GO MEN.

Ping5000

Well, it's probably too late now, but they should have had some foresight here. They should have thought about this before hand, and probably could have cut a few playable male characters, and used the female ones instead. That way they could have hired some female voice actors to do the lines. There probably wouldn't have been a loss in cost effectiveness here, unless they were cutting corners to begin with and hiring just one or two voice actors to do the voices of all 9. If that were the case, then this is truly is not a good sign. When video games cost at least as much, if not more than a Hollywood film, I expect most major characters to have their own voice actor, not just the same guy doing accents.

It's too late now, if the lines are all recorded, and it would be cost-prohibitive at this stage, but still, poor planning.

onikuwagata

sigh

well, this is pretty much the standard of sandbox games, sadly

HikariOblivion

Just one more step towards keeping the game market aimed mostly at men. It's a never ending story. There are more and more female gamers out there that would love to get into games and maybe even choose a female character.

Yes, mostly guys are going to be into an FPS where there is massive killing. But, I have to admit, if I was a girl and wanted to play as a girl, I would pretty pissed off right now. Ofcourse, I guess I would be used to it. It's just a trend that has to be broken.

MegaMako

Eh. It cuts VA costs in half.

Blinkstale

@Bakeroo: Get.Rid.Of.Slimey.girlS !!!

NeVeRMoRe666

Well..... I don't care if i play a male character in a single player game.. It's for a story. MMO yeah i'd be annoyed about it, but a single player game? Meh.

Ajh

@robinandtami: Very true. But in the end, they didn't, so it's really a null point. No amount of hindsight or comments mentioning hindsight is going to change it.

I_Hate_This_Place

@stranger: They wouldn't have to redo anything if they had thought about it from the beginning.

I'm not hating on the game. I like female character models, but won't refuse to play a game just because it doesn't have them. It's just the whole "they'd have to redo everything" answer is just wrong. If they had planned for female character models from the beginning they wouldn't have to redo a thing.

robinandtami

@arstal: Please explain how not re-recording thousands of lines of dialogue equals "shoddiness"? I await your response.

I_Hate_This_Place

@Palladium: Well when you wanted to get into Don Cornelo's room or whatever you could do all the extra things to make him look like a girl!

On a serious note though, playing as male or female does not matter to me. As long as the game play is fun then i don't really get offended by not including women. I just think it kinda sucks that you have the choice of 9 characters and not one of them is female.

akiko1874

Tbh, i'd allways pick to play a woman in a game then a man. Why?

I like a female presence.. i really do. Plus it's a lot easier to pull off the "brake-from-reality" becouse it kinda makes me think like how i'd behave in a certain situation if i was a chick.

Now, we are dealing with an FPS, so while i might miss playing a chick, it wont necessarily make it bad.

Cosmitz

This sort of shoddiness is a good sign that the game isn't worth playing to begin with.

arstal

Think of it this way; if there were twelve possible main characters and nine of them were women and you could only play as them and not the three men, wouldn't that feel weird?

I think that this is below the standards of most games today but without actually playing the game I couldn't be sure how it feels. Maybe they worked it in so it makes sense somehow. Idunno.

Rhys

Jesus, everybody just hears what the want to hear, don't they?

They'd need to re-script and re-record thousands and thousand of lines of dialogue, which is far more complicated than just "hiring three female voice actors and doing another recording session." Don't you think if it really were that easy Ubisoft wouldn't have just gone ahead and done it?

To do it and to do it right was obviously cost-ineffective for the sake of a feature they never promised, and I'd bet no gamer was expecting, or would have missed were it never mentioned. Ubi's sorta damned if you do, damned if you don't on this one.

Me? I was expecting one playable character in Far Cry 2. That's all there was in FC1, so why would I expect more? Suddenly they announce that you can play as nine characters, eight more than initially disclosed, and gamers are suddenly gonna bitch that the 800% increase in pc selection they're being offered isn't good enough? Seriously?

Honestly, I don't care whose forearm I'm looking at for less than 5% of the game. Do you? Really? Seriously, how many female gamers who were already interested in FC2 gonna get off of the bus because of this?

Let's not turn FC2 avatar selection into a gender-equality issue like we all turned the Resident Evil 5 reveal into an excuse to make that games' fictional (and heretofore perceived) portrayal of race an issue. If the people creating the damn game didn't have a malicious agenda when making these design decisions, why do we insist on making an issue of it anyway?

Shouldn't you people be playing games instead of bitching about the content of one you won't see for six months, anyway?

(And by "you people" I don't mean you people, so don't even go there)

stranger

@Fnor: "No, no, they didn't do it because the game only worked with a male protagonist, they did it because they didn't want to go back and record. They were lazy. "

"Lazy" translates into they didn't want to go and spend extra money on something they didn't feel was relevant to the game. I would love to be in the board meeting when a developer says:
"hey guys, we need to go re-record all this dialogue, costing thousands, if not more, so we don't piss off people who might want to play as a girl"

If you've ever been part of running a business,you would be able to tell that Ubi did not see this as a "justifiable expense" when weighed against the profits *possibly* lost from those butt-hurt over the lack of a choice. Feel free to show me how you would convince your managers to put more money in a project for something that they most likely deemed "unnecessary".

I_Hate_This_Place

I don't think this will make or break this game, but it is nice when game developers at least think of including female character models. I hope Gears of War 2 has a female locust with six breasts.

