Guns, Cars 'n' Tits

OMG Bewbs!

For the first time, however, the breasts are suffering for it. While Soul Calibur and its ilk display their boobs with pride, other games are professing a different kind of realism, and core audiences are clamoring for hardly any breasts at all. It sounds absurd, but it's happening all around us, and reality is to blame.

When Gears of War came out in November of 2006, critics hailed the graphics as the most realistic in the console world. The particle effects were top notch. It had a level of immersion that set it apart from the crowd. It was beautiful - but it wasn't without flaws. Gamers quickly pointed out that reality is apparently very, very brown. It's also obscured by dubious graininess and bloom effects. And, worst of all, reality according to Gears was breast-less.

In all its realism, Gears removed women almost entirely from the world. Crysis, another game praised for its hyperrealism and robust physics engine, had no women whose bosom utilized either feature. It seems the tides are turning against the 14-year-old boy in his basement.

The trend was obvious enough to spot, but few did. Sony contributed by releasing Heavenly Sword last fall featuring a strong female lead named Nariko. It was obvious she was created with men in mind when it came to her looks. In fact, the developers took Nariko's character down a path that made her empathetic to players of both sexes. She was deep, intelligent, caring and interesting. Consequently, hardly anybody noticed her downright conservative garb (for videogame characters, anyway) and modestly proportioned breasts.

A year later, EA will soon release Mirror's Edge, a game with a strong, rebellious Asian female named Faith as the lead character. Enthralled by the trailers, gamers are salivating - but not at her. In fact, it's safe to say that many of those who have seen the gameplay footage don't even realize she's female. Faith, it would seem, is the least sexualized woman in gaming history.

Boobs are a barometer of realism in games. As characters are designed and constructed to have more depth, shallow features like cup size are no longer necessary. When the complexity of virtual worlds rises, the importance of hooters quickly drops. Characters like Nariko and Faith are sufficiently unique in themselves that their chests are the least of our concerns.

Digital boobs may soon be relics of a bygone era, of a period in which developers simply couldn't build an attention-grabbing female character without them. They will be greatly missed, mourned on countless internet threads. But don't despair. After all, Japanese developers will still be making games for a long time.

Brooks Brown is an award-winning author who leaps at any chance to utilize breasts as an allegorical tool regarding the artistic growth of a medium.