[Disclaimer:yes, I am very late to be discussing this but I’m way behind on gaming news…]
Later on this year, Nintendo will be hitting us with another killer app for the Switch in the form of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the fifth installment in the fan-favourite smash ’em up which celebrates all things Nintendo while also managing to be a hot tournament favourite for competitive gamers. The game looks set to really live up to its ‘Ultimate’ suffix too thanks to the inclusion of every character that has ever been playable in a Smash Bros. game no matter if they are obscure, a relative clone of a more popular combatant or a licensed guest fighter. Everybody is in for the throwdown.
As you can probably imagine, there is a lot that can be discussed about such a game but surprisingly (or unsurprisingly if you’ve been around the videogame community long enough) the biggest talking point that I have seen cropping up across the internet is how Nintendo have decided to tone down the sexuality of Zero Suit Samus and…Solid Snake? The ACTUAL surprising element to this is that there appears to be greater outrage towards the smoothing out of Snake’s butt than there is for Samus losing a few cup sizes since the Wii-U/3DS Smash Bros.Yes, I have just typed that and no, I can’t quite believe it either.
While I would love to talk about Solid Snake’s butt definition, I’m more interested in the fact that the fan outrage to this change hasn’t been as fierce as I’d expected. After all, I’d like to think I’m pretty familiar with the gaming community having being a gamer since the early 1990’s and in that time, I have seen a lot of anger directed towards developers who censor their games or tone down specific aspects in order to not offend. To name a recent example, it wasn’t too long ago that Street Fighter fans were pretty pissed when Capcom manipulated the camera angles for Cammy and Rainbow Mika’s intro animations so as to hide a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it crotch shot for the former and an ass slap for the latter.
I should know because Iwas pretty annoyed about it. Not because I demand games to be as gratuitous as possible for no good reason but because I am 100% against the act of censoring or modifying existing designs/products/artwork in order to pander to the easily offended “won’t somebody think of the children?!?” brigade. In the case of Street Fighter V, I felt that this is what had happened: Capcom hastily commissioning a scrappy edit to a couple of harmless animations just in case somebody, somewhere would create negative press born of the crazy idea that a bit of mild sexuality is obviously the devil incarnate. Let’s overlook the fact that Street Fighter is built upon general violence, brutal holds and genuinely evil characters like Bison and Akuma. All of that is fine but Mika giving her big butt a provocative smack is just not on. Oh no.
But I’m going off-track here. My point is/was that I have seen enough of these kinds of scenarios over the years to be genuinely surprised that the reaction to Samus becoming less chesty wasn’t as volcanic as it might have been. Sure, I have read comments of outrage and dismay but the change does seem to have been accepted more willingly than I’d anticipated.
With this in mind, I thought it would be fun to discuss it. Was Nintendo right to tone Samus’ anatomy down and does it even matter anyway?
Samus grew even more top-heavy when Nintendo decided to give Team Ninja the reigns on Metroid Other M. Considering their Dead or Alive work, this was still quite tame.
I feel that the place to start this discussion/debate is at the point just before Samus’s Ultimate re-design. The character had steadily grown more and more busty when you look at Metroid: Other M and also her appearance in Smash Bros. for Wii-U/3DS, the latter being particularly notable considering that her breasts were pretty damn big when the rest of her was reasonably slender. The game also included an alternate costume that placed Samus in a swimsuit-like outfit, further emphasising her sexuality and giving the Deviantart crowd much to cheer about. There was nothing inheritently wrong with any of this but it has to be noted that the character of Samus Aran had changed dramatically in a short space of time.
Samus is meant to be a tough-as-nails intergalatic bounty hunter. The fact that she turned out to be a woman beneath her externally masculine Power Suit was one of gaming’s earliest twists. The fact that she was also an incredibly attractive design was inevitable in a visual-orientated medium of entertainment. However, by the time we were playing Smash on the Wii-U/3DS, Samus was less about her action-packed exploits in space and more about her skintight bodysuit and physical appeal. The problem that many have pointed out is that Samus’ design has become less and less suited for her profession and background and had begun to border on daft. After all, those Smash 4 bunker-buster boobs can’t exactly aid her agility and it’s improbable that a hardened veteran of countless cosmic adventures and deadly battles against the likes of Ridley and Kraid should resemble a flawless supermodel beneath the armour.
So when we see that Nintendo have decided to tone Samus’ figure down, should we be less concerned about meddling for the sake of satisfying Nintendo’s traditional family-friendly audience and more interested in the fact that they might just be trying to get their heroine back to being more believable? It certainly seems to me that this process already began with Metroid: Samus Returns, looking at the concept art below:
Smaller boobs but no complaints at all.