I have to say that I loved, loved, LOVED GTA IV when I went into the multiplayer lobby and my character was a lesbian, then my friend popped in and her character was a lesbian, then another friend popped in and her character was an african american woman. The best part was that NONE of us had gone into the character screen to make adjustments. The game just magically knew who we were! JK, but it was an awesome coincidence; and it did show that R* at least cares about creating diversity with their character modeling.

robinandtami

I really dont think the fact that you cant play as a female character will stop real female gamers from playing Far Cry 2,or any game for that matter. It def. will not stop this chick.. Who gives a shit..Seriously.

Mizuki

@Krondonian: Sorry, I didn't specify but that was directed at some posters, I have no problem with not having women protagonists in the game, as I stated above.

Krondonian

My goodness. Just because some people don't know as many females who enjoy shooters as males doesn't mean that's a set-in-stone-fact that more men prefer shooters.

For example I have a good female friend, and she likes Gears of War as much as any of my male friends. It's just that you know speaking in a game over XBL tends to result in either ridiculous 'hitting on' or medievally inclined misogyny. If I was female, I think I'd prefer not to speak too.

Maybe you are right, but please don't claim something to be true (or demand evidence to counter your point, despite providing none yourself bar anecdotal evidence). It's that kind of thinking that breeds the non-facts we all assume are true based without concrete evidence.

Krondonian

@Leepox: I know that this comment was meant as a joke, but it is actually an extremely valid point. Sound takes up more on a disc than some people think.

hotcoffeeburns

this is farcry not sims. would it have made the game better?? yes, but i wouldn't have ever noticed if they did. a videogame is supposed to set you in a suspension of disbelief for entertainment. customizable characters or not won't matter because it doesn't always make a game great. but it's nice to see developers try it only if they can pull it off, and they admitted that they can't this time around. instead of screwing up a game's potential.

and anyways 11 out 10 people that play female characters are men. (jk)

gimmepbr

Does kicking ass with a virtual vagina make the game better anyways? Personally I'd rather not even think that my character even has a penis. Maybe, hypothetically replace his penis with my penis to assume he's really me. But if I were to play a female character.... hmmm... I do like to imagine breasts though. Ah breasts....

King Seafoam

and i dont want to waste anymore gigabyte in what my limited disk size due to *ehem*

Leepox

lol males who play as females are whining... im disappointed (cuz i too does it at times) but hey in the end that will not stop it from becoming a great game

but then again people love to whine about petty things - that includes me.

Leepox

@Monstercloud:

Good observation. Still, I don't think that not being able to play as a girl is any sort of realistic detriment to this game. Unless it has a direct, discernible impact on the game's sales, it isn't something to worry about.

theherlihyboy

Their excuse would carry a little more weight if they they didn't apparently have plenty of money to do voices for NINE male characters.

Luziphir

@Cogito: No, no, they didn't do it because the game only worked with a male protagonist, they did it because they didn't want to go back and record. They were lazy. Their excuse is that the dialogue was too gender-specific for them to go back, which, as many have pointed out, is a bit ridiculous.

Unless it really is a wall pissing simulator.

Fnor

Some of you really don't get it. It's not a matter of forethought or anything like that, its really a matter of time and budget issues. You are being very narrow-sighted in your thinking of how much it would effect the entire game. Not only does it add THREE new full sets of dialogue, but it also DOUBLES the dialogue for all of the characters in the game.

Think of it this way, Mass Effect has 20,000 lines of dialogue. This includes bark dialogue (phrases characters say in combat), all the NPCs, and both a male and female character reading the same lines since you can choose ONE male or ONE female. Far Cry 2 is not a RPG, but when you factor in having nine characters, the dialogue already has to be pushing the 10,000 line mark, probably more. You'd have to add the lines for the females, double them, then double the lines for everyone else in order to make it work and not end up sounding stupid.

hotcoffeeburns

@Cogito: Nice comment. I agree with your sentiments.
Bottom line: developers didn't want to shell out extra expenses.
What the general "PC" community reads this as: Holy shit! Ubisoft are the h4t3rs of wymmens! Never mind other games don't give me a choice, Ubisoft didn't and that's sexist. Way to alienate lawlz!!11!!!1.

And no, I'm not a Ubisoft fanboy. I generally don't care for any of their games. But once again, people are trying to pull "injustices" out of their ass and be internet forum activists. Fight the non-existent fight here, folks!

I_Hate_This_Place

This sucks. I prefer to play as female characters in games.

CyberSkull

What the hell, you guys. You're all acting as if girls even exist, let alone girls that play video games.

Comatose Turtle

@SnprSlick: I can tell you how NOT to act. Don't act like she's the first girl you've ever met and go all crazy and start hitting on her, and don't call her a bitch and tell her to get back in the kitchen and make you a sandwich. I'm absolutely not saying that you do this, but both of those are very common occurances when we do reveal ourselves. About 50% of the games we go in has one or both of those guys, and frequently they will tend to gang up on us, making for a far less than pleasurable gaming experience. This causes a lot of female gamers to not reveal themselves at all unless they are in a group.

@Spartan1308: I have at least 30 women on my friend's list that play nothing but shooters, and that is no where near the number of women that I meet playing shooters on XBL, that's just the ones I enjoyed playing with enough to make friends. There's the PMS clan, more than 500 of them, most of whom specialize in fighters and shooters. No, I didn't take a poll to find out there's more than 5% any more than you took a poll to say their isn't. I'm just saying that my guess is probably a little more educated than yours because I know for a FACT that A LOT of women gamers go out of their way to NOT identify themselves as female just to avoid the hassle that comes along with it. I frequently get friend requests from women who did not identify themselves at all in the game while there were male players around.

@TheHun: Ditto above response for you.

robinandtami

@theherlihyboy:

They should of just given no choice at all. Not that I could care either way if women could make their own character or not, but as soon as you start giving people the ability to choose, there will be always someone who nitpicks at some choice. If there are people who don't buy Far Cry 2 for specifically the reason that you can't play as a girl, then you probably aren't going to like it anyways.

