Retro Review: Metal Gear Solid Gameboy/Metal Gear Ghost Babel

  -Introduction-

Metal Gear Solid on the original Playstation remains one of the most popular titles of all time, giving birth to the Metal Gear Solid series of games which remain legendary for their excellent gameplay, captivating storylines and impeccable voice acting. People know all of this already, but what some may not know is that Konami also produced a Metal Gear game on Nintendo's Gameboy Color, nearly two years after the release of Solid. In Japan it was known as Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, but renamed to Metal Gear Solid in North America, presumably to take advantage of the success of its Playstation predecessor.

    Fans who may have seen the GBC version of Metal Gear Solid laying beneath the glass of the display case in video game shops may have dismissed it as a crappy, 8-bit version of a game they love for the small screen. Those people, however, would be dramatically incorrect in their assessment. Featuring a brand-new story, surprisingly solid (no pun intended) graphics, and effective, familiar gameplay, Metal Gear Solid on the Gameboy color stands as one of the most impressive Gameboy titles of all time. There are many modes of play in this game, but for this review, we'll focus on the main game as well as the VR Missions.

    This non-canon story follows Solid Snake seven years after his mission at Outer Heaven. Recruited by Colonel Cambell to defuse another potential world disaster, Snake finds himself back in Galuade to confront the demons of the past as well as the demons of today. This time the terrorist struggle is spearheaded by a renegade group of elite soldiers known collectively as Black Chamber, each member boasting a dangerous special ability. Heading this group is Black Art Viper, a vindictive near-insane warrior specializing in tricks and traps.Snake must stop the terrorists from utilizing a new model of Metal Gear to launch a nuclear weapon.

  -Presentation-

An inauspicious start to the mission.

Graphics:   Graphically, Metal Gear Solid on the Gameboy Color is artistically average during regular gameplay but excels at details and movement. Solid Snake is drawn from 8 different angles, meaning that he will turn to face any direction in which he is running. The same is true for the enemy characters. Metal Gear's use of 8 angles is a subtle detail that goes a long way in improving overall presentation, although the character sprites are too small to show any facial features during the normal gameplay. Environments are rendered colorfully and clearly, and are successful in basically depicting that which they are meant to be, although the overall design of various indoor stages can tend to be a bit homogenous to each other. The game features several cutscenes in between chapters which feature the characters rendered in greater detail amidst generally generic backgrounds. These cutscenes are static much of the time with occasional, simple animations such as a turning head, shaking fist, or the graceful fluttering of Snake's trademark bandana. The Codec screen is designed very similarly to the one in Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation, even with some fun little screen noise effects and static on the images of the speaking characters. On this screen, character's faces are drawn in better detail, but aside from the screen noise effects they remain completely unanimated, even during exclamatory outbursts.

  Sound:  The game's sound effects are about par for the Gameboy Color era, but there are plenty of them, be they entirely different or recycled variants to at least retain some variety. Expect various forms of beeps, buzzes, and thuds. There are multiple explosion sound effects which sound pretty good for what they're working with. Like most Gameboy Color games there is no spoken dialogue, only captions.

And are you related to Sephiroth?

  Music: The music ranges from somewhat boring to excellent. Some of the music is original to the game while other tracks are based on their Playstation counterparts or even harken back to the original Metal Gear game of the 80's. Although none of the music is repetitive to the point of torture, some tracks can start to get old if you're stuck in any one area for enough time, especially since the music for many of the indoor areas is the same. The music really shines during boss encounters, boasting the kind of epic 8-bit boss music Konami is known for. While the boss music in the Playstation version tries for a more "epic" vibe, the music within this game is more of a heavy-metal, action-oriented sound to get the blood pumping for ass kicking. The best piece of music in the game is easily the music which plays during the final battle, returning to the series' epic-style roots and successfully conveying a sense of finality to the battle at hand.

