Darian said:
to be honest, games which force you to play a male character are a major put off for me no matter how good the rest of the game actually is. I can see the reasoning in this case, but frankly I would have preffered it if some solution had been found to let you play a female.
The problem is, many games have a story that only makes sense if your character is a fixed gender, e.g. if a woman is going to fall in love with you as part of the plot--Ultima VII got around this by the character being sort of bisexual, but for many situations it just won't be believable.
Darian said:
Gothic had no such excuse ... I never purchased any of its 3 installments, simply because it forces you to play a man. I know several other women who also did not buy it despiute being RPG fans, simply because we didnt find the notion of playing a male fun.
That's a very unfair assessment. Unlike most RPGs, Gothic has no pre-game character creation whatsoever. Just like an action-adventure (Tomb Raider, The Legend of Zelda, etc.) you're given a fixed character tied to the story, and you can only customise him or her to a certain degree. You could similarly say that Gothic
forces you to be tall, or skinny, or have brown hair, or be clean-shaven, or whatever. Pre-made characters are like that.As for the story not being an excuse for the male lead, well in fact it is. The first Gothic was set in a penal colony. Inside the colony the very few women present had
literally been sent in as trade goods, so you know what sort of social standing a female player character would have among the prisoners. The male protagonist has a hard enough time dealing with men who push him around because they think he's a weakling (often you have to stay well away from them until you're powerful enough to stand up to their bullying); it would be twice as difficult for someone seen as "a mere woman" to get by in the colony when many of its residents consider intimidation and brute force to be the deciding factor for earning respect.As for the sequels, since they directly continue the adventures of the same character (II and 3 both begin only a few days after the ending of the previous instalment) there is no way a female character could be introduced without having a lot of extra dialogue for this newcomer--in II and 3 those who remember the Nameless Hero's deeds generally address him as a returning hero who can surely help save the world yet again, which certainly couldn't be the case for an unknown female lead. In the case of Gothic 3 inserting a female character choice would require an entirely separate opening to explain how she gets there.Now that I think about it, I have never once been turned off a game because I could only play as a woman. Tomb Raider, Popful Mail, Perfect Dark, Monster World IV... I found all of these fun (sometimes much more fun than comparable games where you just so happen to play as a male); as long as the character is believable and not just there as a selling point (WOW SHES SOOO HAWT) I'm fine with it. Some RPGs like Morrowind and Mount&Blade give the female characters noticeable attribute differences from the males, so even from a purely mathematical basis the female gender choice has more than mere cosmetic differences to set it apart.By writing off such a vast number of games as male-oriented you're missing out on some wonderful experiences. Gothic II is one of my favourite games ever, but not because it's about a guy I can easily relate to (sometimes he has to do or say things I definitely wouldn't). It's just about believability.In real life I'm not a fearless sword-wielding treasure-hunter with serial kleptomania, so it's not too much a stretch of the imagination to imagine myself as a fearless
female sword-wielding treasure-hunter with serial kleptomania. It doesn't matter if a game is built around an anteater, if the depiction of that anteater is believable and the gameplay mechanics are good I can get into it and greatly enjoy the game.Well, I suppose it's "your loss" as the saying goes.