Monstercloud

most games I can think of with customizable characters give you a 50-50 choice with equal numbers of male and female options. but, mainly, those are rpgs now I think of it.. fps games are boy zones for the most part and mostly male characters seem logical.

on the other hand, you 'd be surprised how many of us big strong men like playing as the small a55kicking ballerina with a scythe just for fun..

how come there's no big lumbering machine gun toting mommas in games and small framed meek guys who use magic to kill so they don't get their hands dirty?

why are Team Fortress2 characters all male? why not skin female counterparts for every character in that game? would it be misogynistic then going on a rampage shooting only women?

games are weird..

railskins

@I_Hate_This_Place: +1 follower.

I think this is part of (an increasing number) of situations where we search for controversy when there is nothing more than a logical decision. They didn't want to re-record all the voice acting. It's expensive and time-consuming to redo all of that. Seems more logical, to me at least, than thinking that everyone who worked on this game at Ubisoft is masochistic. I mean, really? Are we really accusing the developers of sitting around, giggling like school children in thier fort with a "No girls allowed!" sign?

Characters that are part of a story should fit one specific mold, that of thier character and nothing else, no matter what that character might be (Black, White, Male, Female, Gay, Politically Correct, Tyrannical, Insane, whatever). This is an open-ended game, I get that. But it still has a story, one that apparently only works with a male protagonist. I don't understand why we're complaining about this when, if the story had less choices (ie, only one protagonist to choose from) we wouldn't care about gender.

Seems to me we're fishing for trouble when there isn't really any to be had. But that's just my take on it.

Cogito

@BigMoose:
Exactly.

Totorototoro

@VixDiesel: That was my response exactly. Personally, I don't mind not being able to play a female character, but not having the option to enforces that video games are a male-centric activity, which they aren't. It just looks that way.

And with stuff like this, it's like putting a big sign out front that says "Boys only". Even if that is your main target audience, you shouldn't alienate females.

TalKeaton: Game Design Major

Wow, way to alienate female gamers.

VixDiesel

Ah yes, this will be so problematic. Because obviously, not letting people be able to play as a female character in a game that's primarily targeted at men is going to really impact this game's sales. I mean, that's what happened in every other instance that this situation came up.

...

Oh wait. >_>

theherlihyboy

@Palladium: but Master Chief and Cloud [i]are[/i] gay.

Zodduska

Ha! Not taking the time to write non-gender specific dialogue is THE BEST REASON for half-assing this title. It's even better than LucasArts' Force Unleashed doesn't have multiplayer because it just doesn't approach.

I mean, come on, why WOULD you write gender-specific NPC dialogue for a SHOOTER? What could the gender-specific bits be, I wonder? What could they want to discuss with a man that they can't discuss with a woman in this game? Maybe...

Mister, have you been to the sperm bank lately?

Hello sir, I'm looking for some sailors...

What?

wild homes

@Bakeroo: If that was a Calvin and Hobbes reference then you win the internets my good sir.

MexiNugget

@Silent Predator: Maybe I should have added more emoticons. ;)
After all, it could be swapped so that the male characters hit on you while the females talk about making sammiches!

I totally agree with you, though - it seems like an incredibly lame and cheap decision/lack of forethought.

Achenar

@Achenar: Empty dialog like that wouldn't take long to fix and record. Again, something that could have been easily avoided with proper planning.

Silent Predator

Oh come on. Talk about cheap. Not expanding a game's universe due to laziness? Lame.

Solid_hedgehog

Cry me a river. Let me tell you, I was super pissed when all I could play as was a girl in Kameo and Heavenly Sword /sarcasm.

And to the the person who mentioned this was "un-Pc at worst", oh well. PC(political correctness) can die in a fire. If the designers don't have an option to play as a female, their choice. I only care how good the game actually plays, not what gender I have to play as. As Dtoid members say, STFUAJPG (shut the fuck up and just play games).

I_Hate_This_Place

Good! Then that would detract from the time they should be spent cooking and cleaning and....uh....doing whatever it is you girls do. In all seriousness, though, that is a pretty weak "reason" for their decision. They already threw in extra missions, but couldn't throw in the extras for chicks? What gives!?

chaos242

@Silent Predator: Presumably women are swooning over the character you choose to play, while the male NPCs are asking if you've pissed on any nice walls lately.

Achenar

@otakucode: An artistic dancer dude? An outgoing party dude?

Have you even read about this game? It's about survival and revenge in Africa. While I don't doubt that at least some of the characters will be stereotypical, I think you're grabbing from the wrong pool of stereotypes.

BobbyBob

Oh sure this is fine, but if those 3 characters were black instead of women then this would be all over the f*ing place.

Vidril

Heavenly Sword was completely ruined by the fact that you couldn't play as a man. Oh, wait.

tzaketh

@Brian Crecente: If it's just how other characters address you, then this makes even less sense because it would just require changing pronouns or modifying some lines. It wouldn't require an entire rewrite of the script. This could have easily been included in the development process.

It's not that the game is going to be horrible now, it's just that this is a stupid oversight.

Silent Predator

@kryzhal: You're right that there is no scientific data, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence. I'm talking about shooters specifically. I'm not trying to say that girls only play "casual" games, but they aren't generally into shooters enough to go buy their own copy.

Spartan1308

@robinandtami:
"Most of us love fighters, RPG's, platformers EXCEPT shooters." There i fixed it for you.

