10 Biggest Mainstream Misconceptions About Video Games

6. The Medium Itself Is Sexist

Since the atrocious and widely condemned Custer's Revenge had a singular goal of reaching the end of the level to rape a Native American woman, games have been labelled as sexist. Throughout the late 80s and the 90s, things weren't helped by the industry's depiction of women, as either objects of desire or useless damsels who were always in need of rescuing. Even when one of the first independent and strong female leads came along in Tomb Raider, they still gave her enormous norks that seemed to get bigger with each subsequent game. But in recent times the view of women in games has shifted immeasurably, gradually becoming less sexualised and steering towards being more realistic, both in character and physique. Take The Last Of Us, which had arguably one of the best female leads in history in the form of the foul-mouthed Ellie, Mirror's Edge had Faith and the recent reboot of Tomb Raider even managed to right a lot of wrongs with Lara Croft, removing sexuality from the scope of her coming of age tale. The problem with the concept of sexism within games is that people blow things enormously out of proportion. People have a field day with Bayonetta and her hyper sexy, stylised image but then forget the context around it. Bayonetta is a very sexualised character, with a script full of double-entendrés in a game that is so over-the-top it's actually hilarious. And that is the point of her, the game is over the top, fantastical and frantic which is reflected in her character design. You wouldn't expect a dowdy Librarian type in a cardigan to be flying through the air kicking seven bells out of the soldiers of Heaven, would you? The less said about Dead Or Alive: Paradise though, the better.