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The Great Girlfriend Grab

While doing research for yesterday's post about Alex Kidd, I noticed something interesting: the intro to Alex Kidd in Shinobi World features Alex's girlfriend being whisked away by a villain who literally appears out of nowhere. Of course, savvy (and old) gamers will remember this little vignette as one of old-school gaming's bigger stereotypes; similar scenes even appeared in the intros to the throwback Haggleman series on Retro Game Challenge. I chuckled when I first saw Haggleman's parody, but after seeing it portrayed sincerely in Shinobi World, I started wondering to myself how many games I could find that actually opened with a girlfriend-abducting scene.

What follows are my results.

Posted Mar 10 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s)

Filed under: feminism, retro, girl gamers, bob mackey, Retro game challenge

WTFriday: Atlus Takes on Third Wave Feminism

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

Remember Super Princess Peach? It was a lighthearted little platformer for the DS that featured some equally lighthearted sexism. I'm not about to write a thesis on the game--though in my self-serving academic life, that'd be just the thing to propel me to the top--but there's something to be said about the choice to make irrational mood swings Peach's weapon of choice. I like to think that the game contained little, collectable bottles of Pamprin until someone with some sense intervened.

RPG factory Atlus looks like they're ready to tread this same ground with their upcoming DS RPG titled My World, My Way. Known as The World Revolves Around Me in Japan (title translated, of course), My World, My Way confirms that Japan can only identify two kind of women: the kindly anemic lass, and the unbridled bitch. From what the official web site is telling me (Warning: it will make your mouse pointer all sparkly and stuff), MWMW is about a spoiled princess--obviously, hypersexualized and preteen--turned adventurer who uses something called "Pout Points" to control the world around her. Methinks someone on the development team had a nasty breakup.

Posted Nov 14 2008, 06:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s)

Filed under: ds, feminism, sexism, bob mackey, wtfriday, my world my way, rpg atlus

Fat Princess Gobbles Her Way into Blog Drama

You know, you just can't please these feminazis! All they do is whine about how women in video games all wear bronze bikini armor and boast gravity-defying boobies. Right guys? Enter Fat Princess. Finally, a game highlights a cake-guzzling damsel in distress, and they're still up in arms. From Shakesville via Kotaku:

I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It's not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery. Way to go! The Fat Princess of Shakes Manor salutes you.

Posted Jul 24 2008, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 5 comment(s)

Filed under: kotaku, cole stryker, feminism, salon, fat princess, women, ps3

Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Champion

Get into a conversation with a gamer about feminist icons in their medium of choice and they’ll probably give you one answer: Samus Aran. Miss Aran is the take-no-prisoners bounty hunter star of Nintendo’s twenty year-old Metroid series. She’s capable, powerful, athletic, a natural blonde, and she takes no-guff from space pirates, space jellyfish, or giant brains perched atop tyrannosaurus-rex bodies. There’s a huge problem though. In almost every Metroid, a better performance in the game is rewarded with images of a de-robed, tarted-up Samus. Hit the jump for a look at what I'm talking about.

Posted Jun 24 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments

Filed under: john constantine, metroid, feminism, ms pac man

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.