Women in video games: which ones do it right?

[Imp Poster]

I say who cares about women in games being right and wrong. Who asks that about men. You have all fecets of men from like convicts to G.I. Joes, slaughters their own families(Kratos), weaklings, almost naked to full body armor, etc. But no one asks that about men. So why women? I say let them be no matter how bad or good they are. That is what is so great about expression is to express it. Some are over the top and some are subtle. So what?

 

[Dr. Paine]

which games do female characters right?

this is an excellent question.
but lots of people are saying good female game characters
like Alyx Vance. but isn't she the only female in Half Life 2?



Mass Effect also but they loose 10000000 points for including Miranda (the worst character in the history of anything) and they loose 8 more points for there not being any female Turians or Salarians. please tell me I'm not the only person bothered by that.

No, Alyx is far from the only female HL character.

As for Mass Effect, the lack of female Turians/Salarians/Krogan is simply time and art constraints- the game just can't support too many models of different aliens.

And really, how is Miranda so bad? Aside from the focus on a certain area, is she really an insult to women like some characters can be?

 

[Mikeyfell]

snip

Well, lots of that is opinion which I disagree with (for one, I do find her physically attractive, although I refuse to ever get into that sort of conversation with anyone ever). Personally I didn't dislike any of Mass Effect 2's characters and liked them all for what they were (and I wish you could romance Kasumi... after that first time with Miranda, nobody else appeals to me really).

yeah that's mostly opinion
She is schizophrenic though that's hard to deny

she constantly complains about her perfection but never once says she just wants a normal life

she wants her clone sister to have a normal life. but she still wants to be perfect and keep complaining.

maybe she was supposed to be like that, but I seriously don't like that kind of person.

 

[ShatterPalm]

I think Lyn from Fire Emblem had it the best. She was the strongest sword wielder in the game, hands down, and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over Micaiah in personality. On top of that, she's got this:

 

[mattttherman3]

Female Shepard

Worst: the chick from Wet, THE WORST

 

[Mikeyfell]

which games do female characters right?

this is an excellent question.
but lots of people are saying good female game characters
like Alyx Vance. but isn't she the only female in Half Life 2?



Mass Effect also but they loose 10000000 points for including Miranda (the worst character in the history of anything) and they loose 8 more points for there not being any female Turians or Salarians. please tell me I'm not the only person bothered by that.

No, Alyx is far from the only female HL character.

As for Mass Effect, the lack of female Turians/Salarians/Krogan is simply time and art constraints- the game just can't support too many models of different aliens.

And really, how is Miranda so bad? Aside from the focus on a certain area, is she really an insult to women like some characters can be?

Some female game characters that are thrown in to games basically to be sex toys are bad. like female characters in fighting games or Laura Croft. or most of them.
but the reason I think Miranda is worse is that she's in a writing-centric game and she's one of the characters we're supposed to take seriously.
anyway I explained my dislike for Miranda. you can read it if you like.

Mass Effect also but they loose 10000000 points for including Miranda (the worst character in the history of anything)

Hey, what you got against Miranda? I thought she was an OK character. I never noticed the whole thing about Turians or Salarians until I read about it on the Mass Effect Wiki, and after that it did bug me a little.

mostly her entire attitude and her romance scene

first off she's basically schizophrenic
every other conversation with her she has this Ice Queen "I don't need your help, I don't want to know you" attitude then the other half the time she has this deep admiration for you.
it's not even like there's a point where she switches she just jumps back and forth. and this continues even if you try to romance her

second she's obviously a Morrigan clone
the only human in the whole world who's not based on the same character model
cold and resourceful with massive parental issues
but the thing about Morrigan is that she made it through her troubled past and came out better for it. like she learned the lessons Flemeth taught her.
and Morrigan is sane
all Miranda does is whine about her past
"boo hoo I'm perfect. boo hoo I hate my father."

third she's a complete ***** for no reason
so Miranda Hates Shepard right off the bat, and the obvious reason for this is that Shepard is going to be the new number 1 and Miranda has always been the number 1
but she denies that if you ask her.
one of two things could be true about this
one: she is telling the truth about that not being the case and she just dislikes Shepard for no reason
or two: she's lying and that really is the case. and this would put her on the emotional level of a cocky seven year old who will never concede and cries loudly at the store when her parents wont buy her candy.

