Top 10 Female Videogame Characters who are a lot more than T&A

Let me start off this list with saying that I am a gamer and a girl, but that doesn't mean I hate every single busty super sexualized female character. I absolutely adore Ivy in the Soul Calibur series and while she certainly could beat the crap out of anyone who dared ogle her, no one can argue her character design is totally based on T and A, huge uncovered jiggling masses of T and A frankly. Also, I recently bought a copy of DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball, which is based almost entirely based on watching jiggly scantily clad young ladies run around on sun soaked beaches, I mean there's the "hopping game" as mini-game for goodness sake. In my defense, I like extreme beach volleyball for the dating sim aspect, though that asshole Christie is always throwing away my presents... but I digress. The point is, I'm not making this list to villainize the sexy girls of video gaming. It's just that when a female character happens to be well developed as a whole rather than just in her chest area, it's a nice surprise.

Let me also add the caveat this only applies to characters in games I'm really familiar with so there's no Alyx Vance for example, because I never got into to Half Life 2. I also avoided characters who didn't originate in video games, are anthro, or who are robots/holograms/otherwise abiotic.

So, onto the list (some minor spoilers):

10. Lucca, Chrono Trigger:

Lucca is a genius inventor who carries a big gun, casts amazing fire attacks and is pretty much responsible for saving the world. (If not for Lucca's malfunctioning transporter Chrono and crew would have never known about Lavos)  She pretty much constantly saves the party's ass by being the only one smart enough to figure out how to overcome the things they encounter that can't be simply beaten into submission. Lucca is kind of lacking in the stats department, but luckily her father makes a variety of special items that help compensate for that. I'd like to complain about her needing her daddy to fix her problems, but I feel confident that she could design her own armor if she wasn't so busy doing anything even remotely intellectual in the party.  In spite of her weak base stats Lucca  has some pretty powerful magic though, she is essential to both the strongest  triple tech attacks in the game(Dark eternal and Omega Flare), the strongest double tech in he game (antipode 3) and her single tech, Flare, is the second strongest single tech in the game, so she's certainly not lacking attack power (unless it's a monster with magic resistance).

Unfortunately in spite of  her awesome qualifications she also gets relegated to being your archetypical smart nerdy girl in many ways. Short Hair, Check. Baggy clothes, Check. Glasses, Check. Never the main love interest, Check. Being a glasses sporting female genius who isn't romantically interested in her childhood friend isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just that it's so cliched and honestly Lucca deserves better than a sorry cliche. Though, in spite of being at least 70% walking cliche she still manages to be a pretty admirable character.

 9. Carmen Sandiego, Where in the World/Time/Space is Carmen Sandiego:

The first Carmen Sandiego game came out in 1985, meaning Carmen has managed to be the world's greatest master thief for the last 30+ years. I've played a lot of Carmen Sandiego, I mean hours and hours of my life have been spent on the many incarnations of that game and not once have I ever been able to catch Carmen, I've caught enough VILE henchmen to fill 10 prisons, but never the mastermind herself. Carmen's future and Carmen's past are shrouded in a mystery kind of like Carmen herself. She never appears without her trademark trench coat and red fedora (and ruby necklace if you believe the dossieres, though I don't recall seeing it on her) so you only catch glimpses of her face, but for a lady who lives in the shadows she's built a great empire for herself. Carmen Sandiego is the premier name in Educational games, she's lent her name video games, books, TV shows, and board games. Tons of kids grow up aspiring to be the one to put Carmen behind bars. Maybe master thief isn't the most positive career choice in the world, but Carmen does it well, entertaining us and educating us in the process.

8. Chun-Li, Street fighter Series:

Chun-Li is one of the first really recognizable token female characters. First appearing in Street fighter II in 1991 along with 7 male "world warriors" and was the first female playable character in a fighting game. In spite of being the token girl Chun-Li is consistently portrayed as being strong, muscular and capable of holding her own with the boys. In subsequent games she's been joined by a full roster of female fighters, but she's usually the only one who's fully dressed, as apparently for the "strongest woman in the world" the chain mail bikini principal does not apply. Sure there's a wealth of Chun-Li bikini figures endlessly flowing out of Japan and a few questionable alternative costumes so there's no denying she's sexy but she generally errs more on the side of badass. Chun-Li isn't just the first token girl though, she's a face of the game and often voted as the most popular characters in the entire franchise, beating out even Ryu and Ken. In her earliest incarnations she was a bit weaker than the rest of the roster, but over the years she's developed into one of the most solid and consistent fighters on the roster.


