By rights, I shouldn’t even be drawing your attention to this game. I’ve decided recently that my silent protest at the ridiculous depiction of women in games is, well… too silent. I’d been hoping for some new quasi-realistic women to turn up in any game for the current-gen consoles so that I could praise the dev team. No luck yet.

So, at the risk of encouraging them with the attention, I’m instigating a new policy of pointing out games that, as a woman, I find laughable. Sometimes even offensive. Contrary to what you may think, I don’t really mind hentai or games like DOA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. At least they’re upfront about their motives. I’m even fine with Elexis Sin, what with her being modelled after an actual living woman (ICBW). Sure, in Tomb Raider you spend an awful lot of time staring at Lara’s butt. However, it’s always suitably dressed for the prevailing weather.

No, the games that get me are the ones where porn-like women are totally irrelevant. Games like Conan with its stripper-style animation of rescued captive women [linked video NSFW].

Here’s X-Blades, an upcoming anime hack-and-slash which falls straight into the offensive pile:

Introducing Ayumi…

This charismatic heroine is a fearless treasure hunter who has often used her gun blades to fight her way out of seemingly hopeless situations.

See the X-Blades website for more character info. Here’s a picture of Ayumi.

Nice T&A pose. You know where else you can find women who pose like that? In newspapers. On Page 3 [also NSFW]. Quite apart from the fact that she looks about 14 years old, I suppose Ayumi ditched the chainmail bikini because it was too cumbersome, right?

Perhaps I’m not being fair, choosing a promotional wallpaper image. Here’s an in-game screenshot from the media section of the website:

Classy character design, there. Of course, being a kick-ass sword-and-gun-wielding heroine, Ayumi needed to be rescued by a man. Here’s Jay.

Jay is an adventurer like Ayumi and can also be found on the Temple Island. He rescues her from a deadly trap, tries (without success) to free her from her curse and attempts to support her in her fight against the Powers of Darkness.

And his picture:

Note the buffed and manly pecs. Marvel at the well-endowed codpiece. Gasp at his sexy revealing G-string.

No, wait. In my dreams. Us hetero ladies don’t get to play with hot men. I guess it might threaten the developers’ collective masculinity.

I’m not saying that the solution to female objectification is male objectification. It would just be nice if most (not all) character designers could get their heads out of their collective asses for five minutes and think about a world that contains people who aren’t white, male and aged 15 to 25. There are a lot of us out here, also with games consoles. Between us, we have a crapload of money and we’re not spending it on you.

I wonder why…

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