Bioshock and feminism, point/counter-point

Posted by | October 21, 2009

A recent series of articles about Bioshock brought out an interesting thought-exercise into play when Richard Terrell wrote an article about how the video game is anti-feminist, “Look. Don’t Touch: A feminist critique of Bioshock.” But that was quickly noticed by another blogger, who took a decidedly different approach to not only criticizing Bioshock but also Terrell’s article on the matter by Alex Raymond, “Is Bioshock Feminist? A response in defense of Bridgette Tenenbaum.”

Certainly, Bioshock has a lot of elements resplendent in the nature of it’s Jules Verne 50’s atmosphere and the Cold War era stereoscopy but it does seem that in its attempt to portray a multitude of characters, it didn’t leave out its own profound narrative about the human condition. This is something particularly brought out by the moral dilemma presented in the game play: The Little Sisters.

Neither

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Top 10: Video Game women who don’t use sex to sell

Posted by | October 14, 2009

Truly an excellent example of an article that warms our hearts, plus it happens to cover a lot of games we liked simply because they managed to speak to us out of narrative.

It’s no secret that females in video games are typically blatantly, sexualized byproducts of perverted character design. Between their skimpy attire and grossly exaggerated anatomy, most ladies featured in video games look more like prostitutes than crime-fighting, evil-slaying heroes. While games like Dead or Alive,Ninja Gaiden and Soulcalibur continue to perpetuate the demeaning myth that girls should dress like whores to sell games and kick ass, there are those leading ladies that have striven to break the stereotype.

So here are ten, completely badass video game ladies who are more concerned with messing up faces and ending lives than posing as pin-up girls for a nerdy version of Playboy. It

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