Hottest Video Game Characters: Faith

Today at work, we had a discussion on who is the coolest and hottest female video game character. My collegues, all of whom are male, where soon discussing who’s hotter: Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) or Shahdee (Prince of Persia).

First of all, Shahdee of course, is not a heroine, for she’s not a playable character, and she’s evil. And she is a good example for a character that is oversexualized to the point of ridicule. Her armor is so tiny, that it leaves her not only unprotected, but almost naked. Why games can’t depict women in reasonable armor, I don’t know. As you can see here, this can be very sexy.

Even though the creators botherd to give Lara Croft at least a background story, she’s mostly defined by the fact that she is what people in earlier decades called a sex bomb.

So I got weired looks in that discussion, when I named my favourite: Faith Connors from Mirror’s Edge. Not only is Mirror’s Edge, although four years old by now, one of the best games of the past years, it also has one of the best designed heroines ever.

Faith is the classical action hero. Childhood trauma, broken biography. But she’s not a super hero, and she is desinged to look like a regular young woman. She’s very athletic alright, but this is a game about parkour, so the player character has to be. But the game designers tried to make her look realistic, so no giant knockers or 5 feet long legs. She also dresses like someone who’s doing sports instead of someone on her way to streetwalk the docks. And, at last: She’s got asian features. This should not be worth noting, but in our world, in which racism is as prevalent as is the under-representation of minorities, it does. Almost all computer game heros in western games are white. An asian looking character is rather rare, and even in most role playing games, you cannot create a human character, with dark skin or asian features.

I believe this is remarkable, since most of the time video games cling to common stereotypes, and that includes gamers themselves being white males, who like to watch semi-naked women with enormous breasts.

So do I think that computer game characters shouldn’t be sexy? Of course not, it’s just my idea of sexy that’s different. I would certrainly want to meet Faith, were she a real person (and yes, I admit, I’d jump on her bones too). But honestly: I’d rather not meet Shahdee, even when she’s unarmed.