In the Samus Returns art, the character has a flatter chest but is still an attractive design with a more than ample, womanly figure. This to me is getting closer to what a I believe a realistic Samus should look like beneath the armour. I’m all for the sexy-sexy in videogames (as my love for DoA confirms) but even I think that Samus should be an athletic woman in terms of build with some musculature. I would personally go even further with a shorter, more functional hairstyle and an even more athletic figure with more muscle.
Swinging back to the other end of the figure scale, it’s interesting to note that Nintendo originally described Samus Aran as a 6″3, 200 pound muscular woman (source: Nintendo Power) which would put her firmly in the amazonian category where you would expect a woman to perhaps have a more curvaceous, striking body. This was allegedly later re-conned to say that Samus is only that tall when wearing the Power Suit but even if we were take the original description of Samus as how she should look sans armour, the outgoing Zero Suit version from Smash 4 still wouldn’t make much sense. She wasn’t depicted as a mighty amazonian or an athletic girl – just a slinky blonde that had been given large, prominent breasts for pure sex appeal.
The original depiction of Samus…
In this sense, it’s actually surprising that Nintendo had let us have this rendition of Samus for so long because they are traditionally a family-friendly company not known for sexualising their female characters, especially in Western releases of their games. They have also been quite strict in recent times when it comes to censoring games e.g. Tokyo Mirage Sessions (upskirt views blurred/blacked out, certain costumes edited to remove cleavage) and Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water (lingerie-style costumes removed). So you could say that this change for Samus is not surprising at all, especially when the Switch is doing so well and being marketed at an all-inclusive age range.
The flipside of the argument for greater realism is that gaming is meant to be pure escapism so if Samus has bigger boobs and the face of a model then…so what? Not much else in gaming is grounded in reality so why do we need to pick up on certain characters or games and ask for them to make more sense? Gaming is meant to be fun and it is meant to be fantasy so a push for greater realism on any level feels like a direct contradiction. A lot of people like to slate the Dead or Alive games for how their women are designed/depicted and while I am aware of a much larger and more complex debate behind the criticism, the games are ultimately daft and just harmless fun. I can only speak for myself but I don’t play these games and then have an expectation of real women to resemble the likes of Kasumi or Tina. It is escapism and fantasy.
An ocean of sexy ZSS artwork has appeared online since the character’s debut, proving the popularity of the design regardless of realism (or lack of). [source: vengarlsolarblade @ Deviantart.com] Of course, cynical character design and sexy for the sake of sexy is never a very clever thing. I don’t however believe that Nintendo ever set out along this path when they designed Zero Suit Samus. Obviously they must be aware of the reasons for the character’s popularity but do I think that they (or associated developers) have intentionally set out to gradually increase her bust size in order to sell software? No, I really don’t.
Ultimately (pun 100% intended!), I am fairly neutral about what Nintendo have decided to do with Samus. On the one hand, I can’t deny that I like the bustier rendition of the character and I would certainly be aggrieved if Nintendo have actioned a reverse boob-job purely to appease the easily outraged. However, they have given Samus a slightly more realistic figure while maintaining overall attractiveness so I think to get too angry about this would be a bit silly provided the reasons are genuine and not born out of a desire to sidestep potential lashbacks from pressure groups. And as I detailed a little earlier, I would happily go even further and design a sexy, athletic/muscular Samus that strikes an even greater balance between looks and believability.
Besides, there’s always Deviantart for your E-cup (and beyond) equipped Zero Suit Samus…
One of the more interesting pieces of news to come out of the past weekend was the official announcement of Dead Or Alive 6, the follow-up to the popular fifth main entry in the infamous fighting game series which spanned three revisions and two generations of home consoles. Dead Or Alive is a series that just keeps on going regardless of the current popularity of the genre so a new game is never a huge shock but this time, there IS some surprising impressions to take home from what we’ve seen so far.
Hyper-realistic expressions and damage are apparently going to be the focus rather than boob jiggle in Dead Or Alive 6.
On the surface, there’s a lot that will look familiar to anybody who played the last game: interactive environments, a cinematic feel and fast-paced fighting. The big surprise this time is that the developers are apparently going to be lowering the focus on sexualised female characters, a move that has invited considerable disappointment from some corners of the online gaming community. The trailer shows no sign of the series’ famous (or infamous) exaggerated breast physics and costumes are more conservative. Could this be Team Ninja finally growing up? The following quotes from an interview with IGN certainly point in that direction:
“We wanted to make a more cool and more mature Dead or Alive this time, and to that end we made a conscious decision to make characters less sexualized,”
“The female characters are still attractive, as are the men, but first and foremost they are fighters,”
It makes sense on one level. Dead Or Alive has always had a fantastic fighting system with its punishing reversals and counter-holds separating rookies from practiced players but the games have struggled to be taken seriously with some fighting game tournaments even banning select outfits from being used due to their highly revealing nature. It seems that Tecmo are pushing for their established series to gain some credibility at last but will this alienate a large chunk of the fanbase? Can Dead Or Alive stand up on the basis of its fighting system alone?