    -Gameplay-
  
Main Game

    The gameplay of Metal Gear Solid on the GBC is the most impressive part of the game. Controls are responsive and movement is fluid and easy to handle. Despite the simplified design, the game incorporates many of the themes seen in the Playstation release. Stealth is a premium in this game, and the player is able to utilize many techniques to achieve it, including wall-hugging, tapping a wall to lure an enemy, crawling on the ground or into a crawl space, as well as in tall grass or under water to remain unseen. The player can also travel through the air ducts either to remain unseen or to gain access to an otherwise unreachable area. Controlling Snake is easy to learn with few detracting quirks.

Good thing snake isn't claustrophobic.

    As with the Metal Gear Solid we know and love, the player will try to find their way through various areas while picking up weapons, ammo, health-restoring rations and keycards for locked doors. Familiar facets of your mission also include having to blast your way through thin walls with plastic explosives, using remote controlled missiles to reach targets that Snake himself cannot, and utilizing night vision and thermal goggles see in the dark and/or detect infrared lasers. Including these themes into the game help to keep the gameplay from becoming a simple run-around in a series of glorified labyrinths.

 The in-game arsenal offered to the player is a bit smaller, including a Pistol, Assault rifle, C4 explosives, Landmines, Grenades, Chaff Grenades, Stun Grenades, and Nikita Missiles. It's enough to keep things more interesting although as with most Metal Gear games, most of your time is reasonably spent with just the pistol or the assault rifle in the case of large fights. Items such as body armor, a gas mask, and a landmine detector make their return as well. The "Fogger" device, which emits smoke to allow the player to see invisible laser beams, is likely the result of censoring, as the device looks suspiciously like Snake's trademark cigarettes and is already in the player's possession at the start of the game. The inclusion of these gadgets help bring the game further into familiar territory and add to its complexity.

  And of course, when out of other options, the player can slip into the trusty box.

I wish I were that relaxed.

  The enemies of the game aren't particularly smart but certainly aren't ineffectual. While knocking them out doesn't seem to convince them that something is amiss, they're fairly accurate with their gunfire and annoyingly effective with their gun-whipping. Enemy soldiers can become suspicious if the player taps on the wall or walks over some kind of noise-making floor, and will become alerted at the sound of any weapons discharging, save for the suppressed pistol. Once alerted to the player's presence, enemies quickly spawn from seemingly nowhere to surround Snake. Reasonably aware players will be able to evade or eliminate the enemies without much challenge but doing so while staying in the same area can be frustratingly difficult with the respawning. In many cases the player can take advantage of a little quirk by changing screens from one area to other in quick succession in order to eat away at the ALERT counter, as it takes a little while for enemies to spawn in the new area if one isn't already assigned there. It can also be annoyingly hard to regain the upper hand on an enemy after being knocked to the ground from a gun-whip, as Snake often won't be able rise and put enough distance between himself and an enemy to evade another knock-down. Snake's inability to quickly turn and attack an enemy in one swift motion can also lead to frustration. The standard battle system is simplistic but it's enough to motivate the player to remain unseen.

A surveillance camera!?

    Other enemies/obstacles remain such as surveillance cameras, gun-cameras, dogs, landmines, and trap-door floors in order to change up where your challenge comes from. Cameras can be temporarily snuffed out with a chaff grenade while mines can be detected with, yes, a mine detector.

There's a reason Claude always lets Jacques go first

 The game's replay value is increased with the varying difficulty levels. Your enemies' attack power and hit points varies with the chosen difficulty level, along with whether or not they can be killed by hand. On Hard or higher, only weapons will kill an enemy soldier which will greatly change your overall strategy experience.

It's on like Donkey Kong other fine Konami® games.