95% of the girls I know play video games. I only know one that plays first person shooters, all the others stick to nintendo related stuff. When either of my friends brought their 360 to a party they played DOA4. Rockband eventually took it's place.

When I played on Live I never once heard a girl play, they exist but less than 5% is a good estimate.

TheHun

@SnprSlick: Clearly you haven't ever heard the idiots when a female connects to a game and dares to speak. I stick to TF2 now because the community seems a lot more mature about it than elsewhere, and I still get a 'holy shit it's a girl go make me a sammich' idiot speaking up reasonably frequently.

Treating us as 'one of the guys' is fine - but that's not what's happening.

If there hadn't been a choice in character at all for this game, it wouldn't really be an issue. Giving nine choices that are all male - when with a little rewriting (which could happen at the start of the writing process and not be an issue) they could provide the female options and not alienate females.

As for 'how many females actually play this sort of game'? Well, if the proportion is smaller I bet you can see where to place at least some of the blame for this genre being seen as a boys club.

Achenar

@robinandtami: Women's taste in games is definitely not a myth. My wife loves bejeweled and just about every music game you can think of. But that's where it stops. She'll watch me play other things- she really likes watching GTA4 for instance, but she has no interest in playing. I also can tell you about a dozen other women that I know pretty well who have the exact same tastes.

I think it's awesome that some women like shooters and other genres but I really think they're in the minority. Believe me, I wish my wife would play Gears with me so I could get some of the multi achievements!

TSlade

Just when I thought gaming wasn't one of the most pervasively sexist forms of media....

boogieordie

@robinandtami: Good for you, but how would you know I'm wrong in my guess. Do you have any proof? Did you complete a poll of all shooter fans? I didn't say girls don't play shooters. I said that girls who play shooters are a very small segment of all the people who play shooters. I know girls who play platformers and GH/Rock Band but that isn't the same as going out and purchasing COD4 or R6V for themselves, not just playing once in a while on male friend's copy. How many friends do you have who "buy" shooters and how many are female?

Spartan1308

I don't think it'll be a problem. How many FPS protagonists have been male since Wolfenstein?

Does Not Equal

@Spartan1308: @hotcoffeeburns: There's no real data to prove that the percentage of women who play shooters is low. We can only speculate that it's less then males. But even if it is the case that they've just gotten used to it, don't you think they'd like the choice, or that they want the choice?

This was featured on Kotaku 2 years ago, check it out.

[kotaku.com]

Video games are at the point where the audiences are widening. When I was in elementary school most of the girls I knew only played video games because their brothers had them. And even then, most of them didn't care for it.

Nowadays there are blogs aimed at women and for women about gaming.

Besides, we've had so many games with males as the lead it'd be interesting to get a new perspective, especially for protagonists with voices.

kryzhal

You are all missing the point. Look at the concept picture. There is clearly a dangerous black man with a gun. This must mean the game is racist, right? It's not like there are any black men with guns in Africa. Wait until Croal hears about this.

Can you smell that? It's sarcasm in case you missed it.

Ex_EA_Slave

You stay classy, Ubisoft.

onidavin

@PissedPS3Fan: To be clear, i don't think the main character ever talks in teh game. They're talking about how other people address you, and that in some cases it is apparently gender specific.... at least that's what they told me.

Resisting Office joke....

Brian Crecente

@robinandtami:
You're right, how SHOULD we act. Like you are one of the guys, but oh wait, no, we can't because somehow that doesn't equal gender equality.

SnprSlick

Next headline: "Ubisoft afraid of cooties"

Humdinger24

The point is not that women will have to play as male characters, as many other commenters have pointed out before, but rather the fact that there are 9 choices available and every single one of them are male. With games like Halo (as mentioned above), there is only one character, so only have one gender would fit the story line, but in a game where there is a possibility of having a female character, but they decide to cut it out completely, it's just wrong.

BigMoose

how about keep it simple and just have one guy.
unless the 9 guys are all sharing the same voice, thats a possibility init?

pandafresh

I don't think it's going to matter at all.

But, to each their own. Perhaps, it was just a fun way to end the article.

If you want to see a game makes waves, wait for the media frenzy over Resident Evil 5. ;)

S

sascha23

@Palladium:
Isn't Far Cry 2 supposed to be an "open game" ?
And you can't really compare this to FF, Bioshock, Portal or Halo because in those games you aren't given a choice of playable character, in Far Cry 2, it seems, you are given this choice. So of course it's reasonable to question Ubisoft's choice to not give a player the choice to play a female character.

Zhal

@Bakeroo: My avatar approves.

Quark

@Spartan1308: You'd guess wrong. It's a myth that women only like to play Bejeweled or Dance Dance Revolution. Most of us love fighters, RPG's, platformers and yes, EVEN shooters. You probably play shooters with women/girls far more often then you realize because many women/girls choose not to speak during multiplayer matched with random guys because so many boys don't know how to act when they realize a woman is in the room.

robinandtami

@TheRemedy:
1. It was an open-ended RPG advertising the focus of "choice".
2.Mass Effect, for better or worse, did everything. But, that left it full of about 1 bajillion bugs.
3.Far Cry is an FPS. You don't see your character's face anyways.

Palladium

@SgtElias: That is exactly what I think happened. Games do not have to be gender neutral to be good.

CatPope

There may be a small uproar, but this shouldn't cause major problems...
I'm just happy they provided a choice at all.

braagh

it would've been ALOT more than just smoe time in the recording studio. Having to rewrite alot of dialog (women do talk diffrent from men if you haven't noticed) character models. The way others respond to the character (which WOULD be diffrent) it would extend development time substantially and the payoff wouldn't be worth it. Plus like everyone's said. It's not a big deal.

