Would it turn you off being forced to play as a Female protagonist?

Would it turn you off being forced to play as a Female protagonist?

  • Total voters
    263
I for one have never been able to recover from the mental scaring that Metroid caused me all those years ago.
 
I would be a bug if the game was/is good.

The gender really doesnt matter one bit if the game is solid.

Look at Tomb Raider, Mirror's Edge and Bayonnetta.....to name just a few.

I take whatever the game gives me.:D
 
Negative Decibel said:
I've played female characters in MMOs all of the time... And have enjoyed many other games with female protagonists...
Click to expand...

Well you know what MMORPG stands for? Many men online role playing girls. I couldn't stand that myself. I got sick of guys asking me to show them the character's tits in Age of Conan. Similarly if you create a decent looking female character in other games you get hit on. It was so bad at one point I had a macro key setup to type "I'm a guy you jackass." in the text chat. For some reason guys don't seem to realize that most of the "women" they see online are actually dudes. :confused:

I don't really care what the gender of the protagonist is provided the protagonist is well written. In many cases the gender means almost nothing. In more story oriented games I tend to choose male characters simply because they are easier to relate to and because 90lbs. women kicking the asses of guys with body builder physiques is bullshit. I just can't suspend disbelief enough for that. In games like Mass Effect or Dragon age I tend to prefer male characters because I enjoy the character interaction from the male perspective much more so than the female. I won't have nearly as many male NPC's trying to get with the character, etc.

And I've heard the "I don't want to spend hours looking at a man's ass" argument many times. To those people I have to ask: Why are you looking at the character's ass anyway? There should be enough going on that you shouldn't have a lot of time to admire it regardless of the gender. In MMO's things may be a little different, as you've got more traveling around but I'd suggest that if a computer generated man ass (why is that where your eyes keep going?) makes you uncomfortable then you've got deep issues of denial going on. If a computer generated female ass is all that enticing, you need to get out more.

Animated (computer or otherwise) women are not fap worthy material.
 
I don't care. As the gamer, I'm not focusing on the characters, but the game objectives. But as an observer, I can see how someone can take "issue" with it and there shouldn't be one.

That said, I dislike how they've made Samus more conspicuously female with her suit on. I liked the fact that she wasn't too showy in her suit in the early games.
 
Not really. Most games that allow customization to the player character are fairly gender-neutral, which allows the player to project as much or as little of themselves into the player character as the game allows. I generally play as male simply because I'm playing "as myself", but I wouldn't mind mixing it up every once in a while. Heck, I played Saint's Row 3 as a female because I liked to dress up my character.

If I'm forced to play as a female, then chances are the storyline and narrative are focused on that specific character, not her necessarily her sex. Have you ever seen a game where you can customize a character but you can only choose female models? No, you're playing as Samus or Lara Croft.
 
Yoshiyuki Blade said:
I don't care. As the gamer, I'm not focusing on the characters, but the game objectives. But as an observer, I can see how someone can take "issue" with it and there shouldn't be one.

That said, I dislike how they've made Samus more conspicuously female with her suit on. I liked the fact that she wasn't too showy in her suit in the early games.
Click to expand...

Ah the age old debate about sexploitation and it's moral impact on society.

While I can agree that objectification of women for the sake of exploitation is generally wrong, in the form of computer and console games it is at least perfectly understandable. Games are first and foremost entertainment. Characters depicted in games like their movie counterparts are generally good looking and way out of the league of the masses. That's part of the fantasy. That's part of the appeal. Characters in fiction are almost always depicted as being prime physical specimens unless the narative calls for something specific which goes against that standard. They are often intelligent, altruistic or nearly totally evil without redeeming qualities even though actual people are seldom so clear cut about their belief's and morality. They are generally not realistic in the least.

Female character's sexuality is typically emphasized with this thinking in mind. A female protagonist must be desirable physically because it's what the gamer sees. Most men are admittedly shallow about women on the surface and certainly any woman they do not have the chance to really know. They must be desirable on a deeper level if the game has that sort of depth. Most don't but it's helpful to have characters that are more than two dimensional if you can. Unfortunately when pandering to your lowest common denominator that's rarely worth the effort. Some people played Tomb Raider because she was the first mainstream sexualized female protagonist. It didn't matter how good the game was or wasn't for some guys. I never finished it because I got bored with the game. I know I'm not alone in that. Was she attractive as far as pixels go at the time? I suppose. Though it wasn't enough to create a believable or compelling fantasy on it's own. I certainly didn't dream of pixelated sexual encounters nor did I ever think it was worth playing the game just to take another long look at Laura Croft.