forth her loyalty mission.
it's annoying because I can't trade the current bitchy Miranda for the 18 year old, possibly much nicer, genetic clone of Miranda, Oriana
but I digress
it's most annoying at the end when

Spoiler

Nikket gets shot

and on the elevator she continues her schizophrenia by whining and raging at the same damn time (regardless of whether or not you did the paragon interrupt)

fifth her cat-fight with Jack
Jack "She won't admit what Cerberus did to me was wrong"
Miranda "That wasn't Cerberus"
Shepard "That shouldn't matter you fucking ****. If you don't think it was wrong I don't want you on my ship"
Miranda "You can't seriously be siding with her. She's insane"
Shepard "What? She's insane? Jack, put her in biotic stasis. Let's drag this ***** to the airlock"
and they all lived happily ever after
Fuck Miranda she couldn't say "Torturing children is wrong"
she had to keep up her stupid cocky seven year old ***** attitude against a completely valid complaint.

finally her god damn romance
Every conversation you have with her towards the romance is ridiculous. here's what I mean
Jack is emotionally vulnerable from having been traumatized in her past and being nice to her cracked her outer shell
Garrus just wanted to blow off some steam and respected Shepard enough to overlook the fact that she's human
Tali was hot on Shepard last time around
Jacob was horny and he never hid it. he's also a bit timid, but he never hid that either
Thane has a history with love at first sight and Shepard reminds him of his dead wife
Miranda has no reason at all to be attracted to Shepard she hated Shepard up until she loved him.
one of the last lines before the romance is "I don't know why I love you?" Or something along those lines. and the paragon response to that is "I don't love you, I just want to get in your pants."
I really couldn't have put it any better my self
and the actual romance scene is just a quicky on the engine room floor and that pissed me off for several reasons
1) her whole shtick on all the conversations leading up to the romance was that she loves Shepard but the sex was just a shag on the floor. I suppose she's consistently schizophrenic
2)she wanted to do it in the engine room? seriously there's like...a bed in the captains quarters...? the engine room is down 4 floors assuming that's the same elevator technology from Mass Effect 1 they spent more time getting to the engine room than they did on the engine room floor
3) doesn't Tali hang out right outside the engine room? I'm not going to pass Tali by for Miranda.

and also I don't think a big ass makes someone sexy
and I don't like boobs bigger than a C cup I think they're ugly
so with Miranda not fitting my definition of "sexy" her schizophrenic-cocky-***** personality was highlighted and unbearable to me

so yeah I pretty much hate every thing about Miranda
I don't blame Mass Effect 2 for having her in there because they let me kill her when ever I want.

Well, lots of that is opinion which I disagree with (for one, I do find her physically attractive, although I refuse to ever get into that sort of conversation with anyone ever). Personally I didn't dislike any of Mass Effect 2's characters and liked them all for what they were (and I wish you could romance Kasumi... after that first time with Miranda, nobody else appeals to me really).

yeah that's mostly opinion
She is schizophrenic though that's hard to deny

she constantly complains about her perfection but never once says she just wants a normal life

she wants her clone sister to have a normal life. but she still wants to be perfect and keep complaining.

maybe she was supposed to be like that, but I seriously don't like that kind of person.

 

[flying_whimsy]

April Ryan from the Longest Journey is by and far the best female character I've seen in a video game.

 

[Flames66]

Bayonetta - there's no identity crisis, she revels in her sexuality, and some women totally dig her. (Just to put it into perspective, there are some men who totally can't identify with Fenix, Dom, Baird or Cole in Gears of War but others who are perfectly fine with them).

That's a good point, I cannot identify with any of the gears of war characters. That's part of the reason that I am leaning towards only playing games with customisable characters, because the character I am playing in a game is me, not Gordon Freeman, Chell, Jaden Korr or Francis, Me.

 

[Rochnan]

I would ask people to define "right" in this context. And if they mean presenting women in a way to appeal to feminazis then I would say I strongly disagree.

(...)

Edit: I have to say that what really bothers me about this thread is that 90% of the characters being lauded as "right" are female characters who are generally as unfeminine as they can possibly be. So people think that females characters done "right" are women who conduct themselves in a masculine fashion...