The boss encounters are adequate in providing a climax to each chapter of the game, even if they're not the kind of profound confrontations we've come to eagerly await in the Playstation release. The bosses are generally pretty simple to take down although on harder difficulty levels some of them are extremely frustrating, especially Marionette Owl whom you must fight in the dark and punishes you for striking the wrong target. Appropriately, the most challenging boss fight in the game tends to be showdown between Snake and Metal Gear itself, which is something that pretty much none of the console releases can say. The battle with the iron giant may not feel as epic as the fight in Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation, but it is enough to provide a suitable climax for the game to build to. And for what's it's worth, the design on Metal Gear is pretty darn good.

    The implementation of the Radar is passable but not stellar. It helps give a general idea of where nearby enemies are but it's not great for much else. Unlike Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation, there is no differentiation between dangerous enemies or objects. Soldiers, cameras, dogs, incoming missiles and landmines all appear as a redish dot. It's especially annoying when in a mine field that also happens to contain enemies (although that tends to happen more often in VR Training). There is also no more representation of an enemy's field of vision, so you'll be unable to see which way an enemy is face, and how close is too close.

In spite of the name this floor isn't entirely made of plastic explosives.

    Interestingly and unlike other Metal Gear games, while the overall gameplay remains similar to what we classically know as Metal Gear, the game is laid out in stages/levels, rating your performance after you complete each one (don't feel bad if your rating is almost always "terrible" it seems unavoidable the first time through...and for much of the subsequent play-throughs). It's easy to forget, however, that this format is in place, as there is usually decent time in between "chapters" while you're trying to figure out just exactly what to do to move on. The good thing about the stage format is that since you are unfortunately unable to save more than a single game at a time, you can at least go back to any stage you've cleared if you want to play that chapter over again. However, you will only be equipped with the items that are absolutely necessary for completion, so even if you had, say, body armor, an assault rifle, and a pistol suppressor during your initial play-through, those items will all be absent in Stage Select mode.

    Dying will either send you back to the beginning of the level you're in, or to the last significant item you picked up which, depending on where it was, could either be very convenient or extremely irritating. This is especially true for boss fights as dying there can mean a decent schlep ahead of you in order to get back to the fight. Certain items picked up between collecting the "checkpoint" item and whenever you died will have to be collected again, making death exceedingly annoying and paramount to avoid.

    As progress through the game is made, you'll see that the game's story is not nearly as riveting as the console releases, but it's enough to pique your interest as to what is going to happen next. Snake's inner struggle with his own haunted past is as present as it ever was, and annoyingly, so is his subtle fascination with a female, fellow soldier. As the plot progresses you'll see the government conspiracies that made the series famous as well as the usual, (though not as jarring) twists, unexpected pathos for your fallen enemies, and even a moment of tragedy (well it tries to be but the character at focus is a little too irritating for you to care that much). And of course, the whole stopping-the-nuke thing.

Snake considers himself more of a Bishop.

For the most part, the story is sound all the way through although it does fall short in hyping the eventual confrontation with the 'General' whom pilots Metal Gear in the game's most climactic battle. While the fight itself is good, Snake has had literally zero contact with the character up until this point, as he's only seen sporadically throughout the game, broadcasting threatening messages to the US government.

 VR Training

The evil polygons will pay for what they've done.

    Although the main game itself would be more than enough to be a called a complete handheld title, the game generously offers a plethora of VR Training missions for the player to train on or just have something fun to do after completing the main part of the game. The VR missions are essentially a series of mini-missions requiring the player to eliminate a certain number of targets, reach the goal undetected, or complete one of those tasks in a limited amount of time. Interestingly, there are more VR missions featured in this gameboy release than there are in the Playstation version of Metal Gear Solid. The VR missions include Sneaking Mode, Weapons mode, and an Advanced mode allowing the player to dispatch live targets, offering a total 75 unique stages and 180 challenges to complete, an amazing amount of content considering that some Gameboy Games of the time boast less content than what is featured in the VR missions alone.