Let's look at Mass Effect because I'm extra familiar with it and can provide examples easily. Female Shepard is user customizable to some degree with regard to her face. This allows her to be physically attractive to the player who has to look at her face for some 30 hours in game play or so. Longer if you carry her appearance through all three installments, DLC's etc. Her form is definitely feminine but for whatever reason she's not overly sexualized. She's got a decent body, but she's not overly toned (in ME1 and ME2 anyway) and her breasts aren't very large. She's around average there. Good shape but nothing special. This was probably done in ME1 because all females in the game at that time shared a single body model for technical reasons. So Ashley, Liara, FemShep, etc. all looked basically the same. The only variances were provided in different armor / outfit models which were used on occasion. As they were able to add models to the game and it became known for it's romances (as there have been numerous controversies concerning them) they made some characters a bit more sexually appealing. In part to differentiate them from each other and add variety, but also in part because they know that people like that sort of thing.

So Ashley and Liara got boob jobs. So what? You can rationalize it in a number of ways, in-game as well as out of game but they did it. Why? The game needed some extra variety so that they didn't all look the same but also because sex sells. They made the characters physically more desirable so that the people would want to look at them. The characters are either compelling or not to you in terms of personality and based on your chosen interactions but for the most part they've become more sexualized as the series has gone on. On one hand I don't think it needed to happen to Liara other than given the fact that her mom had the biggest cans in all of Mass Effect. With Ashley it helps because you've got something to look at while she drones on and on accusing you of horrific things that you didn't do. All the while she ignores any attempt you make to defend your Shepard from her pointed verbal attacks.

Regardless of what camp your in with regard to how you feel about it the truth is that sex does and always has sold. It always will. I don't think being offended by simple human nature makes any sense. I don't know if making a female character attractive objectifies women particulaly or not. That's it's own debate. When a woman chooses to embark on stripping or prostitution and guys choose to spend money on them, who's really taking advantage of who? I see it as a two way street. The profession wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market demand for it. Greed is thought of as bad but it's also very closely related with ambition and drive. I think if you can separate fantasy from reality you'd see that the game is clearly in the latter category. I don't think there is anything wrong with fantasy. In fact I believe it to be healthy and that there is a time and a place for it. And in a perfect world, or at least in the realm of fantasy I prefer my women to be very attractive. If I go to a strip club I try to find a place where the women are as physically appealing as possible. Why? It's a shallow transaction. It's fantasty. If I'm going to have some woman grind on my junk for money and put her tits in my face, where she has to pretend that she likes me, I'm going to select the best looking woman I can find for that task. Her personality factors in very little into the equation.

Likewise I wouldn't want every woman in games to look like real average or below average women. I get enough of that at Wal-Mart. If you think about it women do it too. Romance novels aren't written around realistic tow truck drivers, pool cleaners and business men or real construction workers with huge beer guts and tons of body hair. That's generally how they look but romance novels don't depict that. Romance novels also hold men to a higher standard for romance than we are generally capable of. This provides women with unrealistic expectations for how their relationships can go. But so long as the women reading them understand this is fantasy and not reality, they are free to enjoy those works without issue as far as I'm concerned. It's because we've all got reality. What we want in entertainment is fantasy and that's OK.
 
Last edited:
You gotta figure, its not like the men in video games are bad looking either. No one wants to see an ugly person, you dont see it in movies, books or anything, the protagonist, make female, animal or whatever is always good looking except in rare cases. Even in music its pretty difficult to break in no matter how good your music is without being good looking.
 
@Dan_D I'm not quite sure what I said to spark such a debate lol. But I don't disagree with anything you said.

My response was toward the OP, where he poses the question of being "turned off" if I was forced to play a female protagonist. I'm indifferent about it because my brain isn't focused on what the sex of the character is most of the time anyway. In my head, I'm focused on working out and executing the game mechanics in order to complete the objectives.

I just mentioned that people who aren't engaged in the game like this, like casual observers for example, will probably think about the gender of the character among other details and come up with peculiar thoughts. They might take issue with things where I don't think an issue exists.
 
does not bother me at all. always good for a change and the female characters can be pretty interesting.
 
Perfect Dark
Mirror's Edge
SiN
Resident Evil
Portal
Bloodrayne
Bayonetta
The Longest Journey

What do all these games have in common? They fucking rock.
 
Wtf, she raised almost $200K to make more feminist videos? .... I am obviously in the wrong business here.
 
The sex of the protagonist rarely means a thing to me. If its a balls to the wall , epic , bloody battle I'll prefer a male lead because it speaks more to the male kind of mentality but anything else I would have no issue with a female protagonist.
 
Would it turn me off? No. Whenever I have to play as a female I inevitably play them exactly the same way I would my male characters.

I really liked playing Terra in FF6, she was my ultimate bad ass person, and I had her in all of my parties possible 99% of the time.

But on the other hand, in games where I get to create my hero, I always create a male, because I'm a dude, and want to be a dude. So I get the argument for it.

I think it's just residual sexism from the boys club days honestly.
 
Casus said:
I really liked playing Terra in FF6, she was my ultimate bad ass person, and I had her in all of my parties possible 99% of the time.
Click to expand...

