All My Boyfriends

I have a problem. It’s not a particularly serious one, except it does kind of prevent me from dating people. You see, I play lots of RPGs. And RPGs have these awesome characters with well-developed personalities and histories, and they tend to be snarky and flirty, and before long it’s over for me, and I’ve fallen in love with yet another fictional character.

Go ahead and mock me, but I enjoy swooning over my sweet fictional boys. Dating is complicated. Being in love with fictional characters is easy (if really pathetic, I know).

Obviously I prefer some of the romance subplots in games over others for various reasons, and I find the BioWare romances to be the best. So I’ve decided to go through the romance-able characters in my favorite BioWare games (plus Obsidian Entertainment’s KotOR2, which has some of the awesomeness of BioWare’s KotOR1) to rank the pros and cons of each one in a handy list, in the order in which the games came out. (Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate II, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect ahead.)

Baldur’s Gate II – Anomen

Pros: Loyal, angsty past

If you actually can get past how rude Anomen is to you (see Cons), he winds up being very loyal. He sticks by you no matter what and does his best to defend you against any of the myriad of things that attack you. He’s also got some angst, which is always a plus for me. What can I say, I love a good tortured past in my fictional boyfriends.

Cons: Egotistical jackass, just plain mean, moody

Unfortunately, Anomen is a huge jackass. In some of the early romance conversations, he flat out says that you need protecting because you’re a girl and gets pissy if you ask him why the hell he’d think that, especially since the PC is the child of a god and could kick his ass without breaking a sweat. He wants to become a knight, but he’s got a temper that he can’t keep in check very well. He’s constantly yelling at you then apologizing later. Not a very stable guy. He also has a really bad relationship with his family and takes no responsibility for anything ever.

Boyfriend grade: D-. Total jerk, doesn’t appreciate the PC half as much as he should, and probably needs counseling.

Baldur’s Gate II – Haer’Dalis

Pros: Flirty, nice, fun

While Haer’Dalis wasn’t technically a love interest in Baldur’s Gate II, I heard a rumor that he was supposed to be included as one but was cut due to time constraints, and I believe it. He flirts with the PC often and is generally a pretty nice guy. If you have Aerie in your party, that whiny pathetic ex-winged elf girl, Haer’Dalis will begin a romance with her where he helps increase her self-esteem and actually turns her into a slightly tolerable character!

Cons: Not totally human, talks like a weirdo, fakes emotions

Haer’Dalis is actually a tiefling, meaning he has some fiend blood in him. Not necessarily bad, but kind of weird. He also talks in metaphors and Shakespearian flowery verses, and speaking as someone who’s been talked at like that before, it gets obnoxious and is not as cute as the speaker thinks it is. He’s also an actor and even admits that he feigns a lot of the emotion he says he feels, which eventually leads to his breakup with Aerie.

Boyfriend grade: C-. Maybe okay as a short-term boyfriend, but definitely not up for any serious relationships.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Carth Onasi

Pros: Flirty, angsty, romantic

Ahh, Carth. Hated by men, loved by women. This Han-Solo-esque pilot definitely has that angsty past I love (see Cons also), and once he starts trusting you a bit, he turns into a big flirt and a real sweetheart. He’s also hugely romantic and seems to care deeply about the PC, after they work out all their issues anyway. Carth also remains loyal to the PC after she leaves him behind to head into Unknown Space a year after KotOR, and he keeps on with his duties as a Republic soldier while he continues looking for her and hoping for her return years later.

Cons: Whiny, really paranoid, very difficult to earn his trust

Carth has a really awful past that he kind of whines about all the time. But hey, if your mentor/BFF betrayed you and destroyed your planet, got your wife killed, and had your son abducted/raised by Sith, you’d be pissed and out for revenge too! He has trouble trusting people and it takes AGES for him to get close to the PC, and then he wants to kill her after he finds out she’s actually ex-Jedi ex-Sith Lord Revan. Awkward! Fortunately he gets over it.

Boyfriend grade: B+. As long as you aren’t a recovering Sith Lord, he’d be a pretty perfect boyfriend.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Juhani

Pros: Idolizes PC, sticks to the Light Side because of her

The Juhani “romance” isn’t a true romance in the same way that Carth’s was, as it’s made clear through the dialogue that the female PC’s feelings for Juhani aren’t the same as Juhani’s are for her. Despite this, Juhani idolizes the PC, as she was the one who saved her from becoming a slave on Taris and helped her become the Jedi she is today. After a momentary fall to the Dark Side and being redeemed by the PC, Juhani does her best to strictly adhere to the Jedi teachings and stay firmly on the Light side.

