Hey, i have an idea. How about in stead of FPS's we make some FPS's? First Person Stabbers? I like a game were i'd use a knife to fight some one else with a knife instead of, As yahtzee says "Me shooting at something really far away and me dying alot"

I demand an avatar of Jim's female counterpart in Blacklight now!

jim in drag O.o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juFZh92MUOY

Aside from the idea of Jim's crotch-less lingerie that has been engraved into my mind, I have to agree with everything Jim said. Though I suppose that's nothing new.

How about some props to Halo for having the option of playing female characters since Halo 3?

gamejunkiey69:
Hey, i have an idea. How about in stead of FPS's we make some FPS's? First Person Stabbers? I like a game were i'd use a knife to fight some one else with a knife instead of, As yahtzee says "Me shooting at something really far away and me dying alot"

Thief and the Elder Scrolls series have melee combat and only that.

I agree Jim. I have played many a game in my time and never used a female avatar, I just don't like it. Similarly my female mates always use a female character when they can so I can sympathise with how annoying it would be if I had to chose the idiotic female blood elf in WoW (which by the way doesn't even look like a girl and is quite obviously a tranny).

Anyway, thank god for you

Good point Jim, but actually in Call of Duty, they do show women, well actually, a woman in CoD4 as she's hear in the mission, Charlie Don't Surf, then you have to rescue her from a downed helicopter in the mission, Shock and Awe

Jim, may I say just what a frankly stunning woman you make. Has anyone ever suggested that you make the change more permanent?

Oh and yeah, good episode as well. Speaking as a dude who is usually more comfortable playing as a dude... needs more chicks.

Well, we still have the good ol' TimeSplitters games. Remember those?

Lots of female characters in both single AND multiplayer.

Great video, point well made.
Also, what's with all the shrimps in the videos recently? Well, more than recently, but I've only just got around to commenting on it.

Funny how old games like Unreal, Aliens vs. Predator 2 etc. had female characters in multiplayer... Modern games are a step down in many directions. Look at Duke Nukem 3D level design for example.

Speaking as a woman who likes shooters, I agree. It would be nice to have the option, at least. And the lack of a female option has led me to not buy at least one game. (Brink - because seriously? Over a quadrillion customization options and not one of them is female? Because it would have cut down on the options available? Could you not have not half a quadrillion male options instead? I don't think anyone would have been unsatisfied.)

Why is it a thing that women have to be petite and short?
They have body sizes that differ as much as men do, sure they have less natural muscle than men do, but that doesn't mean they all have the physique of a 16 year old with two watermelons duct taped to them.

To be fair to MW,BF and MOH most Western Special Forces unit's don't allow women to try out, outside of Delta Force's "Funny Platoon" and some British Intelligence unit's. Also how it is that Halo: Reach (Kat, Six can be female) is the most gender equal FPS I can think of?

Regardless of whether or not it's good overall, the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer did well in this aspect. There is an even split between male and female playable characters in the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, and it works well there. Admittedly it's a coop only thing, with no pvp, but there doesn't seem to be an inherent advantage to using a female human instead of a male human.

Well for modern day shooters I do actually understand that there are few to no women in the field... because that's how it really is. Women are represented but usually if they are at all it's in an administrative capacity. Blame the armies in that case.
(on a side note I'm not sure what that says about our society saying that a males life is automatically less worth than a females life...)

Before you start flaming away I really do think it is all about setting. Take games like Unreal Tournament 3 and Halo Reach which have female characters.
In fact, coming to think of it old favourites like Q3 and UT99 were full of playable female characters. So maybe we're seeing fewer female characters as the trend in FPS shifted from fantasy to realism?

For Aliens on the other hand, that is plain ridiculous and there really isn't an obvious excuse for that one.

I think the cost excuse is bollocks as unless you just have skin changes you're going to have to model different male models regardless.

So yeah probably too few female characters even in some sifi games, but if you want to have a shooter based somewhat in reality then having women in the field isn't really an option as of yet.

ARG! Tall women! I iz be lozing my immersion.

Kitsune Hunter:
Good point Jim, but actually in Call of Duty, they do show women, well actually, a woman in CoD4 as she's hear in the mission, Charlie Don't Surf, then you have to rescue her from a downed helicopter in the mission, Shock and Awe

So the only woman is an earpiece and then a damsel in distress? Kinda just proves his point. And there's still none in the online component.

As a man, I prefer to play as men in online games. That character is my avatar in the world, and playing as a girl feels wierd. So yeah I can imagine some girls would feel the same way.