NessD12

Who wants to bet the ones you CAN play are immature stereotypes? Let's see, we'll get a buff strong dude, a weak smart dude, maybe an outgoing party dude, how about an artistic dancer dude... what others? Oh, and none will be allowed to be gay. And none will be allowed to be bisexual. And none will be allowed to be atheist vegan murderers, etc. Sandbox games are getting so old with the same limits in every damn game.

otakucode

@Gadzooks149: Seriously, they probably only did one male voice and whichever character you choose will have that voice. Please think before you post.

SgtElias

Wow. They came up with an interesting way to choose your character. Having the ones you don't play as still in the game as NPCs is a pretty cool idea, but they dropped the ball on not including the females as choices. If there were no females in the game that would be one thing, but to have them in the game, but not playable basically because they are female? That's some flamebait for feminists right there.

Gouki4u

@hotcoffeeburns: That's what I was thinking. I know there are plenty of females who play videogames, but what percent of gamers who play shooters are female? Well there's the Frag Girls and...yeah. My guess is 5% or less, and it just wouldn't make sense for them to go back and re-record the dialog especially since those who do play shooters must be used to playing shooters as males at this point.

Spartan1308

Sounds like they ran out of money. But I don't understand why they didn't do 4 guys and 2 girls. They must have thought that their demographic did wont to play women or that playing as a woman wasn't a big deal. I happen to agree. But I'm male so...

DeathBeforeDishonor

That's okay, it's not like there are any females who play games. :)

@Gadzooks149: This. Just...this. Seriously.

Achenar

This really isnt a big deal. Girls have been playing as male protagonists for a long time now. If it affects story, than why is this so serious? My wife loved playing the first Farcry game, and when confronted with the choice of picking guys only, its no big deal. I feel that some other games should do better though, like Skate.

mindf1ow

@geekgrrl: I totally agree with the lack of forethought here. Doing ALL the dialog at one time for both gender cases would have been a lot less expensive and time consuming, therefore more doable, than deciding to back and record it later, which they obviously have decided not to do.

Shit happens. But shit still sucks.

PissedPS3Fan

Mass Effect did it!

TheRemedy

I think it'll go over well just fine. Then again, I have a penis.

Aethyr

@hotcoffeeburns: they specifically did 9 male voices, and skipped the 3 female. Assuming each has a distinct voice, why not cut 3 males and hire 3 females?

seems very stupid to me

Gadzooks149

While I'm sure people would prefer the option, I don't think it's mandatory to have both genders as playable characters.

For one, it's in first person, so it doesn't really matter.

For two, I don't care if I'm playing as male or female in any game. Imagine if all Niko's lines had to be re-done with a female actor- it would cost them another $100000. I would rather the Devs spent time on more important things than superficial attributes of a character you don't even see.

Perhaps attributes like co-op...

Krondonian

Wow. I don't care. You can't have a female character? Who cares? I mean, I understand if you're playing a MMO, or open game, but if you're following a scripted plot, I have no problem being pigeonholed into a character. I'd rather have a decently penned out character that's set in stone than have another wishy-washy plot and dialogue tree in order to accommodate every single person who wants to play.
Really, would Halo and Final Fantasy VII be as great games if Master Chief or Cloud could be gay or a girl? Well, I mean, Halo the plot doesn't matter, but the character's gender, and the story, are kind of important for the Final Fantasy games. I'm just saying, there's no reason to get mad at somebody for having only one playable gender in the role if it's either important or doesn't matter.
I mean, did only being a guy in Bioshock or only a girl in Portal bother anyone?

Palladium

Hmm... Ubi didn't have a problem recording THE EXACT SAME LINES over and over AND OVER for the characters in Assassins Creed.

Klaymen

That's G.R.O.S.S.

Bakeroo

that tells me they hadn't given the situation a thought throughout the entire recording process; otherwise they could have done two different versions at the time of recording. i don't know much about the far cry universe, but that does seem rather lax at best, un-PC at worst.

geekgrrl

"Wow, that's not going to go over well."

Yeah, because that hurt so many games.

hotcoffeeburns

Was told by a dev that there will be no coop either :(

Dits

Weak excuse! I've been waiting for some of their next-gen horse power to do audio waveform modulation to get a range of voices (male and female) from one source... I haven't seen this yet even though there's dozens of tech demos floating around out there.... makes me sad :(

okenny :)

@Gadzooks149: Because it's so much more than just recording three other people. It requires a lot of rescripting, and maybe even completely change plot points. What if an important part of the story implies your character being seduced/seducing/sexing up a woman to progress the story, and there's a very specific reason why it should be a woman? You either have to redesign a part of the story or decide that Africa is being overrun with bisexual women. If the story is designed under tight constraints, it could be one heck of a headache.

Of course, I'm not justifying them. It's quite lazy, especially if they considered the ability to choose from any of several options, especially since under the circumstances, it should be allowed to select women. I mean, if it were Gears, yeah, I see why you could choose anyone in your party to play as but no women (as the quartet is male-only), but in this case, the party includes women.

Mass Effect managed to do this - partially through limiting any gender specific or sexual relations to a binary choice (Ashley or Kaidan) or asexual counterparts (the asari), and partially through rerecording some inane dialogue. Far Cry should have.

@okenny :): And them demos sound goofy outside of controlled sentences, which is why they're tech demos and not widespread technology. Compounding this is my previous statement.

Grive

@hotcoffeeburns: I am still looking forward to the game, but it certainly is not appreciated that it lacks the choice.

Now excuse me while I enjoy some Vegas 2.

Yuki

"Wow, that's not going to go over well."