Forgive me if that registers in my brain as...disturbing.

Thank you for saving me the time to type that. As far as I'm concerned, a character, or anything in a videogame is done right if it gives the player the experience the designers want it to.
Alyx from Half-Life was meant to be a strong female companion, and she was. The females from pornographic games are meant to be...well, you know. And from the continuing existence of said games, I believe they must've got them right.

With that, I'd like to suggest the Samus as she was portrayed in Metroid Prime.

 

[Imp Poster]

I say who cares about women in games being right and wrong. Who asks that about men. You have all fecets of men from like convicts to G.I. Joes, slaughters their own families(Kratos), weaklings, almost naked to full body armor, etc. But no one asks that about men. So why women? I say let them be no matter how bad or good they are. That is what is so great about expression is to express it. Some are over the top and some are subtle. So what?

Because no one gives a shit about men.

That's why they send us off to die in god forsaken hellholes and ask us to do backbreaking labor for the majority of our lives for a pittance salary only to give it to someone who didn't earn it. And that's why they expect us to give freely of ourselves to a family only to give custody of the children to the mother who has a drinking problem and sleeps around when the divorce happens.

I admit that description is an exaggeration and a little over the top. But it does illustrate how, in this era of political correctness, men are considered to have less value to the world then women.

It's that kind of thought that makes men studs when they bed many women and women sluts/whores when they sleep with alot of men. No value in men, sleeps with alot of women, gives value. Value in women does something they shouldn't, de-values women. so no, that idea is alot OLDER than the era of political correctness.

I get your exaggeration and call it a stereotype. Because I hope to god that if someone is going to send men to hellholes and do backbreaking labor, it's not because they are worthless, but it is because they are fit for the job. They get trained to have fighting instincts and work out.

 

[Lullabye]

Which game did it right?

Armored Core.

 

[repeating integers]

snip

Well, lots of that is opinion which I disagree with (for one, I do find her physically attractive, although I refuse to ever get into that sort of conversation with anyone ever). Personally I didn't dislike any of Mass Effect 2's characters and liked them all for what they were (and I wish you could romance Kasumi... after that first time with Miranda, nobody else appeals to me really).

yeah that's mostly opinion
She is schizophrenic though that's hard to deny

she constantly complains about her perfection but never once says she just wants a normal life

she wants her clone sister to have a normal life. but she still wants to be perfect and keep complaining.

maybe she was supposed to be like that, but I seriously don't like that kind of person.

You know, I've never noticed that before... and it seems oddly funny, looking back and noticing that she appears schizophrenic. I'll look out more for that when I finally finish obsessing over Reach and go back to Mass Effect 2.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Alyx Vance.

/thread?

Essentially, yes.

That's pretty much the only example I can think of.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Farah from Sands of Time. NOT Farah from Two Thrones. That one just made her into a useless bimbo by comparison.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Yep, just as I suspected. Multiple people going on and on about how tragic and believable Alyx Vance is. Despite being a total sociopath *****.

I have to go with Faith from Mirrors Edge. As said before, there is nothing about her being female that is emphasized.

OH! And I liked the British girl from Uncharted 2.

 

[Sinspiration]

The obvious answers (To me, at least, and an easy way out) are Mass Effect 1 & 2.
Female Shepard is good... and people say Jennifer Hale is a better voice actor than her male counterpart. I can believe that.

Yeaaah that for definite,

The Male Shephard sounds like he needs some voice acting lessons, the female Shephard voice puts a lot more passion and heart into the character. If I had both shouting at me, I'd be more afraid of the female voice, lol

I'd have to say my favorite female character that they got right in gaming was probably.. Huh I guess it IS the female Shephard. Perhaps because the kind of character I'd like to see hasn't yet made an appearance, well maybe she has, I was very fond of Titania from from Fire Emblem.

 

[Sacman]

Female Shepard for the win. The voice is really well done. Aaaaand... sexy.

I beg to differ...

 

[Painful illusion]

Alyx Vance is probably the best female in games that does the best job. She is not dressed like your typical female character and you can really develop an appropriate liking and appreciation for her as the half life story progresses