PC Delivers the Real Women of Video Games

Being of the female species myself, I find it hard to ignore the many discrepancies between mine and the bodies of the female characters in the video games I play. I’m not just talking physics-defying waistlines and breasts that make Pamela Anderson consider a training bra. I’m talking about the body parts whose illustration seems like it would be second nature to create. The most interesting part of this discrepancy, I have found in my video game travels, lies in the difference between the console and PC- based characters. PC –based games, it seems, have the female anatomy much more understood, while many console creators leave me wondering if they have ever seen a real female (IRL, anyway).

The real issue at hand here is the rate of the accuracy of women’s bodies in comparison to the acute detail paid to that of their male counterparts. Though there are always exceptions to the rule—Mirror’s Edge, for example– PC game creators pay much more attention to equal detailing of the sexes than console creators do.

After console game creators spend insurmountable hours deciding the most realistic rate at which the sweat droplets descend from, say, Kratos’ head, I’d expect something more sophisticated than the broad shouldered, small headed beings (who clearly all have dislocated shoulder blades) that God of War calls women. And even though human males are incapable of muscle mass anywhere near that of Conan’s, so much more detail is put into his impossibly vast rippling biceps than is put into the entire bottom half of some Hyborian females. (Honestly, she looks like a Ken Doll.)

Though I could probably go on all day about Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball’s closer attention to boob physics than arms and legs, or even the astounding difference in proportions between Lara Croft and her already way hot models, I will spare the lecture. I am not here to roll around, pounding my fists into the dirt while moaning about representation. I would much rather congratulate PC game companies such as frontrunners Valve and Blizzard for making accessible and realistic gals in their games. Here are some examples of the real women of video games:

1. Portal
Chell, the well proportioned, accurately dressed protagonist not only has limbs in all of the right places, but has also caused a stir in the direction of more equal representation of women in the scientific workplace.

2. Diablo 2
Scantily clad she may be, but ill proportioned she ain’t. Diablo 2 females such as The Sorceress not only carry a significant amount of weight in gameplay, but their bodies are also given anatomically correct attention to muscle tone.

3. Left 4 Dead
Zoey is a horror-movie-inspired college student pwning zombies in a sweatshirt and converse. What more can I say? The creation of such a character gives promise to we gaming females that like-looking women are not far from the mainstream gaming horizon.