Nope. I just went from lukewarm to ice cold. Screw them.

Cola82

I think in all honesty it's not the fact they don't include female characters, I mean whoop-de-doo it would be par for the course really in gaming. It's the fact they give you that many options then turn around and say 'Well because the others are female we didn't do them because it would take too long'.

Okay, okay that's not exactly what they said but the meaning is there. Females are probably used to having no option as the stereotype of 'Few female gamers' seems pretty ripe across the board, and alot of commentors here seem to be quite happy to dismiss it quickly. However I bet if it was reversed that a few would be picking up the flag and going 'Wtf' or, alternatively probably 'Boobies'...hard to say.

Bottom line, it is laziness no matter how you sprinkle 'Money' all over it. Game breaking? No. I Myself perfer to play female characters when i'm gaming but it's only to detach further from reality as opposed to playing 'Typical steroid injecting muscle bound generic shaved head male soldier #5'. I can see why some female gamers feel they're starting to get the shaft in games (No pun intended I assure you). Most recent game releases have shown developers wakening to the idea of a larger female gaming demographic and trying to tempt them in, which is good.

However at the end of the day is this a huge internet breaking issue? No not really, more par for the course. Will it hurt sales at all? Well sure, but only on a tiny fraction that will be mostly unnoticeable. If all the males are white with no skin color variation will it cause more of an uproar? Sadly yes.

Ah well, I look forward to playing GTAIV in the Savannah! Beating up Lions for money, running over Zebra's. Stealing Ranger's Jeeps to perform 'Poaching Prevention Vigilante Missions'. Picking up a Hyena for some health restoration...if you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Tystarr

I don't have a problem with it. I'm not female though either so I'm sure I have less of a problem not being angry about it. If they're going for realism though they should make it so you can be a female character but I don't really care too much either way anyways.

CarbonatedWater

I don't have a problem playing a male character, but it is nice to play as a female occasionally. Seems a bit short-sighted since more and more gamers enjoy customizing their character experience.

We can always add female dialogue on our own.

"Does this gun make me look fat?"

Chilly Hollow

@Spartan1308: I buy shooters, and I am female. Besides, all she was saying is that there isn't any real data on this, so there's no need to go out of your way to alienate the women who do play shooters by all but saying that we don't matter because there aren't enough of us to satisfy you.

As a woman who prefers shooters to other kinds of games, let me just clarify that the only reason this upsets me is that I was actually interested in the game until, as per usual, the developers went out of their way to say women don't really matter that much. As others have said, why get a choice at all, if that choice is meaningless? They could well have given us no choice at all, and this conversation wouldn't be happening. I have largely had no trouble playing as a dude in most shooters because the dude that I was playing had a name and a place in the narrative.

When I played Crackdown, however, the lack of female faces was noticeable and I found it profoundly frustrating. When you have a choice, and something as obvious as a token character that represents the other %50 of the human population doesn't exist when they've gone out of their way to include every racial minority in the U.S., it feels like a huge slap in the face. Maybe some of you don't notice because your faces aren't missing from picture, but a lot of you also recognised that.

Cola82

@Cola82: "as per usual, the developers went out of thier way to say women don't really matter that much."

That's quite the stretch if I do say so. If I was a Far Cry developer, I would be offended. Why? Because with comments like that you're insinuating that the entire Far Cry team is masochistic (like I said in my last post). It has nothing to do with you being male or female, it has everything to do with the color of money. That's it.

As far as Crackdown goes, all I can really say is "oh well." I don't sympathize with you not because I'm male but because those are your personal feelings and in no way reflect the intentions of the developers. Nintendo doesn't "go out of thier way" to say that "men don't really matter that much" when they make a Metroid game. To say otherwise is foolish.

I've never been frustrated playing as Samus Aran, or Yuna, or Zoe Castillo, or any other female protagonist. I won't be frustrated when I play Mirror's Edge later this (next?) year. You might be angry when you're forced into the role of Marcus Fenix, or Niko, but it has nothing to do with the developers. It has instead everything to do with your perception of the game.

In this instance, it has even less to do with that than it does with budgets and deadlines.

Cogito

Lots of girls do game, but they just don't make it as obvious as guys do.

Placentasaurus

What?!
@Chilly Hollow: I agree, I think just because we're so used to it. But they just gave a lame excuse.

Beatboxtaun

@Cola82: I also said, if they hadn't bothered to justify this choice with "can't be arsed; it's not like it'll make it a difference" I wouldn't be so offended.*

Although really, I should say upset/disappointed. I'm not actually "offended."

Cola82

@Cogito: I'm glad you read a single sentence that I wrote, because I said that having no choice is not a problem.

I also said, if they hadn't bothered to justify this choice with "can't be arsed; it's not like it'll make it a difference" is offensive. It's not like women don't exist. There are probably women on their development team, in fact. They obviously thought about it, but decided against it. That was a choice. I get to be offended by that choice and it's justification as much as I get to criticise any other aspect of the game I may or may not like. You, me, everyone does. Why is this aspect so freaking sacrosanct? I'm a gamer, too, and I get to talk about the crap that matters to me.

...and if you were a Farcry developer, and you took offense that something you said or did offended me, I'd just think you were myopic and self serving.

Cola82

@Cola82: I'm not myopic and self-serving. Please refrain from the personal insults. I'm not insulting your character or your choices, just disagreeing with your stance on the subject. To clarify, if I was a FarCry developer I would be offended someone would extricate such a circumstance (masochism) from such a mundane situation (budget and time contraints).

