The Lesbian Gamers Guide to Dream Gaming Moments for Grrls

Wow, long and rather ambiguous title huh. Well it all comes down to this, has it crossed your mind when gaming that you wish it had gone some other way? That if the world were open-minded enough and developers had free rein to not worry about gender / sexuality exclusion, what would you change / include in games gone by. We'll get you started by way of example.

Man wouldn't it be cool if Spartan John were Spartan Joan? Sort of like Pope Joan, without the pregnancy fiasco; actually if Lucy Lawless were John 117. Whoa, wouldn't it have been awesome had Lara Croft and Amanda Evert been ex lovers, rather than just rivals with a grudge. How about if Peach rescued Mario for a couple of games, or if GTA had a female protagonist with a moral center. What are yours?

Matrix Revolutions Invisible Lesbian

Whilst perusing a few articles we came across a snippet over at Gamasutra where they're interviewing gaming great David Perry (founder of Shiny Entertainment) about what he's been up to on his year off. Now although the article is fairly interesting, the bit that got us all agitated was when David was talking about the release of the Matrix title Enter the Matrix.

According to Perry they had problems with the title because of its lesbian kiss. It seems the ESRB weren't overly thrilled with the idea of the kiss appearing. Perry says he got around this by saying the Matrix scene was actually "two computers kissing" - "and the ESRB bought it".

We immediately saw a similarity between this and the recent elimination of the "lesbian" content in Mass Effect by stating the women involved aren't women, they're 'mono-sexual aliens'. So rendering lesbians invisible by stating they aren't women is no biggy if it will get your game published. This is the age old problem of lesbians either being rendered invisible, predatory, single (and thus having no-one to be 'lesbian' with) or pandering to the male gaze. Of course if you happen to be a computer generated mono-sexual alien, you're OK.

Is SSX's Zoe Payne a Lesbian?

Yes we're back with our "Is 'insert cool grrl character here' a lesbian?" piece. You may recall a couple of weeks ago we looked at Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, well today we're going to look at Zoe Payne from the SSX snowboarding series of games. We think our gaydars tweaked more than a little when Zoe hit our screens, let's see why.

Zoe Payne has an interesting bio, her nemesis is Elise Riggs, a tall blonde 'amazon' from Canada (but Elise's favorite thing in the world is men, so strike her off the lesbo list.. even though she's Canadian, into sports.. and female--go figure!). Zoe would like to "open her own bike/coffee shop" if she weren't a pro boarder (strike up the points!), she's also a fan of climbing the worlds largest summits, no doubt because she likes going down afterwards. When asked if she wears boxers or briefs, she coyly replies with "What do you think." So.. what do we think.. is she or are we barking up the wrong snow covered dyke?

Tomb Raider Legend II & Lara is Bi

Don't get your panties in a twist, read on... Remember our earlier foray into the future Lara Croft? Well this is just a little something to get your teeth into whilst we await Tomb Raider Legend II... Lara Croft is bi. What? when? How? Ok.. so not Lara Croft 'exactly', but the silken tongued Keeley Hawes who voiced her in Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider Anniversary.

Keeley is no stranger to the lesbian world, given she played 1890's hottie Kitty Butler in Tipping the Velvet. At the time she was interviewed by UK based Diva magazine, in which she stated rather matter of factly to being bi. Keeley is presently working on Tomb Raider Legend II which is set after the incident in the previous Tomb Raider Legend title. In Tomb Raider Legend II Lara Croft heads for Avalon, in search of her mother. And we're pretty sure we're one of the first gaming sites to even realise Tomb Raider Legend II is in the works, given we stumbled over it quite by accident, so huzzah us!

Lesbian Gamers Xmas List 2007

Alright ladies, it's almost that time of year, when a fat bearded man in a red and white suit will enter your home completely unnanounced at lord knows what hour, eat your food, raid your liquor cabinet, mess with your home decor and place boxes of lord knows what all over your floor! All whilst his pets pee and crap on your roof!

Yes, it's Christmas season, holiday season, whatever you like to call it. It's the season that people who don't even believe in Christ celebrate his name, decorate trees in their living spaces and gamers hope and pray someone on high was listening to them when they slipped "I don't need any more clothes this year just games" into the conversation. We're going to take a look at what lesbian gamers should have on their Christmas lists this year, so come with us, take a peek, add your own gift ideas as we bring you The Lesbian Gamer Xmas List 2007.