Cons: Turned to the Dark Side at one point, wild mood swings

She did, however, “fall” to the Dark Side after she attacked her Jedi Master, who provoked her into it. Seems like questionable teaching, but hey, those Jedi can be weirdos sometimes. She gets really upset about her past and the bad stuff she’s gone through sometimes, but quickly calms down.

Girlfriend grade: C. The hero-worshipping thing could wear off, plus a Jedi having such mood swings could be dangerous.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords – Atton Rand

Pros: Sarcastic, flirty, smart

Atton Rand, yet another Han Solo wannabe, is one of two love interests available for female PCs in KotOR2. He’s definitely got sass and is really sarcastic, flirts with the PC a whole bunch, and is really smart – after all, he does figure out how to keep Kreia from reading his thoughts (most of the time, anyway). In the cut ending for KotOR2, there’s a chance he can get fatally wounded attacking Darth Sion, after which he’d finally confess his love for the Exile. There was also the chance that he could survive and leave Malachor V with her on the Ebon Hawk. Unfortunately, since both of these endings were cut from the game for time, I have no idea about the circumstances or how they actually happen.

Cons: Kind of messed up, ex-Sith and former Jedi-killer

Atton has a dark past – he actually joined the Sith and was on an elite team that hunted down and killed Jedi. One of the Jedi he encountered told him that he was Force-sensitive, and he killed her for it. So, yeah he’s a little psychotic. Fortunately, this incident made him leave the Sith, and he seems to feel really guilty about it, so I guess that makes it a little better? But still, I wouldn’t want to date someone who used to be a murderer, no matter how charming they are now.

Boyfriend grade: B-. He is REALLY charming and sarcastic, which I love, but he did murder Jedi in the past, which is creeptastic.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords – Disciple (Mical)

Pros: Sweet, loyal, kind

Mical, or Disciple as he’s called throughout the game, is a historian and servant of the Republic who joins up with your team if the PC is female. He is nothing but sweet throughout the game, and though it’s obvious he has a crush on Exile, he doesn’t really do much about it and there isn’t much flirting.

Cons: “Friend-zone,” kind of boring, secretive

I see the Disciple as a guy stuck in the friend zone. He’s definitely interested in Exile, but is just too “nice” (and probably too naïve) to actually make a move. His personality is always just that – nice – which kind of bores me. Though I admit I haven’t really played through the game with Mical in my party very much, I think it’s because there was just never really anything about him that really stood out to me. And as nice as he is, he’s still secretive, as he works for Admiral Carth Onasi and reports on what Exile’s up to, and never actually tells her so, weirdly enough.

Boyfriend grade: C+. Probably a great guy to take home to your parents, but not very exciting.

Jade Empire – Sky

Pros: Charming, loyal, snarky

Sky, that charming rogue voiced by the ever-awesome Cam Clarke, is pretty awesome, but I kind of see him as Carth v1.5. He’s less whiny, more flirty, and more snarky, but the main point in his angsty past is just one of the three big things that Carth went through, so I can see why he whines less. He’s a mythical China version of Han Solo, very suave and sarcastic and confident. Also this is the first BioWare game where we get a kiss scene for female PCs (male PCs got smoochies in KotOR), so yay!

Cons: Kind of similar to previous characters, still mourning wife/daughter, hesitant to commit

Like I said above, Sky is a little bit weaksauce. He’s a nice enough guy but his personality isn’t as deep and he’s not as well fleshed-out as a lot of their other characters – honestly, it seems like they took what worked with Carth and just toned down the whining. Personality-wise though, he is still mourning his wife and daughter, who were murdered by slavers. He’s driven by a desire to avenge them, which you accomplish about ten minutes after meeting him. Easy peasy! After losing his family, he’s a little hesitant to commit, and doesn’t tell the PC he loves her before she goes in to “save” her master, who winds up killing her. He regrets not saying it, and once she comes back to life, they finally get together.

Boyfriend grade: B. If you can get him to commit without getting yourself killed, he’d be a pretty solid guy.

Jade Empire – Silk Fox

Pros: Badass, independent

Silk Fox is the first actual female-female romance in BioWare’s games (since the Juhani romance was pretty one-sided), just as Sky is the first male-male one. She’s a princess in disguise, finding out information and kicking ass while pretending to be Silk Fox; she knows nobody tells the real truth to a princess, so she goes out to get it herself. After the game’s over, she becomes the Empress, and if you wind up with her, she shares her power with you and defends you to anybody who’s critical of your relationship.

Cons: Not very affectionate, bossy, can be kind of mean

Being a princess, Silk Fox (or Sun Lian the Heavenly Lily) is used to getting her way. All the time. You have to be careful what you say to her, since even as Silk Fox, she’ll get pissed off if you don’t talk to her with the right amount of respect. She definitely takes charge once she joins the party, and is a real jerk to your childhood BFF Dawn Star.

Girlfriend grade: B-. Probably busy being Empress, and she won’t like any of your friends.