7. Sniper Wolf, Metal Gear Solid:

I have to note sniper wolf definitely has sex appeal built right into her character design, there's zero reason for her to be running around half unzipped in the snow other than gamers like boobies. But she's a lot more than a busty girl with a bug gun.  She's a world class assassin supposedly able to wait days, even weeks for a target without moving or eating, while she doesn't have to wait that long for Snake and Meryl to wander out into the open, she proves what a single well placed shot can do to ruin your day. When Snake encounters her a second time, she proves that she's also a master of camouflage perfectly blending into to the snow field during your battle. All of the foxhound members that are part of the Shadow Moses uprising have interesting back stories, but Wolf's is a little more developed than most. She's not just a run of the mill super warrior Snake manages to best, she's a believable multi-facted person who just happens to be deadly.


6. Jill Valentine, Resident Evil 1:

Jill has evolved over the years to include a lot more T and A and have a lot less character development and depth, which is why I'm only citing the original game. In RE1 Jill's default outfit is pretty unflattering, not to the point where it makes her ugly, but it's pretty far from fan service. She also is one of the strongest members of her elite team of mercenaries, being one of a few that survives the excursion into the mansion. She also is one of the few female characters in the video game universe who can not only keep up with the boys, but she is much more useful than her male counterpart. Unlike Chris, she has a bigger inventory, plays piano and is the master of unlocking. She does fall victim damsel in distress syndrome a number of times requiring Barry to keep her from becoming a "Jill sandwich". However, because of Barry she doesn't have to carry around a bunch of  useless items in limited inventory space unlike poor Chris, so it's kind of a positive in this case. In spite of needing the occasional saving, Jill  is still a pretty kick ass character. She manages to mostly hold her own in mansion swarming with zombies, and defeats the nasty human civilization threatening bosses mostly unassisted.

5. Lara Croft Tomb Raider Series:

I have to point out that Lara is totally a sex symbol, she's been redesigned to be more "normal" now but she's still got an awful lot of T and a good amount of A bobbing across the screen. But being sexy doesn't mean you can't be a well developed interesting character and Lara actually does have a lot more going for her than her cup size. She's smart, strong and independent. Lara struts into ancient tombs all by herself, no silly local guides like the archaeologists use. She starts off armed with her wits, a pair of pistols and world class gymnastic skills. She has the strength to push aside those boulders blocking her entrance to the tomb, the intelligence to solve those insane puzzles ancient peoples seemed to litter their places of worship with, and the marksmanship to take out crazed creatures out for blood while she's doing it.  Should she encounter someone in one of those tombs, Lara doesn't fall in love with them or take it as her cue to wait to be rescued, she usually tells them to get away from her artifacts and GTFO before she starts shooting.

Lara's changed a lot over the years and in her many incarnations, but in spite of being one of the most recognizable sex symbols in all of gaming, she's managed to stay smart, strong and competent.

4. Faris Scherwiz, Final Fantasy V:

Faris is a cross dressing, sword wielding, trash talking pirate captain. Her crew (and the party at first) believes she's male, but she's still so charismatic they fall in love with her anyway. You find out later in the game she's a long lost princess, but she chucks away her royal duties and dress at the first opportunity to go back to being a pirate. If that's not weird (but awesome) enough she also has the highest base stats of any character in the game, a feat which hasn't been seen since the most recent Final Fantasy game. So not only does she have a great character concept and while I'm at it, a pretty fabulous character design, she easily has the best black trench coat in an RPG this side of Sephiroth, but she is undeniably badass. That's not just an opinion there's cold hard numbers to back it up.

3. The Boss, Metal Gear 3: Snake Eater:

The Metal Gear series actually features a pretty large number of well developed capable and confident female characters, as it's a series that really excels in making fully developed  wonderfully realized characters of any gender. The Boss though, has to be one of the most impressive. She influences the entire series, being the director mentor to big boss, and in turn the indirect mentor to solid snake and liquid snake. Not to mention her connection to Ocelot who is consistently causing problems for everyone. Though just being the Metal Gear equivalent of a King maker would be enough, but The Boss is pretty awe inspiring on her own terms. She's the head of the Cobra unit, which contains some of the most intimidating bosses in any of the Metal Gear Games, Co-Created CQC, saved the world from nuclear destruction, gave birth on the battlefield and made battling in a field of flowers completely badass.  In spite of being a main antagonist and intimidating killing machines she's also likeable and you finish the game respecting the hell out of her. She also manages to be pretty and feminine (and not just when her sneaking suit is half zipped) in a slightly more mature and completely believable way. For the most part she embodies everything a well written strong female character should