I would say “yes”. I’ve always rated the games because despite their button masher-friendly combos, they still feel very different to rivals. Combos and movement in general felt very fluid and organic in DOA5, contrasting with the rigid inputs of Tekken for example. The cinematic style of fights was also quite entertaining and didn’t detract too much from the established rules of how a fighting game works.
The outfits may be more practical this time around but fans of the series’ classic ‘values’ probably need not be concerned too much; the girls will still look attractive (and busty enough) if the above screen is anything to go by.
But it should also be noted that the very traits that Tecmo seem keen to tone down this time around are what helped Dead Or Alive 5 become so successful and make them some good money in the process. The new female characters became instantly popular and the game featured a ludicrous amount of costume DLC including many fabric-starved designs that still sold well despite the high price tags. Let us also not forget that the spin-off, Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3, was also massively popular and a hot import for us Westerners who didn’t receive an official version of the game. Tecmo weren’t daft though as the Asian release of the game features full English language subtitles/menus. The point of all of this is to remember that the series didn’t suffer and lose sales because it ramped up the sexiness – quite the opposite actually. In this respect, you can say that Tecmo-Koei and Team Ninja are rolling the dice.
Personally, I really enjoy Dead Or Alive‘s silliness and have purchased quite a lot of the DLC. As I have said in other posts, I see gaming as escapism that encompasses everything that DOA does (or should I say “did”?) and while some may turn their noses up at big bouncy breasts, too many impractical bikinis or gratuitously detailed perspiration, I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy it all. It’s just a bit of fun at the end of the day and I’m fairly positive that spending a lot of time with the games hasn’t turned me into some sort of raging pervert with no respect for real-life women. As a wise person once pointed out on some gaming forum or another many moons again, the characters are designed to look sexy and appealing on purpose – there’s nothing wrong with “falling” for the marketing.
The main concern that this shift in tone invokes in me is the same one that I felt when Capcom felt the need to censor Rainbow Mika and Cammy’s intros in Street Fighter V or when Omega Labyrinth Z was banned for us UK consumers earlier this year: the concern that our medium of entertainment is bowing to political correctness and moving away from sexy females in order to pre-emptively avoid complaints while appealing to a generation of consumers who place female empowerment and equality above simple, harmless escapism. That may seem like an extreme reaction but I won’t apologise for wanting the unrealistic and fantastical in my videogames when I sit down with a controller after a hard day’s work or when I fancy a quick break from real-life tribulations. My concerns are less about what’s happening in DOA6 and more to do with the bigger picture of what we are increasingly being told to accept is “wrong”.
Maybe we’ve seen the end of such outfits?
But let’s also be real for a moment. The women of Dead Or Alive are still going to look attractive and booby enough. Yes, the developers want the female characters to look more realistic and warrior-like but I can tell you now that the alterations will not be that drastic. Remember that the same promises were made before DOA5 launched and the likes of Kasumi and co. ended up looking more detailed than before, not necessarily different. Most importantly, if DOA6 builds upon DOA5‘s fighting then the game will be very enjoyable to play and another nice alternative to what is already available.
And as much as I enjoyed DOA5‘s fanservice, there were several features that totally weren’t necessary and undeniably ventured into the realms of “childish” and “ridiculous”. One such inclusion was the ability to shake the controller which made the girls’ breasts bounce all over the place, usually in a totally unrealistic and unattractive way. There were also multiple settings in the options menu for altering the extremity of breast jiggle which seemed like a step too far even in my opinion. Setting this to “natural” was more than enough for me. If anything, it’s these sorts of things that I wouldn’t mind losing.
So there are several questions facing us before DOA6 launches in 2019. Will it still be a good fighting game? (I would bet money on the answer being “yes” for that one). Will Tecmo drive away more of its fans than it expects? Are they just fibbing about toning the whole thing down? Most of all, should DOA forsake its USP just to “grow up”? It’s like Netherealm Studios announcing that they will tone down the violence in the next Mortal Kombat if you think about it, which we all know would never happen. Clearly bloody, graphic death = shrug of the shoulders but boobs = the devil. Something about that ain’t right.
To conclude my thoughts on this announcement, I will say that jumping to rash conclusions and slamming Tecmo at this early stage would be foolish. The game will still be great and the girls will still be attractive so there will at least be an awesome product next year, however much they tone down the things that make the franchise (in)famous. I think the development period of DOA6 is going to be interesting and it will be fascinating to see how far Team Ninja go with this.