Read your sentence again. Yes, it might be a single sentence, but it wasn't taken out of context. It stands on its own quite well, and may even be considered a summary of your first post (except for the response to Spartan, of course). I could use a different sentence if you'd like:

"When you have a choice, and something as obvious as a token character that represents the other %50 of the human population doesn't exist when they've gone out of their way to include every racial minority in the U.S., it feels like a huge slap in the face."

The point is that you're making it seem as if the developers purposefully were out to offend women. That's simply not the case. And if I'm misunderstanding your argument, then nuts to me, but that's certainly the way it seems at first (or second) blush.

This concept is not sacrosanct. Nothing really is, in the eyes of a critic (and that includes both of us). In fact, I even said in my first post that this isn't something that's worth getting angry/offended/disappointed over, it's a decision born of finance and time, or lack thereof. To paint it any other way is just spinning the truth.

Yes, I realize that they needed to cut something, and this happened to be it, and yes, I realize that doesn't sit well with you. If I was in your position, would I be upset? No and no. Because shit like this happens all the time, and there is no ulterior motive, no matter the final outcome or who it might upset.

Cest la vie, unfortunately.

Cogito

I can't say I have any interest in this game, before or after this, but I have to admit I laughed at the pathetic "excuse".

Sinfjotle

@Cola82: I responded to her b/c I gave my guess and called it a guess, and then she told me that I was wrong. She stated as a matter of fact that I was wrong, not that she thought that I was wrong. That's the only reason I cared to say anything back. I still think 5% is likely a good estimate of the portion of shooter purchasers who are female. If you don't "think" I'm right then you're entitled to your "guess" as well. Just don't tell me I'm wrong when you have nothing more significant to back up your "guess" than I have to support my "guess".

Spartan1308

Best part of this thread: "I don't care. Of course I'm not a girl, so..."

DURRRR....

VioletArrows

@devilgoku: Oh...ehh...a "barbie game here and there."

I don't think I'd go THAT far. I know a lot of girls that play games, even if they don't have their own 360 with a LIVE account or you don't hear them on your voice chat playing Warhawk.

NPlace

@Bakeroo: +1

NPlace

I don't get how this "won't go over well"..this happeneds in HUNDEREDS of games, and nobody complains. Like it or not, video games are (basically) a mans land with the exception of a barbie game here and there.

devilgoku

5 to 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. But now a days there are plenty of girls who play shooters and action games. Not the majority but definitely enough to take into consideration when you make comments like this one. Without the comment this is a non issue. But the comment makes it sound like the girls who game are not as important.

BjLive45

Question. Has anyone here played FarCry 2?

No? Then why is everyone bitching? I agree it would be cool to play as a female; but... relax.

I get the feeling that adding playable females would affect the game ALOT more then most of you might think.

You cant just consider the friendly dialog and whatnot. You also have to factor in that the enemies react differently to women then men.

Man- "Look, its some dude. What the fuck is he doing here? Lets shoot at him."
Woman- "Aw, man 'nudges buddy' look at that chick. Damn, thats tasty. Aw, what are ya doin honey?... AW SHI...'(head gets blown off).

Plus, having your character being a female seems like it would affect the "operation" portion of the game.
Even with nine guys, the animations could be much the same (i would think). However, since women are proportioned differently the operations would be different.
Really, what if your character got shot in the tit? Seriously. It could happen.
Does anyone want to see that? Moreso, would anyone want to see her cram a pair of pliers in her breast?

Sure, the detail would be cool. But how do you think the public, at large, would feel about that?
(I doubt, even if you could play as a woman, it would come to that. Just like I get the feeling you wont be able to have you dick blown off (abit different but... ya). But still, wouldent generic male/female animations seem really lame? Isn't the game going for organic realism?)

Just think about it. Who wants a watered down farcry 2 just for the sake of being able to play as a female?

Would it really make the game any better?

Besides, does anyone want the game anytime soon?
Give the developers a break. I'm sure they have enough on their plate, as is.

SadSadSamus

The ESA does extensive polling on gamers and the games they play. They may actually be able to provide the most accurate data available for the percentages we're discussing. I've reviewed the report on their website, but it doesn't give specific enough info. It looks like they have much more specific data than what they offer in the free report. It would be interesting if we could get the additional data that they already have.

Spartan1308

If they ever say: "hey man! get off me!"
they now have to say:
"hey woman! get off me!"

Uh. Simple solution: "Hey! You! Get off me!"

It is possible to do gender-neutral scripting, believe it or not. Requires some juggling (pronouns get nasty), but it's possible. Obviously they had no intention of doing so off the top, which tells me more than it doesn't.

Also, the assumption running through this thread that a female version of a character is automatically going to act/speak differently than a male character in the same slot is making some pretty stereotypical assumptions, too. What are we saying here, girls can't be tough, aggressive and foul-mouthed when it's called for? You don't have to go out of your way to throw rainbows and ponies and cute little babies into every line of dialogue, and in fact, if you did, the female gamers would probably smack you inna hed, so to speak....

janai

They really did go out of their way to say they were excluding women though. What was the point of saying that?

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

Guys; I think the biggest problem isnt the voice acting for the protagonist (player) its the voice acting for all the people the protagonist talks to.

If they ever say: "hey man! get off me!"
they now have to say:
"hey woman! get off me!"

Or perhaps some lines where another character talks *about* women; needs to be changed entirely so that the character is trying to pick-up the woman you are playing.

I think this is more than just "would have to re-cord 3 different voices" I think its *any voice that references a gender of the player* would need to be re-recorded. They probably were too far into development and decided to just cut the playable women.

