Tomb Raider game a Tomb Raider game. So how could this possibly be the "perfect Tomb Raider game" for you?

i don't mean to butt in, unduly but my personal take on the latest incarnation of tomb raider is that it simply isn't.

it looks very much to me that it's a 'lara croft' game, first and foremost before 'tomb raider' as a prequel it deals with character building bridge burning and allot of other story elements the others took for granted so the pacing and general feel had to be different, also the parting scene ends with the iconic twin 'Desert Eagle' shot ( even though it's a different gun, i believe ? ) i found it to be a refreshing departure myself, and i thought there was a clear strike at changing the game... overall, i prefer the more mature stronger later lara, but most of the games have been playable in their own right and honestly apart from having a suggestive model ( the dialogue was simply laughable, so that doesn't count ) i never saw that lara was particularly over the top before, to me she just seems to be more vulnerable now. it's not like they removed the suggestive character model+traits, they just made it more subtle and realistic as new lara is still pretty-much a hottie...

 

[CloudAtlas]

So you're saying it's the perfect action game for you and you don't like any of the elements that make a Tomb Raider game a Tomb Raider game. So how could this possibly be the "perfect Tomb Raider game" for you?

Exactly. What about it? Didn't say that it's true to its name or its history.

 

[Feraswondervahnn]

I really couldn't care less what the hell the characters look or act like so long as the game I am playing is fun. If the game is fun then that should be what matters.

 

[Feraswondervahnn]

I really couldn't care less what the hell the characters look or act like so long as the game I am playing is fun. If the game is fun then that should be what matters.

There are times when staring down a character's buttcrack is inappropriate.

I pay more attention to what's going on in the game than I do to what clothes the character is wearing.

 

[Frankster]

+1 to the "i don't neccesarily prefer them but they don't offend me" camp.

I find too large boobs in proportion to rest of the body off putting, but this is the case in real life too and ive seen far more extreme cases of mammary gigantism irl then i have in a game.

 

[Estelindis]

Personally, I think good-looking female characters with big boobs are fine. What annoys me are over-the-top enormous boobs on bodies that could never support them. It's not sexy. It looks awful.

This isn't to comment on games that use that art style as a parody but on games that do it seriously.

 

[Kaxbe]

Good looking female character? That's fine. The problem lies when the design of the character is so far unhinged from how the character acts and what is reasonable for a character in their situation. Big boobs that are supported by practically nothing and yet the character charges off into battle no problem? Yeah, that's hella sexist.

And I'm not even gonna go too far into games that do it as parody because that's kinda like everyone throwing rocks at a glass building and then you being the guy who is all "Hey guys, look what I'm doing! It's wrong and everyone else who is doing it is wrong also!" while still throwing rocks at the damn glass building.

 

[Naeras]

The specific case of Dragon's Crown wasn't just the sorceress, it was the entire portrayal of female characters in that game. It went beyond just visual design.

Also, big boobs isn't necessarily sexy, something Dragon's Crown also proved quite nicely. I mean, come on, did anyone actually think that the sorceress looked good? It's over-sexualized to the point of it being unattractive. Good job, that takes some real effort.

Attractive female video game characters? Sure, I don't mind. Overly sexualized female characters, especially when it's obviously only blatant pandering, is something I'm not too much of a fan of, however.

 

[Wdbisl]

Big boobs only bother me if that is all there is to a female character. I do have to say the boob giggle thing after a certain point bothers me. Like I find dead or alive gross. It just isn't sexy at all to me. I didn't have a problem however with the boob giggle in haunting ground. It's still there, but not as distracting. As for clothes it can be sexy, but keep some clothes on. Ivy from Soul Calibur bothers me, but Juliet from Lollipop chainsaw doesn't. Basically if the outfit is just strings it bothers me, if it's just a mini skirt not bothered.

 

[Bocaj2000]

I really couldn't care less what the hell the characters look or act like so long as the game I am playing is fun. If the game is fun then that should be what matters.

There are times when staring down a character's buttcrack is inappropriate.

I pay more attention to what's going on in the game than I do to what clothes the character is wearing.

And I don't play games just for the gameplay. I'm there for the immersion, the atmosphere, and the experience as a whole. If I find a character's attire distracting, out of place, or inane, then it may damage or destroy my immersion. So pointless sexuality in a game of action will destroy my gaming experience.

There's more to interactive media than "fun".

 

[DirgeNovak]

I like sexy female characters, but it seems that a lot of devs don't have the same definition of sexy as I do.
Farah from Sands of Time is sexy. Elena and Chloe from Uncharted are sexy. Megan from Deus Ex is sexy.
Abominations like Dragon's Crown and Dead of Alive characters are horrible pieces of garbage and those who designed them should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Yuuki]

Abominations like Dragon's Crown and Dead of Alive characters are horrible pieces of garbage and those who designed them should be ashamed of themselves.

To be fair I only find Dragon's Crown unappealing because of the tumor-style bulges going on with the Amazon. With the Sorceress her breasts are so huge/free that they make Japanese fantasy females look tame in comparison.

For me a Dead Or Alive girl standing still or posing is sexy, their proportions make much more sense and they have cute faces / big eyes / etc. The only problem with them is when they MOVE, i.e. when Team Ninja's jiggle-physics kick in and then I'm like "oh come on, why are they randomly swaying/bouncing like that?" and it really boots me out of it. Ironic that Team Ninja's attempts at realism ended up making their girls LESS likable than if they had just left the jiggle-physics out of it.

My rule is that if a female is going to exist as a piece of guilty-pleasure-eye-candy, then the least developers can do is get their appearance, proportions and animations right. Exaggerated proportions are nice, but there is a boundary where they go from "sexy" to "WTF" - Dragon's Crown crossed that boundary, Dead Or Alive is swaying dangerously close to that boundary.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Some people like it, some take offense and most don't care either way.
People who are offended by pixels have a responsibility of staying away from what they don't like. I can understand why some would feel that this is being pushed on them, but I believe it's an overreaction rather than being completely unable to avoid such content.

The part that worries me, is the intolerance for those who do appreciate eyecandy, but then again it's just the usual politically "correct" people who are forcing their opinions on others.

Bottom line is, you should worry about other things, this isn't one worth spending time on.

Right, because it's clearly not worth spending time on caring about video games for someone who cares about video games...

 

[Queen Michael]

Honestly?

I like big breasts and curvy bodies. I like them very much.

But I don't like every woman to look like that. Sure, I like to see sexy women in movies, but that doesn't mean that I want Queen Gertrude played by Carmen Electra.

If a game is focused specifically on being sexy, then sure. I just don't want that kind of design to be used in every game where it's possible. For instance, the typical cheesecake female character would ruin the mood in serious games with a story to tell.

 

[viking97]

I'm okay with attractive female characters, but Dragon Crown's sorceress looks fucking stupid to me.

You can pretty much see where I stand from that; Stylization? fantastic. Making women have stupid proportions? If you really must. Make them balloon animals? Yeah that's creepy, and I don't care for it.