I’ve been listening to a couple podcasts that talk about Soulcalibur IV, most notably the 1up Yours and Giant Bombcast. I’ve been participating in a couple forum threads about the game. Hell, even my friends can’t stop talking about Ivy’s breasts. It’s their chief complaint and the only thing they can focus on. Let’s take a collective minute together; just stare at her massive mams. Maybe Taki is more to your taste? There’s a long list to choose from.
Okay, now that it’s behind us, let’s just stop talking about the breast size as if it’s the final nail in Soulcalibur’s coffin. Over-sized breasts are easy targets; we can all just agree that they’re gratuitous and the conversation degrades from there. Some people say it objectifies women, and that is probably true… but it’s true about a lot of female characters in video games, and Soulcalibur is far from the extreme.
Take Grand Theft Auto IV, where women are actually nothing but an opportunity to have sex with them. Kate stands apart from that crowd, but that’s only one out of several. On the other hand, Ivy has a clear purpose in the game, and despite her outfits has very little sexuality. Ivy is more of a person than most of the girlfriends in GTA, so I don’t really understand why we should be so hung up on the size of their breasts. Maybe their not the shining icon of feminism in gaming, but they’re a step up from most games.
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That said, I feel like you're not giving the girlfriends of GTA enough credit. Each of them, surprisingly aside from Kate, have developed background slighyly beyond surface nuance. "LawChick" has had numerous criminal boyfriends, whom she has helped legally to some degree. After cultivating a positive relationship with her, she offers an "aggro wipe" in the form of star removal. Carmen goes on to tell stories of both he drudgery at work as a nurse, and he dreams of moving beyond LC. She has a criminal record in the police database, and she's actually a nympho maniac. Michelle was also a very satisfying character.
I think its very easy to discount the GTA women as sex objects because of their sexual role in the protagonist's life. But, beyond their sexual role, there are well thought out characters in these virtual women.
Perhaps the fact that this attempt at depth is lost on most gamers is an indication of a disinterest in attributing more than a sexual functional role to female video game characters?
The character depth that you mention is indeed well thought out, but it's really a flavour, not a function. I'll admit that even that is a bit hasty, since you could argue that lawchick had a secondary function to annoy the crap out of you whenever you weren't seducing her.
Have you not found the rich Blogger snob chick?
Hint; Craplist...
Also...Hilde in full body armor
Back to the topic of boobs... hmmmm boobs.... um.... yes well you wouldn't want to play as an ugly character would you? and most people agree that large breasticles are a common trait in attractive women. I don't see how this objectifies women when you have copies of Maxim and FHM on a supermarket shelf.