2. Samus Aran, Metroid Series:

Samus has got to be the mother of all strong female video game characters.  In her first several appearances, she spends most of her time covered head to toe in an impenetrable suit of armor, nary a jiggle to be seen and her profession is bounty hunter, a far cry from things like princess or daughter or girlfriend like most of the female characters of her day. Appearing in the first metroid game in 1986, Samus ran around in her Varia suit looking like the typical one man army in vast nest evil that was so prevalent in that era. Boys who'd NEVER even look at a game with a female protagonist picked up Metroid and if they managed to get one of the right endings, got their mind blown with the knowledge that the badass bounty hunter they'd been using to blow away Space pirates and freaky aliens was perhaps the first non-token female character they'd ever encountered in a game. Notably Samus does appear less than dressed when she's out of her varia suit and the zero suit doesn't leave much to the imagination, but she's spent a good chunk of her decades long career largely unsexualized. Generally speaking, you don't play Metroid because you're thinking about how hot Samus is, you're playing it because she's the most badass bounty hunter in the video game universe.

1. Heather Mason, Silent Hill 3:

Silent Hill is no place for anyone ever, let alone a young girl who hangs out at the mall in her free time, but Heather doesn't care. Unlike most of other protagonist in the series Heather doesn't go into the accursed town looking for ghost stories and giggles, Silent Hill comes to her full force. Instead of cowering in a corner and crying like any sensible person would do, she hesitates enough to be human, then picks up a gun and starts blowing away the nightmare fuel so she can make her way home. Arriving home with her world turned upside down, she doesn't take this opportunity to cry or breakdown or get someone to fix it for her. Instead, she vows revenge on the whole evil town and goes out to take care of business.

Heather is one of the most believable game characters of any gender. One of the few characters who when faced with insurmountable odds and a mind blowingly awful situation doesn't just spout manly one-liners, ask inane questions, or mindlessly stick her hands where no thinking person would. Heather basically tells you: Look, that nasty pile of  bloody monster parts on the stretcher, yeah it's upsetting and I'm certainly not touching it, but I don't have time to be upset by it right now, get back to me later and I'm sure I'll have some words for it.  Heather manages to be feminine in her sporty skirt and vest combo, without being distractingly sexy and manages to be strong without any of the sometimes grating (even for another woman) archetypical strong female character traits. Overall, Heather's gender is about as important as her shoe size. It's a part of her, but doesn't define her life or her character. That her gender is so gloriously unimportant, is one of the things that makes her one of the best portrayals of a woman in any video game ever.


~Stephanie

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Retro Review Tuesday: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego Sega Genesis

In this review I'm covering a true classic, Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego. I vividly remember elementary school class days in the computer lab sitting with world almanac in hand searching for flags, currencies and landmarks, in my quest to capture the V.I.L.E. Henchmen and become a master detective. Finding a vintage late eighties or early nineties computer in the proper shape to play it would be a bit difficult for me the moment (though I admit I'd be oh so happy if one were available) so I decided to go with the port on the Sega Genesis.

-Overview-

I have to start off by saying this is an educational game, a way to trick kids into learning. I always liked to learn and world history and geography were just the sort of thing I was really interested in, so I found it rather enjoyable as a child and as an adult as well. However, I recognize this is a haphazard social studies lesson disguised as a video game. Moving on from that,  the basic premise of the game is that you're an agent for the Acme detective agency who's caseload apparently only includes high dollar, high profile robberies of national treasures from around the world.The perpetrators of these crimes are part of the V.I.L.E. crime syndicate lead by a lovely Ms. Carmen Sandiego, a former spy for Monaco. You track down Carmen and her crew by following some really vague tips from eyewitnesses.

The controls are pretty simple, it's converted from a point and click game and is still just point and click but with a controller instead of a mouse.

Graphically this game isn't one of the better genesis titles. There were several changes made to this release, but it still show the signs of being an early PC game. The pictures chosen for each countries "highlight" are highly pixelated, the images of the eyewitness' have some dubious proportions and some border on inappropriate racial stereotyping. Most of the game is static images, but there are some very simple animations, which are nothing spectacular but are highly amusing and one of the best parts of the game.

Sound wise there isn't much: the sound of footsteps, a plane flying and a couple of short midi tracks whenever you're on the right track and catch a glimpse of a V.I.L.E. Henchmen. They add to the ambiance of the game and I'd be sad if they were absent, but they aren't really anything special or particularly memorable.



-Gameplay-

You start of the game at Acme head quarters by signing in to the crime computer, this is basically so you can save your game and earn a password when you get tired of solving cases. After you sign in, you get a news flash which tells that a priceless world artifact was stolen. You get the name of the artifact, the country location and the sex of the suspect before being told it's up to you to solve the case before 5PM on Sunday. It's Monday morning at 9AM when you start off so you've got 6 days and 8 hours to catch Carmen or her cronies. It might seem like plenty of time, but every time you fly to new area it takes several hours,( the extract number of which depends on how far it is from your current location), getting a warrant takes a couple hours, and a growing detective needs 8- 12 hours of sleep every night (depending on what you're doing when it's past 10PM in the game). That's not even counting the time it takes to investigate the three areas in each location. Making matters worse if you accidentally choose an incorrect location, you have to fly all the way back from the location you left from before you can fly back to the country you should have gone to in the first place.

