Wet

[shiajun]

Most of trully strong female characters I know are not even from action games. Grace Nakamura from the Gabriel Knight series is a perfect example. Sure, the actress that played her in the GK2 did come off as more than a little bitchy at times, but overall she is just an interesting, intelligent and independent character that she sometimes starts taking the spotlight more than the titles character. By the third game in the series I definately preferred playing her parts and hearing her dialogues than Gabriel. April Ryan (longest journey) and Zoë Castillo (dreamfall), and to a lesser extent Victoria McPherson (Still life) and Kate Walker (syberia), are all completely credible, strong and independent characters. It's sad nobody realizes this because they all come from an almost niche genre of games.

Jade and Farrah (SoT) stand out to me because:
a) They have average sized tits,
b) Their dress habits are coherent with character and never too revealing (i've seen girls on the street dressed like jade )
c) they go about their business with determination, not demanding male assistance but actually collaborating.
and d) They are so in control of themselves they seem like they could elegantly, yet subtely, blow off someone if they get on their nerves.

In short, their personality resembles people you could actually meet in real life, thus escape being caricatures.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So in other words, the game industry needs to fire all their writers and hire new ones that actually know how to develop believable characters.

 

[littlerudi08107]

It's thanks to Zero Punctuation that I now have a complete hatred for vapid badass action-girls. There as bad as Dante from Devil May Cry. A good game ruined by a shitty unlikeable character.

 

[Blatherscythe]

Nice job, yes women are becoming more as playable charecters or allies. Still with all the crap personalities they have with all the poor traits Yahtzee pointed out they stand out all right... Why can't they get an independent female protagonist who doesn't act like a *****. Ah well, F'd up Croft, Jill Valentine and Rubi, what sterotype is next on the chopping block known as zero punctuation???

 

[Grampy_bone]

Well I actually agree with Yahtzee for once. There are plenty of female characters in games that aren't complete twats, but they're usually japanese. *dodges thrown objects*

Take Eva from MGS3 or Jessica from Dragon Quest 8. They fit all of Yahtzee's criteria... including the jugs.

 

[randommaster]

I read most of the previous posts and generally agree with yahtzee. Some characters that come to mind as good would be:

Jen Tate from Primal, Isa/Aurora from Black Sigil, Terra/Celes from FF6, Samus, Nariko/Kai from Heavenly Sword, Kisala/Lilika from Rogue Galaxy, Ayame from Tenchu, Aika/Fina from Skies of Arcadia, and Alice/Karen/Margarete/Shania/Koudelka from Shadow Hearts series.

Have you ever played any games made by Sting studios? The female characters in those tend to be fairly likable, despite Riviera's best impersonation of a dating sim.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Nicely written.

I have never seen a tough female character done very well. The only one who came near it was Lara Croft, but- as you mentioned- her viicious tendancy to steal the eyeballs from your sockets didn't seem appealing to me.

Also, I must ask this before I forget: Why does your hat never fall off? And do you keep anything under it?

I know there's a backlash against her right now, but I cite Alyx Vance as an example of a genuinely likeable central female character in an excellent game.

 

[carpathic]

I am reminded of the scene from "As Good as it gets" where Jack Nicholson is asked how he writes his female characters.

Something along the lines of: I take a man, I remove all understanding, common sense and the ability to reason, season with a dash of overwrought emotion and voila.

Human drives are pretty universal, strong characters have these drives and respond to stimuli in a fairly predictable manner. This is how a strong character is built.

 

[AngryFrenchCanadian]

I think the perfect example of an independent and tough woman in a video game would be Alyx, from Half-Life 2.

Nicely written.

I have never seen a tough female character done very well. The only one who came near it was Lara Croft, but- as you mentioned- her viicious tendancy to steal the eyeballs from your sockets didn't seem appealing to me.

Also, I must ask this before I forget: Why does your hat never fall off? And do you keep anything under it?

I know there's a backlash against her right now, but I cite Alyx Vance as an example of a genuinely likeable central female character in an excellent game.

Damn, you beat me to it.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

Great read.