Although with CoD and BF raking in the money they do with their current gaming model, I can't see them changing any time soon.

razuk:
Aside from the idea of Jim's crotch-less lingerie that has been engraved into my mind, I have to agree with everything Jim said. Though I suppose that's nothing new.

How about some props to Halo for having the option of playing female characters since Halo 3?

I read the description before watchign and hesitated for fear of seeing Jim Sterling in lingerie. I was spared visual scarring but my imagination is now dead.

Kitsune Hunter:
Good point Jim, but actually in Call of Duty, they do show women, well actually, a woman in CoD4 as she's hear in the mission, Charlie Don't Surf, then you have to rescue her from a downed helicopter in the mission, Shock and Awe

While that was the example I was thinking of, I can't get past the fact that it's throwing up an easy target for the militant feminist in me, who will no doubt point out that the fact that the one female's sole purpose is to be rescued isn't all that much of a step forward.

Still, a woman in CoD is a woman in CoD.

razuk:
How about some props to Halo for having the option of playing female characters since Halo 3?

I don't really see how that is deserving of props, since other games have included female mp characters years before Halo 3 was around. Notable examples include Unreal, Quake 3, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Unless you're referring to Halo being a sausage-fest before the third game.

Speaking of Perfect Dark though, apart from No One Live Forever and Mirror's Edge, I can't think of any other fps that has a woman as the main (and only) playable characters in singleplayer.

It's not militant feminism to point out that responding to claims that you don't take women seriously as soldiers by including one as a person in need of rescue is a bit like responding to claims of excluding other races by including a few slaves.

Speaking as a male who is comfortable playing as either male or female avatars in a game, I agree. It would be nice to have the extra variety.

But then, I don't hardly ever play online games, so I'm not sure my opinion on the matter really holds much weight.

Yes but they also have the option to play in 3rd person and is more of a fantasic adventure freaking awsome game that has stealth elements and magic spells and other great things. I'd just like to see a game like call of duty, minus the guns. With a whole lote more blood and a fun but not over complicated mele system.

That was @ RauikuFA Btw

Its funny, I remember there being exactly ONE woman soldier in an FPS game. And that was COD 4, that helicopter pilot you tried to rescue. And that's it as far as I know. Every COD after that never had a female in any kind of combat role or even in a support role.

While there are few women in military combat just having them to be rescued isn't all that much as a positive step. "Rescue the girl" is about as old a gameplay concept as "shoot the thing" anyway so its wasn't all that spectacular in any way at all.

Arqus_Zed:
Well, we still have the good ol' TimeSplitters games. Remember those?

Lots of female characters in both single AND multiplayer.

Heck, that series let you play as monkeys, bears, dinosaurs and squids. The character range in that series is unparalleled.

http://timesplitters.wikia.com/wiki/Characters

*sigh* this made me wish my PS2 wasn't broke.

MatParker116:
To be fair to MW,BF and MOH most Western Special Forces unit's don't allow women to try out, outside of Delta Force's "Funny Platoon" and some British Intelligence unit's.

That's pretty much what I wanted to say. Realism is not a good argument for the inclusion of female characters in shooters like these. However, as we all know sometimes realism needs to take a backseat to other more important things in order to make a game fun. It seems that in most games the main character is performing feats that are realistically beyond any man or woman's ability, so I don't see why we shouldn't allow people to play as women. If she's in a unit that in the real world doesn't allow women, just say that she was so impossibly awesome that they made an exception.

We had playable female characters in bloody old-school shooters like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, and modern ones like Halo: Reach have awesome female characters in multiplayer.

Really, there's zero excuse not to have women in your games. Yeah, I'm a woman, and I always pick women to play as in FPS if the option is available. SOOOO many games have female characters in FPS multiplayer that when a studio like the ones making Battlefield, Call of Duty, or Aliens: Colonel Marines say it's "too hard" or "too costly", I pretty much know it's actually just "laziness". Games with half their budgets are churning out games with a balance of genders and doing it JUST FINE.

It really is a weird phenomenon, since I barely play any multi-player FPS's I hadn't heard about this issue. Still not putting any women is stupid in games that are supposed to have massive appeal or are in the future is plain lazy.

Yet I can think of a FPS that needs no female characters and that is Team Fortress 2, a game which still plenty of women play and has tons of yaoi for some reason. It would interesting to release a Team Fortress 2 esque FPS with only women in it and see how it goes.

Come on Jim, you shouldn't have thanked God this time, thank Mother Gea, when dressing a feminist womyn, you don't need to thank a phallocentric Male God, thank a female one, for Gea's sake.