The Ivy Overfloweth

Let's go on a journey. A journey into the world of fighting games and female characters. Back in 1991, a girl by the name of Chun-Li was introduced into the male dominated world of fighting games. She may not have been as strong as the others in Street Fighter II, but her quickness lent to her success. Muscular legged and moderately endowed in a blue qipao, studded cuffs and the slightly curious brown pantyhose, Chun-Li quickly rose to popularity offering little sisters and girlfriends their very own fierce female heroine and an open door into gaming.

Within the year, the allure of strong female playable characters had been twisted toward the stereoypical gamer. There was already one obscenely endowed and illogically dressed female protagonist. Enter Fatal Fury 2's Mai Shiranui and her barely covered breasts in 1992. 1992 also gave us Sonya Blade and Mortal Kombat. Does anyone not hear that terrible music cue at the mere sight of those two words? Anyway, Sonya, while her breasts may not be the smallest, she wasn't forced into barely legal outfits. King on the hand, a tall, blond character in SNK's Art of Fighting and King of Fighters took to the extremes, donning men's clothes. She used strength and mind games to win against her opponents, rather than the usual speed boost given to most female characters. In 1995, Battle Arena Toshinden, introduced us to Sofia, the fully endowed, dressed like a dominatrix Russian agent as well as the 3d fighting environments.

And then came Dead or Alive in 1997. DOA designer Tomonobu Itagaki said he wanted to do something to attract people's attention, and borrowing from the aforementioned Fatal Fury, that something became the well known, incredibly unnatural yet hypnotic bouncing breasts that other devs would copy and try to emulate, upgrading our once playable ladies into unrealistic top heavy, barely clothed models. All in order to tap into that wealth of incredibly lonely 18 to 34 year old males. You know, the ones that sit on a stained couch in their parent's basement dressing DOA girls in miscellaneous volleyball outfits and watching them poledance?



That brings us to the present. For the first time in days, my mailbox contained more than just advertisements for 99 cent jugs of milk and teeth whitening services. The August issue EGM was waiting in there and on the cover read World Exclusive First Look at Soulcalibur (apparently it's all one word now) 4. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. Of all the big fighting game series, Soulcalibur is one of the most fun to play for me. A fond summer memory of mine involves a lot of beer, a projector and a huge white sheet and owning all the boys with my cheap Soulcalibur tactics. I flipped through to the story and there on the second page of the article was Ivy, wearing what I can only assume is some kind of gymnastic outfit from childhood barely keeping in her ridiculously overinflated breasts. While battling against katanas and katars with no body armor, she ought to be worried about snagging a leak. The back side of her new outfit also leaves little to the imagination giving players the extra bonus of cheek to cheek combat. Yes, I can almost hear guys cheering everywhere! The bulk of the Soulcalibur 4 ladies have apparently gone under the knife, with Taki opting for two large water balloons rather than breasts. Though Ivy's have grown the most, going from a solid C to a GG. The current trend, no doubt fueled by the boob physics to sales ratio.



Sure, disproportionate, scantily clad heroines have always been a part of the comic and video game world, but in more recent years, it has gotten out of control. I'll be the first to admit when playing City of Heroes, I created a short girl with some pretty decently sized tits. The difference is in user created, and developer generated content. As female gamers, we have little to no choice with these games. We could play a muscular man (essentially moving back to the pre Chun-Li days), play these over sexualized male fantasy characters or not play at all. The continuous imposed creation of these supposed heroines leaves girls feeling ostracized. Video games are not just an outlet for males. Women also enjoy packing away life's stresses and jumping into a new world. We face enough unrealistic images of the perfect woman in American society, we shouldn't have it shoved down our digital throats while trying to escape that very thing.





The Entertainment Software Association has said that 38% of all players are women. Unfortunately games are being developed without considering the full range of women gamers. The games specifically made for girls that are available come across as condescending. I'd rather not tend a garden so I can pay off my in game mortgage or avoid getting caught having an affair in Desperate Housewives nor have a daughter playing the Bratz or That's So Raven. What the hell does that even mean? But that's a subject for another time! The question now is will this ever expanding female body in fighting games ever stop? What will it take to bring our playable sex down to a realistic, or at least less offensive point? We need our female characters designed for us, not for the men. Think original Samus or Hana of Fear Effect before the prequel. No more stilettos and lingerie as armor! Breasts are great! I'm all for breasts... when they aren't all straight out of a Naughty Nurses 6 porno. One can hope that with the growing percentage of female gamers, more will see the need for change, and seek out way to do that.