Whilst I do greatly appreciate boobs myself I would love to see a greater diversity in sizes rather than what seems to be the standard huge melon variation

 

[duchaked]

oh darn, that means you won't be able to review Borderlands by...tomorrow (assuming you did it at all lol)
hahaha I'm supposed to write a review for the game (I think by next Tuesday) for my school newspaper and I guess I won't be able to use any Yahtzee references in it (jk, plus I don't think it's allowed)

but great article, I liked it especially much
lolll "because she's a massive *****."

honestly, I wish I could take the time from being dumped by a girl from a serious relationship and make such a successful series like Zero Punctuation
guess I'm just not as original or creative
sigh

 

[duchaked]

Something along the lines of: I take a man, I remove all understanding, common sense and the ability to reason, season with a dash of overwrought emotion and voila.

this is awesome lol! totally quoting this to everyone this week

 

[UnSub]

Some interesting points, but personally I think the problem is more the fact that naff writers seem to be churnig out arse-hole characters of both genders quite rapidly.

I think this is very true. GoW is hardly full of positive male role models.

However, there are fewer female lead characters in games, so when their sole defining character trait is '*****' it shows up more obviously.

 

[patcore]

I never realized (and I am sure many others are with me) what you had to go through for your weekly video reviews. Though I'm sure the pay helps I still want to thank you for these videos and now the Extra Punctuation. They are enjoyable, informative, and down right hilarious. Hope your trip to GameX doesn't put too much strain on your schedule but I am looking forward to seeing you there along with the massive amounts of gaming goodness.
(before it is said, not a follower, just a fan of honest criticism)

 

[Gigano]

Right on the money, most women of gaming are as cardboard-cut and onesided as any 50's stereotype, only made out as hyperagressive women of steel whose only and greatest fear is a compliment of any kind.

I actually found the female characters of the Uncharted series to be slightly less cliche, as they are more badass than *****, and has some for once enjoyable and humourous frindly banter with the male charachters, a rogueish charm, and some slightly gentle sides to them as, and doesn't come off as if their afraid of their own sex, desperately trying to be like men.

 

[Capo Taco]

Yahtzee is holding the right end of the stick here. There was a feature recently of a female character in a bioware game that was basically a 'bald berserk former-gangster' that was just plain humanless.

Or the supposedly seductive and strong woman (keara) that was used as a flagship for the marketing campaign of the conan mmo. I remember her lines being 'men. Simple creatures. Hardly even that. We rule their minds, souls and heart bla bla bla'.
And her final line 'they say it's a man's world. Is it, baby?' while she stabs a drunk guy in the back for catcalling to her earlier.

We've gone from whory princess to uberfeminist in gaming. Nice.

Jade and Farrah (SoT) stand out to me because:
a) They have average sized tits,

I now have a mental image of you having a big wall in your room where you post printouts of female characters and measure and classify their tits.

 

[Stickfigure]

...if a female character is in a game then they'll most likely be in a combat zone, so they can't exactly saunter about in ankle-length hoop skirts drinking tea with their pinkies extended.

Unless it's a JRPG.

Anyway, I suppose the reason women are so often characterized as surly bitches or brainless invertebrates drenched in breast physics is the same reason most teen-aged characters are written as perpetual complaint factories that often screw up whatever the protagonist is doing before whinily monologuing their inner angst: because writing for a character that is significantly different from you is hard, and many writers(especially video game writers) can be extremely lazy.

Writing through the eyes of someone you can't identify with is the mark of quality writing. Many people will often cloak themselves in the security blanket of writing from the perspective of someone not unlike themselves(in the case of the video games industry, that is the perspective of a man obsessed with gratuitous violence and nudity). When it becomes plot-relevant for the overly(or in the case of Japanese game, underly) curvaceous female lead to open up one of her major orifices to make some kind of noise, the writers thankfully normally choose the mouth, but the rest of their efforts suffer the fate of awkwardly guessing what someone not like yourself would say. Then it becomes a game of writing based on what dialogue you heard coming from the female leads in their youth, which for the current generation of writers may very well stem from a sea of uninteresting female stereotypes. Sure, not every chick is a buffonish tit monster or an aggressive, snarling buffoonish tit monster; but a lot of them have been written that way in the past and it's pretty tough to break the cycle, especially when all your peers have already sunk to that level.

Often the only times female characters are written well is in games where the characters so barely represent human beings anyway that the writers feel that invisible barrier between them and convincing dialogue being lifted. Even then, though, it's not a guarantee.