Mass Effect – Liara T’Soni

Pros: Sweet, compassionate

Liara is a “young” (100ish) asari who you rescue from being trapped in some ruins. She pretty much falls in love with you after your first conversation, which I attribute to her basically being a teenager, thinking she’s in love with everyone she meets. She is really sweet though, and surprisingly compassionate – she doesn’t blame Saren for the things he’s doing and actually feels kind of bad for him, after you discover the power of Indoctrination, anyway. This might be because her mom also fell victim to Sovereign’s Indoctrination, so she can understand what happened a little better.

Cons: Naïve, young

The fact that Liara falls for you instantly was really off-putting for me. I guess I like having to work a little harder to win the hearts of my NPCs. But like I said above, this is part of her character – she’s really young, so I think it’s more of a hero-worship thing than her actually being in love with you.

Girlfriend grade: C+. She’s nice, but she could get really clingy really quick, plus she’s really young, so who knows how long it would last?

Mass Effect – Kaidan Alenko

Pros: Charming, thoughtful, romantic

Oh Kaidan. Where do I start? To begin with, let me say that it didn’t help when I realized that Kaidan and Carth are voiced by the same person (I heart you, Raphael Sbarge!). Then when I saw that he was way flirtier and sweeter than Carth, and had an Angsty Past but didn’t whine about it, I was totally sold. Kaidan is as flirty as he can be without breaking regulations (since you’re his commanding officer), and always tries to keep these regs in mind so that neither of you get in trouble. The conversation before the space!sex scene is one of my favorite convos ever, hands down, because he’s just such a sweetheart about everything. The relationship he and Shepard develop is a great partnership, where neither one relies on the other too much, but they can always count on the other being there when needed.

Cons: Very self-controlled, sometimes overly protective

During his biotic training, Kaidan accidentally killed a (jackass) instructor who hurt his friend and pulled a knife on him, leaving him very wary of ever not being in complete control of himself. He’s not really one for “letting loose,” and I assume he doesn’t drink. He’s usually good about letting Shepard be the commander, but near the end of the game he tries insisting that something she has to do is too dangerous and tries to stop her.

Boyfriend grade: A. Pretty much can’t top a soldier who’s sweet, thoughtful, and has an angsty past he’s totally recovered from. I guess this is why he’s fictional. Sigh!

Well there’s my list. Anyone who wants to argue my grades/pros/cons, please do so! I’m the first to admit that I’ve definitely got a type and it totally influenced my grading, but I’m definitely willing to be debated on some of these (I’m sure Mical and Liara have more good points than I’ve listed here). Or if anybody has a favorite fictional boy/girlfriend that I didn’t include, I’d love to hear about them! :)

(This article was also published on GamingAngels, check it out!)

"You know, for tweens!"

It's weird, sometimes, being a girl who plays video games, as evidenced every time I join a Vent server on WoW and decide to talk. Most common reactions are, "Are you hot?" "Do you play with your boyfriend or something?" "Oh great. Don't screw this up." or just creepy giggling, which is why I usually keep myself muted. I know that WoW players aren't exactly the most normal or well-adjusted people around (and that includes myself of course), but the fact is that we girls are definitely in the minority in the video game biz.

When I Googled trying to find the latest statistics on the numbers of males vs females that people estimate play games, one of the first results was "List of video games with female protagonists." How interesting! I bet all the Bioware games will be on there since you can be either gender, then Tomb Raider and Metroid and Beyond Good & Evil, let's just see-














Oh. :(

The fact is, it's boys who do most of the game playing. One article, "The New Gender Divide," conducted a survey that said 22% of freshman boys in 2006 played video/computer games more than six hours a week, while only 3% of freshman girls did. Is it that surprising that so many games cater to teenage/20s boys? No. Is it disappointing to see that games are either "crazy violence explosions boobs!" or "let's play with the pretty pixel ponies!"? Absolutely.

I may be exaggerating a bit, but really when I go into a video game store and I can immediately pick out the games for girls because the hot pink burns my retinas, I feel like there's a problem. One article I found put it really well -

"In my experience, the marketing departments of the gaming industry seem to be slow to adapting to genderless marketing," says Schwimmer critically. "They seem to be stuck in the idea that, if you make it pink, then girls will buy it - which is actually insulting."
Hannah Guy, PC World Canada

Though that article is from 2007, the trend is continuing. I watched a lot of the E3 coverage this year live on Gamespot, including Sony's two-hour press conference. I'm not a big Sony person, but I like to be informed about what they're up to anyway, and I sure was glad I watched it after I saw this monstrosity:














That's right. It's a purple PSP. Why is it purple? Because of the new Hannah Montana games, obviously! Again, I have no problem with purple or PSPs or even Hannah Montana for god's sake, it's just the fact that APPARENTLY girls just can't possibly stand to play games on black PSPs. Nope, they need a completely new color. Sony had this to say about it:

"As girls spend as much time listening to music, taking and editing photos, watching movies, chatting with Skype, surfing the net and playing games with their friends as boys do," says Isabelle Tomatis, European Marketing Manager, SCEE, "we thought it was about time that they had their own colour of PSP and we've styled this one up just for them."
-"Hannah Montana comes with a lilac-purple PSP-3000"

They "styled it up" for us? How generous. The Gamespot article that included the announcement said this new color is "targeting the 'tween demographic" with its "female-friendly-hued hardware" and includes"Disney Interactive's Hannah Montana PSP game, ... a UMD disc containing a variety of episodes from the Hannah Montana TV show, a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, and stickers."

Oh boy! STICKERS! And purple is clearly female friendly, because we just can't deal with using the same color PSP as boys. I hear they have cooties, C/D?

Sony's E3 press conference, where they announced this new color, first started talking about other games for the PSP, including, "Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Star Wars Battlefront, Madden NFL '09, and of course God of War: Chains of Olympus." The packs they've offered before included Rock Band Unplugged, City of Final Fantasy, and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines. I hate to generalize, but all these are pretty much "boy games." I'd have a hard time talking most girls into playing something like God of War or Assassin's Creed.

But instead of doing a more neutral game, they decided that games either have to be ALL BOY or ALL GIRL. He talks about releasing PSPs for "our younger, more diverse demographic, and further appeal[ing] to teen and tween girls," because making games for girls means they get to call themselves "diverse." When he announced the lilac Hannah Montana bundle, the other developers seemed to think it was a hilarious joke. With the rest of the announcements focusing on shooters and Final Fantasy(s), the little purple PSP got ironic cheers whenever it was mentioned. Even the announcer laughed at the cheering. "I think we just sold a few right there!"

As much as I want to blame the developers for laughing at it, I can't blame them, because I did too. They put that image up on the screen, and I think my exact words were, "Oh Christ." They managed to make a female gamer annoyed with their female-friendly product. Well done, Sony.

Sony is not the only guilty party, even though I'm picking on them. Plenty of games either turn women into nothing but sex objects or make them badasses, but hot, so boys don't mind playing as them. This blog post from 2005 talks about how Lara Croft's boobs were taken down a cup size "to make her more realistic and appealing to females." Even better, Lara Croft's Breast Timeline: In Pictures! Even my beloved Bioware is falling prey. Check out this screencap of a character in Mass Effect 2:


















Give this woman a bra, MY GOD.

So why don't girls play games? One article had this to say:

Riedl said that the company informally surveyed girls who didn't play games and asked why they don't play them. The company found a variety of different answers. A lack of purpose in most games on the market was high on the list, with women preferring the emotional draw of a story. A lot of women who didn't play games said that they didn't because the UI was cumbersome for a lot of titles, and they just wanted to jump straight in and play.
He said he found that women also prefer their games to be more grounded in reality. He said, "A lot of the plot and settings for games are quite fantastic, and they wanted something that could happen in real life." Another, well-documented reason is that girls were turned off by meaningless violence.
Riedl said, "I'm not saying that women are nonviolent...But I think women have a different propensity for violence. Men like big explosions and blowing things up, but women show their anger in different ways. For example, with aspects of social violence... creating and destroying relationships."
The most important aspects of gameplay for women were the story, characters, and narrative elements. What he found was not important was winning.
Emma Boyes, Gamespot UK

I think this article is really interesting and more game companies ought to take it into account. Honestly, speaking totally from a personal standpoint here, I agree with most of it. I don't want to "win," I want a plot. I want to care about the other characters and get involved in their stories. And no lie, as crude as it was, the Influence system in KotOR2 was really cool. Whether you went light or dark side, you were able to talk to your party members and convince them to follow you, whether to good or evil. It looks like Mass Effect 2 is going to be incorporating that kind of thing as well (with their "Loyalty" system).

The part of the article about violence I thought was really interesting too. I am the first one to suggest seeing a stupid, senselessly violent movie, but in my games, I can only kill things mindlessly for so long before I just don't care anymore. That's one reason I've never really been able to get in to Grand Theft Auto. I'll steal some cars, do some drive-bys, but then... nothing. Me doing those things in the game has no effect on the setting. I like to feel like I can influence the story or the world of the game in some way while I play.

To wrap things up, I'm not surprised that more girls don't play games, as disappointing as it is. If they don't like ridiculous violence like I do, their choices are pretty much Hannah Montana, Barbie Island Princess, or PetZ (why is there a "z." I don't understand). Maybe once companies start thinking about girls older than twelve and design games for them, we gamer girls won't be quite such oddities.