*WARNING – Potentially NSFW images included in the following post!*
Earlier this year, the first game to be refused an age rating here in the UK – and effectively banned – since 2008’s Manhunt 2 fell foul of the Video Standards Council who decided that Omega Labyrinth Z for the PS4/Vita will not be permitted for sale in Britain. Publisher PQube (a company well-known for localising niche Japanese software for us Eurozone dwellers) appealed the decision but failed to change the VSC’s mind. The game was also refused classification in Australia, Germany and Ireland, leaving the United States as the only recipient of Omega Labyrinth Z outside of Japan. The game is expected to be rated as a 17+ “Mature” title.
So, what is so bad about Omega Labyrinth Z that it invited near universal condemnation? Let’s break it down and see what exactly we’re dealing with here…
The Game
Omega Labyrinth Z is – on the surface – nothing special or wholly original. Scratch that; it’s completely unoriginal seeing as how the game is a roguelike dungeon-crawler of the type that we have seen too many times to count. For those that don’t know, the “roguelike” label describes a subgenre of dungeon-crawlers, usually unforgiving in nature with randomly-generated dungeons to loot and enemies that move when the player character moves. Player death usually results in a complete loss of loot so risk/reward is the nature of the beast. The genre saw somewhat of a revival thanks to the likes of the Nintendo DS and PSP though the games were still niche and usually only on the radar of importers. One notable series that broke somewhat into the mainstream however was the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spin-offs.
The OG Roguelike originally released in 1980 was called…erm…Rogue.
But enough of the history lesson. It isn’t the core gameplay itself that has attracted the dreaded ban hammer unless it’s now a crime to punish unoriginality in the world of videogame development (not actually a terrible idea now that I think about it…). Hopefully, this brief overview of the game’s plot from Wikipedia will explain the actual reason:
The game follows a group of girls as they explore a dungeon in search of the fabled “Holy Grail of Beauty”, which is said to be able to grant any wish. Protagonist Aina Akemiya searches for the Grail in order to increase her chest size, as she feels uncomfortable about her small breasts.
In itself, that usually wouldn’t be enough to warrant a ban. It’s the usual titilliating, Japanese fan-servicey stuff that is commonplace in anime and the anime-styled JRPG’s that Japan has been pumping out for years now, many of them being localised in the West without issue. The overriding detail that pushed things too far in the eyes of the Video Standards Council was the fact that the game takes place in a girls school and involves characters that look and sound distinctly underage.
As the girls traverse dungeons, they defeat the monsters within and release “Omega Power”, an energy which increases their stats as well as the size of their breasts, the latter depicted with animations that show their clothes ripping open, exposing their bras. In addition to this nonsensical seediness, unidentified items are appraised by wedging them between one of the character’s breasts and shaking them about (though it is worth noting that this animation is entirely skippable for those who don’t wish to see it). Other points of note are the special items that allow the player to “touch” one of the characters in order to boost their stats as well as defense-boosting equipment coming in the form of underwear.
That’s pretty much the game: another uninspiring roguelike experience dressed up with racy elements designed to titillate.
The Controversy
The VSC here in the UK were not impressed by any of this. Naturally, the fact that the characters are depicted as schoolgirls when all of this hyper-pervy stuff is going on was never going to down well but the touching element as well as the removal of clothing seems to have cemented their decision that the game should be refused an age rating certificate. This comes at a time when we as a society are experiencing the frequent media exposure of child abuse crimes, grooming gangs and online sexual exploitation of minors so it is understandable that organisations such as the VSC will not want to be seen to grant such risque software a retail release, even with an 18 certificate.
The game is completely unashamed. Ratings boards equally unshamed in their damning of Omega Labyrinth Z.
The VSC justified its decision to ban the game by saying that Omega Labyrinth Z‘s content would be “unacceptable to the majority of UK customers” and that it posed significant harm to the “moral development of younger people”
The refusal to grant classification also affects any digital release of the game on PSN.
Analysis
Okay, so we know what the game is about and we know why we won’t be getting it here in the UK (and the the other aforementioned locations). Let’s talk about it: should Omega Labyrinth Z have been treated this way?
The very first thing I wanted to bring up was the fact that this game is a sequel and the original wasn’t localised at all. In fact, it wasn’t even attempted and subsequently blocked. It was just another breast-obsessed anime-styled RPG that was destined to remain in Japan along with countless other games over the years that have centred on similar themes. These sorts of games are pretty normal for the Japanese market and so the initial issue for me is that trying to release a game such as Omega Labyrinth over here is always going to result in a clash of culture. Is it so different to how such “normal” acts as kissing in public or consuming alcohol in the street are considered crimes in the likes of Dubai? Some things are simply considered to be wrong in certain cultures and attempting to bring the two together will result in inevitable resistance from those wishing to protect their culture/society.
