At what point in gaming's long history of Nathan Drakes (Uncharted), Sam Gideons (Vanquish), Cole McGraths (Infamous), and Booker DeWitts (BioShock Infinite) did designing main characters to be attractive become a bad thing? Is it only when women are dolled up that things become problematic? Dragon's Crown is an excellent case study for this sort of thing. The male characters in Capcom's PS3/Vita hitthe armor-clad hunks of muscle that more closely resemble a bipedal bison than a humanwere brushed off as amusing caricatures; the women, however, with equally absurd bodies sashaying about, came under fire. This raises a number of interesting questions. Would the reverse be true if the gaming demographic was 80 percent female (not to suggest that it is currently 80 percent male; it's much closer to a 55/45 split, actually). Male protagonists are so regularly chiseled and masculine because male gamers, studies have shown, enjoy playing as those sorts of characters. The same is true for women, mind, meaning attractive female leads do plenty more than turn heads. The same escapism-rooted projection applies: people like pretty, it's just how our brains work. At the end of it all, being sexy isn't a bad thing. We've said the word approximately 400 times in this very article, yet no disasters have torn the world asunder. (WhatCulture apologises for any disasters that may have torn your world asunder.)
A freelance games writer, you say? Typically battling his current RPG addiction and ceaseless perfectionism? A fan of horror but too big a sissy to play for more than a couple of hours? Spends far too much time on JRPGs and gets way too angry with card games?
Well that doesn't sound anything like me.
