Four out of six of my guardians are female. Well, two of the females are Exos, but they're ostensibly female.

My femshep is a much more interesting character than my broshep.

I think the best part about that is both examples afford female audiences to properly reflect themselves in a wonderful universe. I'll never forget the faces of my Shepard or Awoken Hunter because I felt like in a way that was me. In every possible way games that allow you the ability to create a character with deep resonance in the events of its narrative a gender option is essential.

There needs to be a greater attention paid to leading girls and women in video games as characters set in stone. I think this year was pretty good, especially with the likes of Life is Strange where a young woman and her relationship with another young woman was the nucleus of a bunch of nachos.

All 3 of my Guardians are female, I always play a female in Bethesda RPGs, I played only as Femshep in Mass Effect, I use a female Spartan in Halo, etc. Most often it's just because in all of those games I find the female avatars more aesthetically pleasing.

Apart from the obvious, I totally agree. I did play as a DudeShep once and he was kinda a babe though.

I'm probably just sexist for wanting to look at pixel butts or something though.

If that makes me sexist then I am Satan.*

A definite bonus. I don't know if my wife would agree. Well, I don't know if my wife would agree with me looking at a man's either... I'm confused now.

Make your avatar look like your wife!

Make your avatar slightly thinner and more attractive than your wife, then SAY you made it look exactly like her. Same principle as purposefully guessing low on a woman's age.

A definite bonus. I don't know if my wife would agree. Well, I don't know if my wife would agree with me looking at a man's either... I'm confused now.

Make your avatar look like your wife!

Oddly enough, sometimes I actually do.

A definite bonus. I don't know if my wife would agree. Well, I don't know if my wife would agree with me looking at a man's either... I'm confused now.

Make your avatar look like your wife!

Back when I was a kid(I never played Zelda, so that's why) I literally thought Link was Zelda. 10 years later--wait, the game isn't even about him!?!

Yeah... it took me a long time to found this one out too. I kept referring to the character as Zelda until one day one of my friends was like "Dude, Zelda is the chick, that's Link." I honestly think that my first response was "well that's a stupid name"

My femshep is a much more interesting character than my broshep.

My favorite character from a video game is, without a doubt, Ellie from the Last of Us.

I do, all the time. Maybe not in the way you mean, though. I'm not wrestling with the idea internally. Just noticing how far things have come and being glad about it.

I don't know, stabbim. I think thinking about it all the time is problematic, no matter how enlightened we see ourselves, but this is probably a discussion best continued elsewhere.

First day back at work. Ask my office neighbor, a guy about my age, what he thought about The Force Awakens. He launches into this speech about how good he thinks it is that they have an interracial couple in the movie.

It's weird that he pointed out that they're an interracial couple, but neglected to mention they're a gay couple.

The couple in that film is obviously Finn and Poe, not Finn and Rey.

:P

(For the record, I totally don't see that or expect it to happen, but I've seen people shipping Poe and Finn really insistently.)

First thought: Well, maybe they're a couple, but I didn't get that vibe--I mean, Finn seemed like he might be interested, but Rey less so. There's much less of that kind of spark between them that you saw, say, among the leads in the first Star Wars.

Yeah, I didn't really get a romance vibe from them either. Just loyalty and friendship. Definitely not anything like Luke's very obvious crush on Leia.

Second thought: Does anyone even think about this anymore one way or another except for old white people? (More particularly, racists and secret racists who compensate by bragging about their approval of interracial couples?)

I do, all the time. Maybe not in the way you mean, though. I'm not wrestling with the idea internally. Just noticing how far things have come and being glad about it.

Edit: took out the spoiler tag from the subject since I had already removed the spoilery thing in the message body.

You jump around and shoot enemies with your arm gun, which you find in the wild, catch, level up and battle for experience. Over time, you go through 8 worlds, receiving badges, until you finally reach the end castle. After jumping over the big spikey turtle guy and destroying the bridge, you reach the end, where a toadstool says "the queen of Hyrule isn't here."

You then take off your metal cyborg suit, and YOU were Zelda the whole time, thereby making Link/Zelda the protagonist.

I didn't have a Nintendo, so I'm not sure if all the details are accurate.