In the case of my aforementioned Dubai example, those in power do not wish for their society to be influenced by Western customs. Similarly, the VSC here in the UK – as well as the authorities in general – will not wish to permit the sale of entertainment that appears to promote sexualisation of underage girls. On a moral basis, it’s not really a decision that can be argued.
What we can say is that publisher PQube should have known much better than to even try in the first place. There is undoubtedly a market for such software because Japanese games with similar themes have a niche following all over the world and at the end of the day, PQube are a business and they wouldn’t have attempted to spend money localising the game if they weren’t certain of a profit on their print run of Omega Labyrinth Z. With this been said, wouldn’t it have been fairly obvious that they’d be battening down the hatches and fighting off a storm of criticism over a game that features schoolgirls’ shirts bursting open for the gratification of the player?
Despite the outrage over Omega Labyrinth Z, we’ve actually been seeing stuff like this for years now. It’s nothing new.
Well, perhaps notas obvious as you may think and this leads me into one of my pet peeves regarding the ratings systems: one game getting banned while other similar titles hit the shelves without receiving any attention at all.
To date, SIX Senran Kagura titles have been released here in the UK, all without any blockade. These third-person beat ’em ups feature female ninjas who also look of questionable age. Gratuitous panty shots and utterly titanic boobs also star in this series of erotic fighting games while one of the spin-off games in the series (Peach Beach Splash) takes the form of a third-person water pistol FPS and yes, there are bikinis and no, not many of them are what you’d describe as modest.
A similar lack of fuss was shown when Tecmo added the brand-new character of Marie Rose to Dead or Alive 5, one of gaming’s most sexualised franchises. Though classified as being an eighteen year-old, the character definitely doesn’t look it and you have to wonder – with all of the skimpy outfits available for the characters – why this wasn’t queried.
So Omega Labyrinth Z is the devil incarnate but this gets off the hook?
The simple answer is that those likely to raise issue simply didn’t know about these games. They are after all pretty obscure and will only sell to the same niche target audience over and over. They aren’t widely advertised or featured on supermarket display stands like Call of Duty and FIFA are so unless they are brought to the attention of SJW killjoys, nobody would notice their existence. The same subtle release have been true of Omega Labyrinth Z though had the VSC and other ratings boards across the globe not made it publicly clear that they’d refused to rate the game so why now and why not with the likes of Senran Kagura? You can make a safe monetary bet on the fact that if you showed the games that got away to pressure groups, they’d be outraged and calling for greater controls on our media (not a great thing at all).
So now I find myself at my next point. Omega Labyrinth Z was refused a rating by the VSC on the grounds that it is unacceptable and – more importantly for the point I am about to make – damaging to the “moral development of younger people”. First of all, I feel obliged to remind everybody that the ratings system is there for a reason. Supplying your ten year-old son with Grand Theft Auto is simply bad parenting. Likewise, buying your young child an 18 or ‘Mature’ rated game that has been rated so for its sexual content is also bad parenting. It isn’t the products themselves at fault. The VSC clearly mention “younger people” so if they mean consumers below the age of eighteen then they shouldn’t be playing the game in the first place. Let’s not encourage a culture of blame where “evil” entertainment or alleged poor regulation of media are at fault. Parents not taking heed of the age ratings on a game box and the symbols identifying the content (violence, sexual themes, bad language etc.) need to take some responsibility for their actions.
But let’s say for a moment that playing Omega Labyrinth Z could – worst case scenario – potentially turn a person into a raging, perverted paedophile with unsavoury sexual tastes. On a milder scale, let’s say that it could simply make perverts out of us or promote a subconscious, warped expectation of reality in male minds where all females should be made from an idyllic mould and shopping for F-Cup bras. Young, developing minds being tainted in this way is the concern that the VSC had about Omega Labyrinth Z but if this really such an issue then it would have already happened with the slew of previously released software that the VSC did grant ratings to. Senran Kagura, Dead or Alive, Onechanbara, Valkyrie Drive and too many other games/series’ to mention should have already corrupted gamers on a mass scale yet this isn’t the case. To be so easily influenced by the smut in these games would mean that you are either too young to be in possession of the game(s) in question (see my previous point about poor parenting) or that you are already mentally unstable to some degree and easily open to suggestion. This is a tiny percentage of people in reality and the vast majority of gamers playing erotic or sexy games aren’t going to be damaged by them.
