4. Assassins Creed Has No Room For Female Characters
Much like their geeky brethren comic books, video games have long since had a problem with representation. The industry and culture as a whole still seems to labour under the faulty belief that the only people who play games are (usually white) men, and that girls are not only not allowed in this He-Man Woman Haters club, but they have an active disinterest in ever picking up a controller. As such, the amount of playable female characters in games that arent Lara Croft - ie with proportions meant to appeal to the base desires of a male player - are remarkably slim, because if there arent any ladies playing video games then why would you bother coding in characters for them? Which is ridiculous on two counts since, duh, women do play games, and if dudes can suspend their disbelief to play as a magical Italian plumber they can probably deal with being a woman. Unfortunately if youre an Assassins Creed fan that latter thing cannot be tested, since Ubisoft failed to put a female character in the latest game Unity. Which might not have been as big a deal if the developers hadnt claimed the reason they didnt bother was because it wouldve simply taken too much work, which is of course nonsense and should be treated as such. And was!
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
