heh. water balloons is right!

1) Thank you Posh for writing about a video game I can actually comment on. Soul Caliber is the only video game I've ever spent large amounts of time playing (minus Zelda on the original NES). I remember playing it in my friends dorm room for hours on end my freshmen year on the Sega whatever system (yeah, I'm a huge gamer). Then later on other systems. In fact, I went out and bought a game cube just so I could play the new Soul Caliber (it was like one of two games I actually bought for it). It's just very accurate as far as real life fight tactics are concerned. I've always found other fighting games to be way too, well, unrealistic.

2) As to the body image thing: I firmly believe that we as a society have a problem with trying to sell and idealize extremely unrealistic body types especially with women, but to be sure also with men especially recently. That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong with video games exaggerating body types a bit. After all it's supposed to be a fantasy world (women's magazines with skinny models are supposedly selling "real world" body image). I would point out that the men are also highly exaggerated. That being said, Ivy's new boobs are pretty fucking outrageous. To be honest, I thought they were exaggerated enough before. Perhaps they are just testing the extremes and things will tone down a bit. I'm not familiar with the process of making video games and how it responds to customer feedback, so I couldn't be one hundred percent sure about that.

3) Posh good for you for writing the article. Hopefully, woman gamers who feel similar will write the creators of these games and express their opinions, not only that, but don't buy the game if they think they are being ridiculous. If all women gamers did this (assuming all women gamers would buy Soul Caliber) and they felt the pain of a 38% market protest, they'd think twice about making women with outrageous boob sizes and highly unrealistic body types. I don't really have much else to say except that I don't own a game console, so I'll definitely not be buying it.

Great article. The people here who are saying that "it's just a game" or "sex sells" I think are kind of missing the point. Sex DOES sell. Hot women sell. Seeing as I head up marketing for SuicideGirls, I am able to announce that shocking news to you all with 100% certainty.

The issue is (and I would think that every single member of this site would get this) that Hot Woman does not necessarily equal "gravity-defying breasts, each large enough to hold another person with huge breasts, Russian Nesting Doll style".

Plenty of gamer/geek guys have lusted over the characters/women who played, say, Buffy or Trinity (Matrix) or actresses like (hot DAMN!) Milla Jovovich in 5th Element. You can make hot, sexy, fictional women without resorting to the giant boob thing every time. Even if they are drawn.

YES, the character designs are exaggerated. That is fine too. Eye candy is delightful, I think we can all agree. It's not that those massive knockers should never again be seen on screen, it's just...why not some diversity of hotness? Plus, you can create hot, breast-tastic women who are still wearing armor. The well-designed boob-plate is a staple of any D&D figure.

For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed running around in Dead Rising with the muscle-bound character wearing (alternately) a sundress or a youth-sized t-shirt and shorts. Eye candy! Hysterical eye candy!

Really great article - and kudos to most commenters for getting the point.

That was my reaction too. I thought we were past this. Even the makers of Tomb Raider woke up to it.

That 38% is only going to get bigger as well. And that is the thing that should get bigger.

Fantastic article.

And think about it, how pissed would guys be if all they had to choose from was huge-donged characters running around with chain-mail covered cocks?

The wind generated from the the front door-slamming, mass exodus of nerds running outside would knock planes out of the sky.

Haven't seen the game yet, so my impression might be wrong. But that picture of Ivy doesn't look so much like she was given unrealistically humungous boobs. I mean, her ass is pretty ginormous as well.

I think they just made her head too small. "Pinhead Ivy." New character name?

Ok I am not much of gamer and unless the games involve other people and competition I refuse to play them. Soul Caliber happens to be one of my favorite games ever created based on it's fast pace and balanced game play. My favorite character has always been Seoung Mina, I almost always play female characters in fighting games as well. I like them for the lightning speed and recovery they have. Now I can understand where you ladies are coming from on this issue with breasts, but the same thing happens with guys, in movies as well. Almost all guys in games like this are humongous with rippling muscles, and body builder bodies. Now being in a profession that is practically founded on physical fitness I see very few guys who are that muscular, so it is unrealistic on both fronts. Though I like women with smaller breasts as well, they do not sag as much and they do not cause the back problems that big breasts cause later in life.

whilst Soul Calibur (and it's predecessor, Soul Blade) are guilty of fan-service through the iterations, it seems to have got worse and worse. when I first saw the pic my immediate thought was "which iteration of DOA are we onto now?"

which is a damn shame, seeing as the original SC is pretty much my favourite fighting game (never mind on the Dreamcast, pretty much any console full stop)

See... here's my question... do people actually buy games based solely on how attractive they make the girls in the game? I know I don't. And with the exception of my roommate buying DOA Beach Volleyball 2 (which was a fucking awful game) I don't know anyone who has.

Yes, I'm joking.

Although I really do think that picture of her would look far more reasonable if her head was just proportional to her body. Still amazon proportions, but more like Xena than Stripperella.

And I agree with you on the "big muscles vs. big breasts" comparison and sexualization. If people think that male characters are exaggerated as well, then why don't they also have 10-pound testicles? A more apt comparison, I would think.

sorry, but Squenix guys are pure yaoi

i loved it.

actually Ivy has this new move...

I'm not sure that there's a direct correlation between the appearance of muscles and their strength.
You find yourself a big, chunky, good ol' boy farmer from the sort of backwoods where you would faintly, unconciously hear Dueling Banjos in the distance and pit him in a test of strength against someone whose toned and chiselled like our male fighting game characters. I can prettymuch guarantee that the slobbish farmer would win.
Being built like Adonis is simply eye candy. Alot like unrealistic dimensions on our female characters.