I can defend the game as much as I like but even I find it impossible to defend the way characters’ busts jiggle wildly whenever they start speaking. For me, THIS is the sort of detail that goes too far, not the main content itself.
I have been playing the likes of Grand Theft Auto and other 18-rated games long before I was of the correct age according to the ratings logos on the boxes. Should my parents have bought these games for me? Not at all! However, I didn’t get negatively influenced by them and start roaming the streets, looking to terrorise the city. I didn’t get the idea of driving about dangerously at high speeds and I haven’t become some sort of sex pest with no respect for women. I played games filled with adult content and I certainly haven’t been damaged by them. Am I the only one? No. Everybody at school played the violent videogames well before they should have done and we have all grown up to lead normal, boring adult lives. Mortal Kombat didn’t spawn a generation of young gamers eager to beat others to a pulp and rip out their spines either.
We should also consider that this game originated in Japan. This is a country oft poked fun at for its seedy entertainment and obsession with schoolgirls yet it is also one of the countries with the lowest rates of sex crimes involving minors. If the likes of Omega Labyrinth were so dangerous then Japan – with its utter wealth of suspect software – should be a cultural disaster by now, ridden with rapists and paedophiles but this isn’t the case.
The evidence increasingly points to an overreaction on the VSC’s part and I while I can completely understand why they felt the need to block Omega Labyrinth Z from hitting UK store shelves, I also don’t see the game being the great devil that it has been made out to be.
My Personal Opinion on the game
So what do I think of the game and would I want to play it? First of all, no, I wouldn’t want to play Omega Labyrinth Z but not for the reasons that you’d expect. I wouldn’t play it because I find roguelikes dull and one of gaming’s lazy copy-paste formulas dressed up with different skins. As a gameplay experience, the banning of Omega Labyrinth Z is no massive loss.
Aa far as smutty content goes, I cannot deny that I do enjoy a bit of it. I’m a huge Dead or Alive fan and I also play the anime-styled JRPG’s that usually feature some saucy scripting or unnecessary hot spring side stories. As a veteran of these sorts of games, the majority of Omega Labyrinth‘s premise doesn’t strike me as anything new or particularly outrageous and had there not been a fuss kicked up about it then I wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow at an RPG where the goal is to collect energy that increases the size of the female characters’ chests.
I don’t find this offensive at all unfortunately. Sorry.
As far as I am concerned, videogames (like movies and books) are escapism and I firmly believe in only the very worst being censored or banned. If somebody wants to ogle anime boobs then so what? Let them. Likewise, if somebody wants to piss away hours on a mobile phone puzzler (hours that could have been used on something a lot more constructive) then let them.
If I had to remove something from Omega Labyrinth Z that I wasn’t personally sold on then it would be the whole touching mini game because that does go too far in my own mind. I love me some digital T&A but I don’t get excited by virtually touching up a female character, especially when they DO look so young. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fear for a moment that doing so in a videogame will transform me into some sort of hideous scourge on society but at the same time, it doesn’t turn me on and I do have to concede that the ratings boards were correct to question whether this element of the game was really included in good taste. Had it not been then I’d be a lot more confident that Omega Labyrinth Z would have had an 18 (or even a 16) slapped on the box and sent on its merry way. As it is, it seems like the developers were really pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable. That said, we must remember that the game was designed for the domestic Japanese market first (likely without any concern given to international consumption) and so we are judging a product that has not been made with our society in mind.
I’m less angry about this specific game being banned than I am about a game in general getting banned. I am heavily against censorship and the chokehold that it places on creativity and the arts. I am all for people being able to decide for themselves what they wish to consume or not consume – not for organisations to decide for them. Sure, this one game alone being banned won’t change much but there is always the “where does it end?” question that inevitably comes up when you stop to consider the possibilities. We live in a world where some are shouting loudly to ban this or ban that; demanding that we agree with them about their ideas of what is or isn’t offensive. I for one would like to retain the right to decide for myself.
Conclusions
Ultimately, I don’t think Omega Labyrinth Z should have been banned. As I said above, I believe that the VSC were correct to say “no” to the aspect of the game that involves touching up girls because let’s face it: it isn’t something in a videogame that anybody could proudly admit to doing is it? At the same time, I don’t for a second believe that the game was developed to promote or glorify such activity in real life. Pervy games have always existed in the Japanese domestic market and I see this as a case of a developer simply getting carried away and pushing the boundaries of acceptance. For something really nasty that definitely should have been banned, look no further than the infamous “Battle Raper” fighting game on the PS2…
But due to the inconsistencies with what draws the attention of those rating our entertainment, the fact that I don’t believe a game like this could genuinely damage minds and the fact that I think we need to be free to decide for ourselves what we feel comfortable with consuming, Omega Labyrinth should have been left alone. The game should have been released with the highest rating available and then it’s up to us to say “You know, I like the look of this game but some elements are a bit too much so I’ll pass”.
