A Rant On Games and Boobs

[DrSpike]

I'm not a teenager and I like boobs in games. Two of my favourite things in a nice neat package.

[duke o' york]

That's called a bra Spike.

I don't care - I'm not too worried about graphics anyway, but some of the Japanese "bondage schoolgirl" stuff from Final Fantasy games is a bit worrying.

[DrSpike]

So you are more into Chinese bondage schoolgirls?

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Jamski
Boobs are awesome. Games are awesome. Games with boobs are AWESOME.

Someone QFT me.

QFQFT

[Standup]

Formal logic: In commercial games, developer time is not infinite. Adding more time towards perversion results in less time for the actual artwork.

A pair of cartoon boobs is perversion ? This isn't off topic but i think i can say we're probably not going to agree on many things based on that statement.

There's a UK magazine (PC Format) that always puts a bikini clad model on its cover (not always large breasts ) and there's debate in the letters page about once a year. Some people feel it's childish, makes all games players look like nerdy teenagers and occasionally someone suggests its demeaning. The publisher replies that when they don't put a girly model on circulation falls so commercials win. I'd rather they didn't put a model on - not because i don't agree with the principle but because it just reinforces the nerdy teenager with no friends stereotype (and i haven't lived with my mother for 20+ years). Similarly with boobs in games my only objection is that it may in some people's eyes hold the industry back from some sort of mainstream acceptance - although i think its pretty much there now. But it probably means games and PC mags sell when otherwise they wouldn't so that's a good thing.

[Barinthus]

Didn't playboy have an issue on this a while ago. I posted teh thread lol

[Zevico]

Oh, so then it's like every single RTS game ever

How many RTS games feature characters nowadays?

And this irritates you... why?

Because it's ridiculous. With the possible exception of BG:2 I haven't seen a game where boobs did not somehow feature prominently in the female characters. And even then one could argue that they just didn't have the capability to put them in "properly".
I wouldn't mind if it was an occasional thing. If one out of every 5 [or whatever] female characters looked like she was Pamela Anderson. But it takes away from the "reality" of the game to have more than that. Lots of other posters have explained why.
And it was a mistake to buy NWN, as I expected it to be of the same (or similar, perhaps a bit worse) caliber as the BG series, storyline wise. Otherwise there's no motivation to actually complete the single player version of the game.
And the fact that every RTS game that featured characters did so badly is not exactly true. If one counts BG as a RTS, then it certainly has a pretty good storyline (or at least storytelling). As an RPG it centred on its storyline, a fact that Black Isle stupidly forgot when making NWN.
Overall, there's clearly a trend towards "Hollywood-ized" games featuring pathetic storylines for the sake of attention grabbing games made worse by the fact that they try to be "attention" grabbing. Others here have put it quite well.

[DrSpike]

Well perhaps you can elect on your travels to take muscled male characters with buns of steel instead.

[Urban Ranger]

I don't believe this.

We have games with graphical depictions of demons, undeads and other sorts of things that come out from nightmares. We have games where we get to run over living beings with cars, cut their heads off, slash open their abdomen, shooting them with various sorts of weapons, causing blood to flow freely, etc. IOW, extreme (gratuitous) violence.

And people complain about the size of boobs on a couple of women characters? This makes me feel like ripping their heads off with my bare hands!

[DrSpike]

I believe Mark tries to discourage that.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Zevico

How many RTS games feature characters nowadays?

Nowadays? Well, I haven't owned any RTS games for a while, but my impression was that they pretty much all do. Everything by Blizzard, Westwood, etc.

Because it's ridiculous. With the possible exception of BG:2 I haven't seen a game where boobs did not somehow feature prominently in the female characters. And even then one could argue that they just didn't have the capability to put them in "properly".

I find "ridiculous" to be an inadequate explanation of why said boobs are bad. I'll keep reading to see if it shows up.

I wouldn't mind if it was an occasional thing. If one out of every 5 [or whatever] female characters looked like she was Pamela Anderson. But it takes away from the "reality" of the game to have more than that. Lots of other posters have explained why.

Are you kidding me? Of all the realism issues in games, the one that bothers you the most are breasts? True, the ratio of big ones to small ones is very much exaggerated in games. But then again, so are a lot of other physical traits - I played NWN for several years on various servers and I saw maybe two or three characters that used the "fat" body type. "OMG everyone here is so svelt, muscular, and trim? How can that be?" Especially in games where we play heroes, people like to look heroic, which generally includes good-looking. Many, if not most men consider large breasts, within certain limits, to be good looking. What exactly is so hard to understand?

And it was a mistake to buy NWN, as I expected it to be of the same (or similar, perhaps a bit worse) caliber as the BG series, storyline wise. Otherwise there's no motivation to actually complete the single player version of the game.

You missed the point of NWN, then. It was an awesome multiplayer game, and had a marvellous editor.

And the fact that every RTS game that featured characters did so badly is not exactly true. If one counts BG as a RTS, then it certainly has a pretty good storyline (or at least storytelling). As an RPG it centred on its storyline, a fact that Black Isle stupidly forgot when making NWN.

BG is not an RTS. It's an RPG. And I re-iterate what I said about NWN; the single player was never assumed by most players to be the focus of the game. The idea was to turn Dungeons&Dragons into a multiplayer online experience, which, with some reservations, I think they did quite well.

Overall, there's clearly a trend towards "Hollywood-ized" games featuring pathetic storylines for the sake of attention grabbing games made worse by the fact that they try to be "attention" grabbing. Others here have put it quite well.

Games, like all forms of entertainment, must grab attention by definition. It may be, at worst, crass commercialism, but that's how the selling of entertainment works. Movies, TV, music, even books - computer games are hardly unique. I for one don't think it's a big deal.

As for pathetic storylines... well, duh. Most movies are lame. Many games have bad storylines. Unfortunately, not everyone is a great writer. Maybe you're more of an SP guy in your RPGs - that's fine. But the wave of the future is multiplayer, and in multiplayer it hardly matters what story the game company gives you - the point of the game is to create your own.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I don't believe this.

We have games with graphical depictions of demons, undeads and other sorts of things that come out from nightmares. We have games where we get to run over living beings with cars, cut their heads off, slash open their abdomen, shooting them with various sorts of weapons, causing blood to flow freely, etc. IOW, extreme (gratuitous) violence.

And people complain about the size of boobs on a couple of women characters? This makes me feel like ripping their heads off with my bare hands!

I believe that would be the prudes on this forum, UR. Violence, well that's ok! But sex? NOOOOOO... EVIL!! Cover them up! Head to toe in black! No wanna see boobies!

And then you get the hilarious "drawing big boobs takes away from the graphical artists ability to create 'art'"

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


I believe that would be the prudes on this forum, UR. Violence, well that's ok! But sex? NOOOOOO... EVIL!! Cover them up! Head to toe in black! No wanna see boobies!

And then you get the hilarious "drawing big boobs takes away from the graphical artists ability to create 'art'"

actually, when some of us complain about violence in games, we are attacked as prudes.

[Cyclotron]

I highly doubt that it took developers significantly more time to make Lara Croft a D-cup instead of a B-cup. It's not as if they had to write a whole "breast rendering program" especially for her or something.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
I highly doubt that it took developers significantly more time to make Lara Croft a D-cup instead of a B-cup. It's not as if they had to write a whole "breast rendering program" especially for her or something.

I don't know about tomb raider, but there are games with very in-depth boob physics.