Borderlands stays out of the kitchen!

'Sup.

So, in relation to my last post... Borderlands 2 is one of the games that realises apparently half the gaming population is female. And what follows is a rambling review of gender-specific part of the game.

Unlike the first game, which I remember being pretty heavy on the sausage (and light on the story) this game has surparssed expectations and made a shooter that includes women. And I don't mean a token chick - an effort to reach a demographic - women are integrated into the fabulous world of Pandora. The roles for women aren't - for the most part - female specific, a lot of the roles seem genderless, and only include women because, well, half of us ARE female.

The producers of the game haven't targeted girl-gamers, it doesnt come off that way at least, they've just made a fully realized world. The whole production of the game seems pretty female-friendly... okay, apart from that casual misstep where one of the producers nicknamed one of the "hey you suck? well pick this" skill the girlfriend tree and got raked over the coals...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-13-borderlands-2-gearbox-reveals-the-mechromancers-girlfriend-mode

 

Just to clarify, I suck at critical hits. But that's because I didnt grow up with first person shooters - I grew up with Bloodrayne.

...the whole Borderlands 2 experience is welcoming for a woman. I'm not going to go into the "TITS OR GTFO" experiences some people have on the servers, I haven't played online so I don't know what the community is like - but the game itself is done the way it should be.

Ellie - likes: cuddling, murder

It's little things - walking up to a NPC in town and hearing a female voice (alot of the random characters in the towns are androgynous looking), getting many questlines of female characters. You spend time with the vault hunters from the first game - and the character that's around the longest is Lilith. Surprising.

I have to note that the humanoid grunt-enemies you fight in the game are all male - you wont find any real female presence there apart from the occasional Queen Sandworm .

I can't assume it was to save costs when there are so many enemy types. I'm not sure what drove that choice when female presence and image was so easily achieved elsewhere in the game. Perhaps market studies show that people are just happier shooting virtual men? *shrug* for a different blog perhaps...

Before launch, there were four main characters, and it was the usual spread of three male/one female - but then they added Gaige, who I believe is a thirteen yr old robot-constructor. I was pleasantly surprised! Three to two isn't bad - especially when we're talking about a shooter, a usually male dominated genre.

But on TOP of the even character genders, they also show a full spectrum of female archtypes. From Tiny Tina - a tween explosives expert, to Moxxie - the oversexualised one,

Moxxie's favourite weapon - Miss Moxxie's Good Touch is a gun that vibrates your controller when you equip it.... Hmmm....

to Angel - the helpless madonna, to Gaige - the cute one, to Ellie - the one defying body image, to Captain Scarlett - the one that will definitely stab you in the back.

I friggen love the jovial, upper crust, hook-handed Scarlett.

These women aren't the usual bikini clad, big chested dolls that usually populate video games (despite what an internet search on the females in the game could lead you to believe, I swear there are a lot of great artists out there that want to do nothing but draw Maya performing favours on the rest of the main characters) - not every female character is a sexpot like Moxxie. And that's important to have - it's good that females aren't just represented by "sexy". There are more character options out there - and Gearbox understood that.

Wearing a blood-stained mask of a Psycho on her head...

I couldn't be happier seeing so many females populating Pandora. And the ability to play two different female characters - with female voices - it's just great. I'm invested in this game, and it is an amazing game besides all this, because I feel welcome to it.

 

Hopefully the big damn success of Borderlands 2 will encourage other production houses to look closely at what Gearbox Software does. Not only has it made an engaging game here, it’s made an involving game for all those gamers out there - not just half.