We need to also bear the snowball effect in mind when it comes to censorship, the resulting damage on the arts and pre-emptively bowing to the will of pressure groups. Capcom, don’t forget, censored certain aspects of Street Fighter V that it was concerned would draw criticism from some corners and that was – in my opinion – very sad to see. I certainly won’t lament missing out on Omega Labyrinth Z‘s roguelike gameplay but its banning over here in the UK carries greater symbolic significance in my mind.
Contrary to the fact that I’m not posting on here every day, I do actually have a lot of things to say and various topics/reviews semi-written in my mind (just not physically typed-up where it matters…) so it’s a shame that life just loves to get in the way. Anyway, today I have found some time…time to plunge my arm into that insane melting pot of thoughts that is my mind and retrieve this topic centred on Femme Fatales in videogames. Or “Why I find dangerous, psychotic videogame girls sexy”. Yeah, that didn’t sound so great as the official title hence why I didn’t go with it.
So, what is it about femme fatales that I like so much? Well, I’m probably not alone in saying that I find strong women attractive and as much as I will unashamedly confess to having fun with pretty bimbo types in the likes of Dead or Alive Xtreme, I much prefer a strong lead female with a well-written personality/backstory. That’s the normal part. The not-so-normal part is that I find the psychotic, killer archtype pretty damn attractive as well when it comes to videogames (and books and movies too for that matter). Maybe it isn’t so strange though given how many guys seem to get some serious wood over DC’s Harley Quinn?
As well as attractive, I just consider the really bad girls to be straight-up cool and interesting. To better illustrate my point, I’ve compiled a shortlist of some of my favourite femme fatales who immediately spring to mind…
Tira (Soul Calibur III)
Let me begin by saying that Soul Calibur‘s most attractive lady is – without any doubt – Sophitia for her Greek Goddess-like charms and I will always ‘main’ her in any SC installment or at least her style via custom-created characters (the less said about her absence in SCV and poor replacement in the form of her daughter, the better). When Tira was introduced in Soul Calibur III however, I took an immediate liking to her. The blue hair was very out-of-place in the game but otherwise, I really dug her sexy green rags, feathers and pet raven. Most importantly though, her fighting style was new and unique and actually utilised her loopy personality with multiple stances accompanied by visible mood swings for the character. Tira is nuts and loves killing in an excitable child-like way that really does remind my of Harley Quinn. A really fun character that I am pleased to see appear in every installment since her debut.
Jane Doe (Devil’s Third)
Devil’s Third for the Wii-U is no classic. It was in fact, a pretty poor game in my opinion that could (and should) have been something rather more special but the end product was a generic third-person action game full of the cheap crap that should have been left behind years ago in videogames such as invisible walls, inconsistent difficulty spikes and painful linearity. There were a few good elements though and some interesting characters (that were pretty much wasted by being in this game) such as Jane Doe, one of the toughest bosses in the game. A voluptuous Spanish beauty clad in a traditional Japanese kimono (when you first meet her in the game), she soon ditches the far eastern garb for…sexy lingerie and a massive rifle?!? Yep, she’s a bit of a mish-mash of things but all you need to know is that Jane has killer curves and equally dangerous attacks. Fight from a distance and she will try to gun you down but get up close and personal and try to dance toe-to-toe with her? Yeah, you will probably die…a lot. She has several kinky moves involving choking Ivan with her thighs or trying to break his neck while making suggestive groaning noises. If this kind of thing turns you on then repeatedly falling foul of her cheap one-shot kills may not be a terrible thing.
Bad Girl (No More Heroes)
Surely a cute blonde in a Little Bo Peep get-up can’t be that dangerous, right? Wrong. The original No More Heroes was one of a slew of games for the Wii that dared to ignore the trend for family-friendly software on Nintendo’s crazy successful lil’ white box and us gamer’s loved Suda51 for it. The sequel is arguably the better and more streamlined game but the original is worth playing, even if it’s just for Bad Girl. That sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt image is quickly discarded as Bad Girl reveals herself to be a foul-mouthed, beer-chugging psychopath with an unpredictable personality and a love for beating bound/gagged male gimps to death with her trusty baseball bat. It’s the kind of madness that can only come from somebody like Suda51 and Travis Touchdown’s encounter with this crazy lady is as memorable as it is fucked-up. Is it wrong to be just a little bit turned-on by Bad Girl’s insanity?