MeateaW

@janai: Gender-neutral scripts neuter the creative spark. It becomes less about creating an intelligent story and dialog tree, and more about how to get things to fit.
And really? You think there shouldn't be a difference between Female Characters and Male characters in how they talk during the game?
Then why bother adding in women if it doesn't change a damn thing, and you'll never actually see the fucking character.

That's the point. If they put women in, it would have to mean something. If it meant something, it would mean they would have to do a lot of extra work. So instead of creating something horrifying and butchered, they decided to focus on a single aspect and make it good, instead of trying to please everyone and failing.

Palladium

Actually, given the choice I prefer to play the lead character as a woman. women characters can offer different characteristics, and thus different game play. I played as a woman in Oblivion, and loved it. Played as a woman in Mass effect, and loved it. Played as a woman in one of the biggest video games of all time, Tomb Raider, and loved it. Played as a woman in the XBox version of Buffy, and I loved it. I like to play as a woman in DOA. Part of it has to do with the fact that I prefer looking at women to men, and I prefer their voices, even in a video game. I like how they move differently than men, have different strengths, and normally require different strategies. However, in a game like Far Cry II, it might not be that important. Still, Oblivion and Mass Effect, two of the greatest games of this decade, allowed one to create a female and play as a female, and it greatly enhanced the gaming experience.

bornonce

Well, it is a loss.

That's deadlines and budgets for you.

mcderek3000

That mus be the lamest excuse I have ever heard/read... and who the hell is even gonna try to do all those 75 side missions with each of the 9 characters... is it that hard for the make a nice linear game? :x

Shad0X

If they ever say: "hey man! get off me!"
they now have to say:
"hey woman! get off me!"

Before:
Cole: That's bullshit, sir! I'm not going till you start giving me some answers!
Now:
Cole: That's bullshit, ma'm! I'm not going till you start giving me some sex!

mcderek3000

@Rhys: I see your point.. but honestly--from my seat... I'd likely not even notice.

There are lots of great reasons to try and be politically correct. Beyond all the arguing and butting of heads involved reaching for a general consensus it only betters us as a whole.

But I honestly pay less attention to what everyone else is doing and focus on what I do. I don't worry so much about what others say as much as I recognize it, and use it to guide my personal actions for the better.

You hear it a lot.. the best way to make change is to "start at home". From recycling to energy conservation its a very popular idea and has its roots in easter philosophy. It makes sense.

It's really easy to hang someone else out to dry, criticize and scrutinize their choices and decisions... as that way you focus on their problems and not your own. even a vast minority of people would focus on themselves we would see significant change spurred through example and not negative peer pressure.

Then again, I'm also the type of person who tries not to judge others on their actions, decisions, etc. I'm a firm believer in the concept that if I had to live someones life in exactly the same shoes from the moment they entered the world and were presented with the same experiences, choices and circumstances then I would likely make very similar if not the same decisions.

It's just the way I like to live life and makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable. I wish more people would give it a shot.

asphix20

@Spartan1308: And you are going out of your way to completely dismiss my reasons for telling you your guess is likely off. You are basing your guess upon the number of women that you SEE/HEAR playing and I am trying to explain to you that I know from experience that A LOT of women go out of their way to NOT be SEEN/HEARD in multiplayer games. Most of the women that I play with do not have gender specific gamertags, and most do not use their mics unless they are with a group of friends. There ARE times when you are gaming with women and you don't even know it.

robinandtami

@Cola82: I can see where your coming from with this, and im sure that in an idea world they would have loved to add in the 3 female characters, but when you think about it, thats not only all the audio story audio for those 3 female characters, all the writing for what they are going to say but also rewriting and re recording all the response dialog from the other characters, as gender would change they way people respond to your character in game.... not to mention any localization re recordings later down the line, thats a hell of a lot of recording.

It seems to me, that including 6 different male playable characters, that affords them 6 storyline, probably with minimal changes to the response dialog. if it turns out, that each player character does get unique responses, then my whole argument falls down and theres somthing else going on, but id like to give them the benefit of the doubt.

id agree with crackdown though, your character never spoke, so there isnt the audio problem there, but that probably boils down to having to re do all the animation for female players, chucking animations made for a male character on to a female mesh does look rather odd most of the time.

cubed2D

Yup, it sure hurt GTA4 sales...

Dajmin

"Wow, way to alienate female gamers."

Exactly. While there is nothing wrong with having a game feature a male lead, if you are going to have a choice amongst 11 characters, you should at least make a couple of them female.

If it's critical to the story, then don't make any of them female. It's not like we're not used to that. But don't whine and use the excuse that it would have taken extra time and money to record women voices. Just admit that you decided to ax the women characters. Oh wait...would that sound bad?

trina

The only thing i can add to this discussion, is that nobody actually cares if you cannot play as a female character.

It's Far Cry.

Just like having players play with a female character in MGS, etc.
nobody wants that, because solid snake is a man, and has a history built up around him.

Vileyaser

is it just me who thinks this may have more to it then merely voices?
I could have sworn my first post made a good point.

SadSadSamus

@Gadzooks149: Consider enemy lines such as, "He's over here!" and "I see him!". Multiply this by however many iterations there are (if this game has a good budget, there may be dozens or even hundreds of these lines) by the number of speakers (however many terrorists/bad guys are in the game).

If they added the ability to play as a female character, it would be necessary to go back and re-record all of these lines.

DreadSpaniard

Am I the only one who imagines this article's title as being read by Thurl Ravenscroft?

Comatose Turtle

I'm female and this pisses me off. I'd really like the option to play a female protagonist. It's bad enough when I usually only get the one male character but this has nine!!!??? Sorry Ubisoft, but I won't be buying this or any of your other games from now on.

zef

yet again I'll be playing as a male...oh the joy

Satis24