Trouble brewing

    As expected, the VR missions take place in a virtual-reality world, basically an 8-bit version of the environment featured in the Playstation version. Some of the levels are even essentially identical to their Playstation counterparts. The mini-missions within allow for unique combat opportunities that don't necessarily appear in the main game, giving the player more opportunities to play with their favorite weapons. VR mode isn't necessarily the most thrilling part of the game, but to have so much bonus content in addition to a full game is a big plus. The incentive to complete the mode comes in the form of an unlockable Sound Test (remember way back when that was considered a reward in a game?).

  -Conclusion- 

 As one of the most complete gaming experiences to be licensed for the Gameboy Color, this fun alternative to Metal Gear Solid is indeed a must-have for any fan of the Metal Gear series or just for those who love quality handheld gaming. With a mountain of pros and very little cons, the game is sure to be enjoyable from start to finish, and one that will have players coming back for more soon after completion. Even among today's highly advanced handheld titles, Metal Gear Solid is certain to be among your favorites once you've make the highly recommended decision to make it a part of your handheld collection. Overall a 4.5 out 5 cephalapoint rating.

~Richard

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Top 7 Noteable Video Game Moms

In honor of Mother's Day we present you with our list of  Top 7 notable video game moms because 10 was too hard and 5 was too few.  Warning: This list contains spoilers.

Chrono's Mom from Chrono Trigger

Mom gives you money from the millennial fair and watches your cat (or cats) while you're out saving world. She also doesn't get judgy when you bring home the anthropomorphic frog, the robot or the black mage. Thanks mom!

 Jason's Mom from Friday the 13th on the NES

As a Player, Jason's mom is bad news, great reward if you can beat her, but more likely she's just going to kill you. However you have to appreciate the dedication of a parent who doesn't let decapitation keep them from defending their son.

Eva from the Metal Gear Series

Eva is perhaps the most annoying thing about MGS3. I personally wanted her to die a horribly fiery death at the end of the game. Metal Gear 4 let me know that was no way to think as, without Eva (now going by Big Mama) there'd be no Solid Snake. Being the vessel through which we are granted the treasure which is the greatest of all those code named Snake is clearly is Eva's greatest contribution to gaming, but you also have to appreciate that she's a pretty badass old lady.

Jenova from Final Fantasy VII

Jenova isn't really the most mothering of mothers, but maybe that's because she's a been dismembered and used as experimental biomass most of the time. In spite of that she still manages to instill Sephiroth, her son,  with a fierce sense of family pride and her world domination values. Not to mention she's the second Mom on this list who doesn't let dismemberment stop her from kicking your ass.

Mom from Pokemon

Mom wants to be helpful. Sometimes this means healing your party, sometimes it means giving you running shoes. In Gold and Silver she offers to hold on to some of your hard won Pokemon dollars to save it for a rainy day. Unfortunately mom has a shopping problem and buys things like Magmar Pokedolls with your cash. It's easy to forgive her though when she forks over that rare hyper potion.

Dahlia from Silent Hill

If you're Alessa, Dahlia is the worst mom ever. If you're most of the residents of Silent Hill, Dahlia is the worst mom ever. Heck even if you're a Silent Hill Cultist Dahlia is the worst mom ever, but in a way that works for you. What Dahlia does have going for her is that she's smart, she's driven and she's really fucking evil. Dahlia might torture and sacrifice her own daughter in order to bring her frightening God into the world, but it's an admirable level of dedication to her cause. Without Dahlia, Silent Hill would just continue being a quiet resort town with no monsters, no fog, no warped reality and that would be a travesty to the gaming world.


Honorable Mention:
 

Clement Darling's mom from House of the Dead Overkill

I can't say anything about Mother Darling that can't be better explained by playing this game and if you have played it you know why in many ways the less said about her (and her son) the better. I will say that in spite of the fact that her role in the game culminates in her becoming an especially grotesque monster, it's one of the least disgusting aspects of her character. She's a mom like no other and that's a good thing.

OK so that was actually 8 moms with the honorable mention but hey it's Mother's Day shouldn't we be honoring the hard working moms of gaming as much as possible?

~Stephanie


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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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