Now you're all stressed out, worrying about how you're possibly going to be able to fly across the globe , get a warrant, apprehend a criminal and still get your beauty sleep in so little time, but there's no time for that with dangerous criminal afoot so pop a Valium or something and get down to some detective work! The Acme detective agency apparently has a teleporter as you start at headquarters at Monday 9AM and at the scene of the crime was at the exact same time. You may take a moment to breath a sigh of relief as that's at least one bit of flight time you don't have to worry about. Now that you're in the right city, hit the little magnifying glass icon and start searching, you get three locations to investigate, out of nine total locations which vary depending on the city. In each location you'll talk to someone who had some sort of contact with your suspect and they will give you some really vague clues about where they might be headed and possibly some information about the suspect themselves.

This game is intended for children/young adults so if you remember what you learned in basic social studies in high school, you're probably going to know a lot of this information already. If you don't though a World book encyclopedia with all the information you'll need is included with the game. That's making the assumption that you're playing a physical copy that's complete in the box though, if you're playing it cartridge only or via an emulator, there's always search engines to help you along the way. It's also worth noting that this game is 18 years old, so some of the names of the cities and currencies are now incorrect, effectively giving you brief history lesson as well. While I'm on this topic, I have to admit that I have always wondered though how flight attendants and pilots would notice the type of flag the plane was flying and share this information, but not know enough to identify the country by name. These people travel to these places for a living shouldn't they know? (I can forgive the parrot's ignorance) But, I digress.

Once you've sifted through their information you hit the plane button and look at your possible destinations, hopefully you've gleaned enough information to figure out where you're headed. Choose your city/country and head out for another round of investigations. During your investigation you'll see little animations of V.I.L.E. henchmen letting you know you're on the right track. Once you've tracked them to their last location, you'll get animations making it clear that the detective isn't welcome 'round these parts, and if daggers and axes flying at you wasn't enough, the witnesses tell you that you should watch your step. Before you've gotten to this point though, you've hopefully gotten enough information about the suspect to get a warrant.

If you don't have a warrant then when you go to apprehend the suspect they get away and you lose the case. If you've picked up enough information you can just hit the computer button,chose warrant and put in the pertinent information to come up with a single match. However, you should be careful because there are several crooks with similar features and computing takes a couple hours so you should probably take a look through the dossiers to make sure you're going to get an exact match. Additionally sometimes the witnesses don't seem to give you enough information to pin point one crook by the time you get to the last city(especially if you're like me and choose your next destination at the first decisive clue) so you can guess at which one it is and add an additional trait to get the warrant to issue. I find myself curious though, as to why is it that the witnesses can recall how much the criminal did or did not like seafood and share that information with you, but don't think the detective would be interested in what color hair the suspect had. Same thing with note what sort of flag was flying off the vehicle they left in, but not what type of vehicle again... Putting that aside, so long as you've got your warrant you can track to the thief to the last town and capture them effectively.

Once you've captured the criminal successfully, you head back to acme headquarters where you sign in are told that the artifact has been returned to it's original location and let you know how many cases you have to solve until your next promotion. You're then given the option to choose to continue or quit. If you quit, you'll be given a password which will allow you to start from where you left off. Just make sure that you enter your name in exactly the same way as well. The game basically continues in this way until you've solved enough cases to become a master detective and capture Carmen herself. It honestly gets pretty repetitive and since there's a limited amount of countries, you'll probably become very familiar with flags, currencies and popular landmarks if you weren't already.

-Conclusion-

I can't say that this particular version of the game has stood the test of time particularly well. I've got a soft spot for educational games, and a penchant for recalling Jeopardy-esque useless information so it's got a lot of appeal for me. For someone not as interested in the educational game genre though this is going to get pretty old pretty quick. I can say though that it is a classic, I can't think of a single person over 20 that didn't get at least some of their social studies learning from a game or two of Carmen Sandiego. It's spawned countless games and variations as well as two TV shows and while the copy I reviewed may be old with some obsolete information, these games were popular for good reason. They're full of information and they're fun. This version of the game does have some life left in it though and it's interesting to note all the changes the world has gone through in almost two decades, besides if you're reading this there's a good chance you're a vintage gamer anyway so you probably remember when there were still francs and deutschmarks.

~Stephanie

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