Having only one male and one female character for a co-op only game is a huge mistake. You should have enough for a male/male, male/female, and female/female configuration. That way everybody gets what they want. Hopefully it's just early and they have more characters to reveal.

I completely agree with you. Some of us might not care, but there are definitely a majority of people who will care.

We all know how insecure a lot of young males are with playing a female character. Not to mention women would like it if they could have an all female team to go kick some butt with, Your sales are going to suffer if it stays this way.

It's far from a huge mistake. They can't just make other characters to appease insecure people, these characters are a part of the story and making extra ones pop out of nowhere so people don't have to play as a girl would take away from the story. If someone out there is really so pathetic that they can't stand to play as a girl, I doubt they would play this kind of game anyway.

The character choices are fine, just like Golden Axe.

Totally disagree. The best way to appeal to a wider audience (something we hear developers and publishers say all the time) is to give people options.

That may be, but this isn't going to be a game marketed to 10 year olds that can't fathom playing a female character. This will be rated either T or M, and the people this game is meant for should be mature enough to play as a female. I agree that it's always good to provide options, but no mature individual would look at this game and refuse to play it because they may have to play as a girl.

Fine, let's complain about it. I'm still going to get this game whether 1 character or 2.

Caddoc and E'Lara are the game's main characters -- one happens to be male, one female. As a side note, throughout each level, you'll be able to swap between characters if both players want to make a swap.

Huh - that's an interesting move too. That way if you are ragging on your partner playing the melee character, for doing what you think is stupid stuff, then he or she can say "OK, fine, now you handle it for a few levels."

Frankly, I think you're generalizing and are completely mistaken. It isn't a matter of maturity for most people who don't want to play the opposite gender, it's immersion. I'm not 10, I don't dislike playing as a woman because I think I'll get cooties or something. I like playing as a male character because I am a male. I think you should relax a bit, just because people disagree with you doesn't make them "pathetic," "insecure," 10 years old or immature.

You won't get cooties, don't worry.

Agreed.

This game isn't a DnD-esque cRPG. And even if it was, some people like to role play as the opposite six/gender.

Kratos is a guy, and God of War is one of my all time favorite games. I'm in this for the gameplay. As long as the game is good, the protagonists can be hermaphroditic squid for all I care.

I agree... if you want to play whomever you want go play TES... you can make whatever character you want to. If you want to play God of War as a Spartan chick, good luck Kratosia...

six shouldnt matter, look at Resident Evil 5, Sheva and Chris made a great team and my other male friend didnt care that he was playing as a female.Same with L4D, sure there is the occasional joking about who gets the female, but really who gives a [censored] if the game is fun?

Yeah, since we're given specific characters, rather than making them from scratch, I don't think this will be a bit issue. At the very least there is plenty of precedent for games like this, and from I can tell they haven't had to deal with much grumbling in this regard.


There is a similar discussion that crops up on the Brink forums, and in both cases I think the respective gender restrictions tend to stand out because these games are neighbors with the Elder Scrolls and Fallout sections. This isn't to say that the debates wouldn't show up anyways but many of the people here are used to having considerably control and flexibility with character creation. Speaking as a strong proponent of this feature I do think it's a shame that I don't get the same flexibility with most games - but there are times it doesn't really work well. In particular it greatly hampers the ability for the narrative to really involve the character since the narrative doesn't know who your character is! The more aspects of the character design that the developers control the more they can incorporate this in to the story. Names are common so the NPCs can address you by name, and fixed genders are also common, sometimes for story purposes and sometimes for artwork (which covers Brink, Diablo I/II and a lot of others). I imagine both are factors in the lack of Hunted's gender options.

I imagine there are some people who are truly put off from the game because they can't select their character's gender - but I also imagine this number will be pretty small. There will be more who are disappointed that the option isn't there but it probably won't hamper their gaming experience in an appreciable way.

Diablo 2 is a decade old and Diablo 1 is even older. Diablo 3 provides male and female options for every class. More and more women are getting into gaming and quite a few don't appreciate being treated as sidekicks or optional additions that can be ignored or excluded under the assumption that guys are the real gamers.

I was already doubtful about this game because the female character is relegated to ranged/support while the male character is able to kick ass on the front line (would it really have caused anyone any pain to have both options for both genders?), but after reading the comments here I'm free of all doubt. This game is clearly not for me.

I thought it was kind of interesting that xXAntibodyXx only talked about objections to this decision in terms of guys who may not want to play female characters, as if women who would prefer to play female characters don't exist? Or are irrelevant?

This is a very good point, the discussion has become more fixated on the sophomoric guys subset but at least in my experience most people unhappy about gender options in a game are women displeased with representation. And the female archer cliche is pretty prevalent, I've been playing Torchlight lately and while it's a lot of fun the ability to play a male archer would have been nice. (At the very least give her some better clothes, after running around most of the game with some relatively modest chainmail my wife decided to sit down right after I upgraded to some downright indecent armor they claimed was platemail.)

I'm reminded of Gears and Gears 2. Even with an Achievement on offer, neither me or my brother wanted to play Dom, or even switch up as Dom. Gears 2 was all set to go, we both bought the special editions with the concept art, organised our weekend, got the 360's together, giant TVs side by side, got our beers and pig snacks in... got comfy... then had a fifteen minute argument about who was getting stuck with playing as Dom. Grown ups, us.