As a character, Terra (or Tina) was probably the opposite of badass though lol. In fact, I heard that early concepts of the main character was a male, but seeing how fragile his character turned out, they decided to create Terra instead.

FF6's cast was very, very swappable overall, which made it remarkably unforced in terms of playing the protagonist.
 
Male or female, I tend to go for characters that aren't like me except that they tend to share the same general philosophies of life. Other than that I generally don't impute my persona onto my characters.
 
I always play male characters if i have a choice (MMO), but see nothing wrong with a female character, i'd rather watch Laras ass than an undead zombie vampires.
 
Ya know it just might not be happening because wifes/girlfriends get jealous and crazy over the stupidest shit, and if the main characters a women then they cut out the market that is married to insecure crazies.
 
Mass Effect was arguably better with a female Shepard. I thought that was very true in ME1+2, and mostly true in ME3 (Jen Hale seemed to ham it up a bit too much for me in 3).
 
I don't mind female characters at all, but I have trouble picking them for melee classes in games. I am completely on board with a female archer, cleric, rogue or wizard, but will always pick a male barbarian, melee fighter, or other such meat head chars.
 
Azureth said:
Huh? How many AAA games or even popular games do you know of where you play as a female protagonist and not because of a create a character?

EDIT: And they aren't sexualized in some way.
Click to expand...

This 100%. Maybe Super Princess Peach. And then...

:confused:
 
No. If I have a choice I always choose male because, as OP said, I identify myself better that way. But if there is no other choice than female it really doesnt really matter. All that matters is if the game is good.


Mass Effect was arguably better with a female Shepard. I thought that was very true in ME1+2
Click to expand...

Except when Femshep was talking with Jacob. *shudders*
 
I play a chick in most games that have the option, especially if it's a third-person shooter. Why wouldn't I want to look at a chick's ass bouncing up and down while playing? :D

Saint's Row 3 was the best at creating a badass female protagonist.
 
MaZa said:
No. If I have a choice I always choose male because, as OP said, I identify myself better that way. But if there is no other choice than female it really doesnt really matter. All that matters is if the game is good.




Except when Femshep was talking with Jacob. *shudders*
Click to expand...

And that's a prime example of what I was talking about. I didn't like some of the NPC interactions from FemShep's perspective. Jacob being flirty was just gross. It made me hate the useless character even more. I didn't care for Thane being extra emo and the romantic tension with Garrus just seemed fucking wrong. So again I prefer interactions with those characters from a male perspective. Generally interactions with female NPCs were roughly the same with both male and female Samara and Kelly were the same regardless of Shepard's Gender. (As is the case with Liara.) Miranda and Tali are obviously straight so they don't hit on female Shepard. That doesn't seem weird at all. Tali hitting on male Shepard felt awkward to me, but it didn't seem wrong as the encounter is supposed to be awkward. And Miranda has to be romanced specifically for her to get flirty with Shepard. So unless you specifically pursue her it doesn't happen.

I guess Thane is that way, but Garrus and Jacob aren't. The way they act with a female Shepard is definitely different.

As for Mass Effect being better with Female Shepard, I disagree. nothing against Jennifer Hale as I think her work is in general awesome, but her vocal cadence and the inflections used in certain places is just weird. Male Shepard just seems to be more natural to me. He doesn't overact or over emphasize things. Now there are some exceptions as I do sometimes prefer the line delivery of Jennifer Hale to Mark Meer but most of the time I prefer playing ManShep. I've gone through the games with both and no matter how many times I've done it the game's just feel off when using FemShep.
 
Last edited:
You're just saying nobody who writes for BioWare has ever had a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, nor likely the same sex.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
You're just saying nobody who writes for BioWare has ever had a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, nor likely the same sex.
Click to expand...

Agreed, the only slam is on the bioware writers. Despite a handful of lame situations, Hale was better overall. I haven't played 3 yet so I can't comment there.
 
Rofl Dan's bit on romance novels and Walrmart already brings this thread to an A+.

*PS - had the same reaction to seeing American women after vacationing in Europe. Sigh :(
 
This debate is ridiculous.. the story is what matters; not whether or not a dood is leading the charge!
 
Parmenides said:
Agreed, the only slam is on the bioware writers. Despite a handful of lame situations, Hale was better overall. I haven't played 3 yet so I can't comment there.
Click to expand...

Mark Meer is noticably better voicing Shepard in ME3 than he was in previous games.
 
So, according to the poll, 16 "guys" are probably neckbeard limp dicks who have never touched a woman and can't handle the "other" sex as anything but something to objectify. If they can't play a female protagonist in a game, they are a pussy. If they tie themselves to a character's sex and have a hangup about women, I bet they are one of those CoD "bros".

What I am trying to say is my dick has more centimeters than they have IQ points.

I will let them figure that out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top