Selvaria Bles (Valkyria Chronicles)
Now for character that has partially been ruined on the internet by exaggerated fan art: Selvaria Bles from Sega’s most excellent Valkyria Chronicles for PS3. This is a game that I cannot praise enough and while the sequels are an acquired taste for the truly devoted, the original is an outstanding tactical RPG that was a true breath of fresh air upon release, both in terms of gameplay and world design. The character of Selvaria was one of the best things about the game in my humble opinion. One of the opposing armies’ main generals, Selvaria wields the ancient power of the Valkyrur and is a feared force known to all. On the battlefield she is practically invincible and can destroy tanks with a single shot from her huge energy lance. There is a particular chapter in the game where Selvaria suddenly rocks up midway through the battle and proceeds to utterly demolish a player who foolishly believes that they can actually take her out like any other enemy boss. All you can do is frantically hide and attempt to complete the mission without Selvaria slaughtering all of your units. Valkyria Chronicles’ superb storytelling comes to fore when it initially portrays Selvaria to be a cold, merciless warrior but in reality she is simply being used by Maximillion, loyalty and love for her leader exploited so that he may wield her power in the Europan war. The DLC chapter titled Behind Her Blue Flame is particularly touching as Selvaria is revealed to be warm and caring towards your nameless engineer character. It’s a small bit of quality writing that shows that even the enemy is human and not necessarily evil.
Selvaria makes this list for being a great character in general, a fearsome/memorable enemy boss and a rare example of a female character designed to be attractive but also strong and succeeding on both counts.
Ayane (Dead or Alive)
I suppose when talking about femme fatales, I should be talking about “bad” girls and – as already mentioned – sexy nutcases but Kasumi’s half-sister from Dead or Alive isn’t really either of those things. She’s cocky and arrogant as a character but not an evil/bad person yet I suppose I will say that she leans more in that direction just to get Ayane on a list of some kind – she’s a bad girl at the least in some sense. Whenever I play Dead or Alive, I always ‘main’ Ayane because I love her speed, agility and the way that you maintain a distance from your opponent and punish them when they close in. Of course, it helps a ton that Team Ninja have always made her aesthetically pleasing on the eye and while most fanboys prefer Kasumi, I prefer her purple-haired nemesis for some reason. Surely it couldn’t be because Ayane is one of the most top-heavy of the DOA girls? No (what do you take me for?)…she’s just a cool girl in a cool fighting game. And she’s a ninja – everybody loves ninjas.
Nina Williams (Tekken)
There aren’t may Irish characters in videogames and even less female Irish assassins so Tekken‘s Nina Williams pretty much has the niche to herself although there’s nothing particularly Irish about her, especially with respect to her voice-actress who is…er…not very Irish. This blonde bombshell was clearly Namco’s version of Virtua Fighter‘s Sarah Bryant back in 1994 when the original Tekken was released into arcades and (more importantly) the Playstation. A cool-headed assassin with top-tier combos and a selection of bone-snapping holds, Nina may look like a sexy model but she’s utterly bad-ass and calculating as per her assassin occupation. I’ve always mained Nina in Tekken (after Kazuya) and love her combos plus her variety of special ops-inspired outfits. I even have a soft spot for her solo PS2 game, Death By Degrees, despite the majority of people agreeing that it’s a poor game (possibly something I can properly re-visit and speak about in the future). Also, you have to admire Namco’s way of keeping Nina youthful between Tekken 2 and 3‘s large time lapse by explaining that she’d been placed in cryogenic storage. We certainly weren’t complaining.
There are undoubtedly more great examples of femme fatales that I have forgotten about and countless more from games that I haven’t even played so what do you think? Do you also have a little something for the wackier ladies in gaming? Do you agree or disagree with my choices? Let me know!
Videogame artwork or any sort of art from artists with something to do with gaming is one of my favourite things about the hobby. I’m pretty big into art in general outside of gaming so the two things tend to go really well together and you will definitely be seeing a lot more art-related content here on Darkstalker90 Gaming in the future. Today however is just a quick one to show off this awesome signed A3 print of everybody’s favourite British special agent with the killer booty.
(To see the raw image without my utterly amateurish flash glare reflecting off the plastic frame frontage, click HERE)
The artist behind this stunning work is Stanley Lau a.k.a “Artgerm”, a pretty prolific artist who has produced countless fantastic pieces based on videogame and comic book characters over the years. Cammy is one of my favourite characters so when I saw this, I had to have it. I really love how the image is colourless save for the red of her gloves and beret. The fact that this is hand-signed is a nice bonus too. All I have done is mount it inside a simple edge-less frame with a perspex front, ready for hanging (hence the nasty flash glare ruining one of the print’s focal points!)
Very happy with it.
You can visit Artgerm’s store here to purchase a print of this image amongst other lovely things.