I can only imagine if Dom was the male character in Hunted, what the arguments would be like: "E'LARA!" - "Nooooo, you didn't just call that." - "Totally, dibs, base, owned..." - "I'm not controlling Dom, flip for it." - "Called it already, get over it." - "Change places between levels." - "Ha!? Why when I've called it already, she's mine."

Gears choice had nothing to do with six, but everything to do with Dom being a whiny [censored] and Marcus just been a bad-ass! :rock:

Well, of course I don't like the female character being a nerfed sidekick. But, I don't let lack of gender choice put me off from playing a good game - as long as the game isn't full of puerile and/or misogynistic and/or womanizing dialog. In the same vein, I'm put off when the female lead character (or side kick or whatever) is hypersixualized in appearance. =/ Just... just leave the hormones at the door and let me hack and slash some monsters.

And I am definitely turned off by games where the male lead character must rescue his kidnapped girlfriend/lover/princess. Boooo-ring. I'm sick of females being portrayed as helpless and inept. Well, mostly that's true for older games. More recent games have got female heroes kicking butt just as well as the guys.

If you ask me there are waaaaay too many lead female characters in popular culture. Maybe the characters look great on paper, but in suspended reality? We're supposed to sit and watch models act like action heroes and fail EPICALLY! Yet take it seriously. The Weaver (Ripley), Geller (Buffy), Jovovich (Alice), Jolie (Lara), Mitchell (Erica in the V remake *weak*), Lathan (Alexa of AvP infame.) Aylesworth (AvP-R lolz @ setting up the military reference in this dire film. Fail.) Sackhoff (Starbuck *throw a punch much?*)

And more recently of course was the ridiculous ending to The Book of Eli. If you haven't seen it I won't spoil it but we're supposed to be impressed by a skinny girl, inexperienced, non-combatant, meets harsh wasteland full of killers... (leading to supposed cool bit) She's ready! Because she's sixy? OWNED. She will not survive! I almost long for the action heroes of yore, the Arnies and Slys. Because even if they were whiny actors, when they threw a punch you could believe it.

This doesn't apply to games but meh, stereotypes in games are as common as bad casting in Hollywood. :laugh:

I agree that it's silly to cast skinny models as action heroes and expect them to be believable. However I think it's unfair to put Sigourney Weaver in that list, Ripley isn't an overly buxom space babe nor is she preforming athletic feats that seem beyond Weaver's own abilities. She even spends much of Alien and Aliens unarmed, which certainly seems in-character. On the subject of Aliens it was nice to see that the the female marine who did play the part of the action heroine not only looked the part but they also didn't go off in the opposite direction and feel the need to cast a diehard bodybuilder. It's a shame more movies don't take a serious look at Vasquez before they consider casting.


I think they're anologous enough. Developers may design their model instead of casting someone for it but in both cases they're making decisions on what the characters look like.

This isn't to say that a fantasy game or movie can't have exaggerated characters, and I'd actually say Hunted doesn't look too bad in this regard. E'Lara isn't dressed particularly modestly but I wouldn't say she's immodest either, and she's certainly far from the Boris Vallejo-esq silliness that is so pervasive in the genre. Likewise while not a bodybuilder she didn't strike me as waifish either, and given that she's an elf I'm surprised she's as robust as she is.

More important than appearance looking at the trailer I at least didn't get the impression that she was a mere side kick or support for Caddoc. We can see both assisting the other, and even though E'Lara is the ranged combatant she apparently has the option of going toe-to-toe with a sword if she wishes. Maybe I'll feel different when playing the game itself but for not I get the impression that they're both well balanced.

I don't have a problem with the Alien Ripley. That was great. But Aliens was stretching it. I don't see why the series became about her, or why the entire franchise sports more female leads than any other throughout the books and movies. They work in the books for the most part. As soon as Hicks shows Ripley how to use a pulse rifle though, (what, thirty seconds worth with no firing-experience) she struts around with this weird exclusively female cocky gait and suddenly becomes supremely confident.

After this point you've really gotta suspend reality over a cliff because she pretty much goes onto to succeed were an entire squad of marines failed. Toting a pulse rifle with precision aim and a flame-thrower with utter abandon (her only previous experience being, what? A few minutes torch time in Alien, blindly firing down corridors gripped with fear?). lol


Totally. Great casting. But stuff like casting Jolie in the role of Lara is just weak. She barely looks healthy, forget athletic. lol


Yeah I guess. Characters like http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/paulsnake64/aidaunrealturnament.jpg in Unreal II: The Awakening are pretty obviously not designed http://www.armchairempire.com/Features/Weekly-Top-10/best-cleavage.htm. lol :laugh:

Well now a days, Guys want to play as girls so they can look at their butt and boobies. So if you have 2 guys, Then I don't think one will have a problem with playing as they girl.. which is very pathetic that a lot of guys want to look at girl game characters, but whatever.. =[

Oh, I like the gender-swap idea.

I'm just happy to have the choice on what gender to play, and it's nice to be able to take a turn at playing either.