Coolest Girl in School - Ugh

Aussie developers 'Champagne for the Ladies', a company whose tagline is "mobile entertainment for discerning dames" has a new game out called 'Coolest Girl in School'. Sounds good, it's about cool girls afterall. So, what makes the girls cool? Well, lying, bitching and flirting of course. Don't all groan together.

There's even a little sexuality play thrown in apparently, with the official site stating "Experiment with your sexuality", we can only assume this to mean some girl on girl action. Now, the odd thing is Creative Director of Champagne for the Ladies is (surprisingly - Ed.) a lady - Holly Owen. Perhaps it's all tongue in cheek, but lost on us, perhaps Holly just has a bizarre sense of humor, or she just doesn't realise the damage titles like this do to women gamers. Whatever the case this is a mobile title and won't be adorning your Xbox with its girly bitchery any time soon.

Gears of War 2 - Female Character Morons

Whilst perusing the interweb for news today we came across something that did somewhat disturb us and it was this - the lack of intelligence in 'some' gamers. In a thread on GameTrailers a simple question is posed: 'Should Gears of War 2 have a female character?'. Here's the response that nailed it for us: "Hell no! If there was a chick presented in Gears of War 2 as a main character she would be some buff-manly-dike-butch character".

Oh but there are other responses sure to endear these morons to us even further: "no way!!!!!!! this is gears of war 2, not gears of painting our nails 2", "Naahhhh there is no place for a women in Gears", "I dont wanna play as a butch woman.", "yeah, and she should be a butch lesbo carring a big gun theres definately a lack of butch lesbo characters in the video game industry.. i say she has a mullet hairy upper lip, a rosie odonell feel to her would be nice too", "If I play a female character, will have to play a little tampon reloading mini game like we had to when reloading the guns in the original Gears?"

Yes, there you have it, people actually took the time to respond with these answers, doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Granted there are a few intelligent responses in the thread, but for the most part, that's what you get. Feel free to let loose by making the most of our comments section.

Guitar Hero: Lesbian Anthems - Dream Release

Ok so needless to say this isn't a 'real' release, its a dream release. Guitar Hero is one of those classic games that seems to be on a slippery slope to hell. With each release the songs become more mundane, less recognizable and less worth your gaming pennies. So, we thought we'd have a little fun with the series and collate our own Guitar Hero: Lesbian Edition for this site.

Feel free to add and discuss just what titles you would want to be included (in the comments section), should the day ever come when Guitar Hero: Lesbian Edition was on the cards. If we can come up with a longer list that would be fantastic and look at it this way, perhaps you'll discover some guitar chicks you hadn't heard of previously.

Strum the Full Article Right Here!

Pink Girl Gaming Accessories!!

Pink, yes it means so many things--not out pop stars who dislike 'Bush' (make of that what you will), color perfect for gender stereotyping, a pale red, slightly flushed cheeks.. and girl gaming accessories. Yes of course we're going to have a little bent out rant about that last one. Firstly let's say, we know not ALL women (yes including lesbians) find pink accessories to be irritating, we're not speaking for everyone, that would be silly. We are speaking for some however.

So why the rage? Well, WolfKing (aka maker of gaming input devices) today announced it is customizing its award-winning WARRIOR gaming pad and TROOPER gaming mouse to appeal to female PC gamers. The specially designed gaming devices will be sold exclusively through Dell. "Specially designed", oh goody!.. how are they specially designed for girl gamers... aren't our hands the same as guys, four fingers, one thumb - CHECK! .. strange I wonder what they 'designed' for us lucky 'special' ladies of gaming!! YAY!! They added "a Flamingo Pink accent gradient on top of a full stealth black matte finish" and now "it offers all the functionality of the WARRIOR, but with a feminine touch."

“Female gamers have an incredibly high set of standards when it comes to quality as well as design,” said Bob Costlow, director of sales, WOLFKING. “You can’t just paint something pink and say it’s for girls. (errr, isn't that what you've just done Bob?-Ed) The Girl Gamer products give women access to fully functioning, hardcore gaming devices, but with an aesthetic touch.”.. ohh.. 'aesthetic touch' we'd have probably called it an 'asshole touch'.. but each to their own.

Female Characters in Mass Effect

Just wanted to highlight our special article about female characters in Mass Effect on the Xbox 360. If you're looking for an awesome title with more short haired women than you'd see at Lilith Fair, Mass Effect is going to be the game for you. We'll be updating this article regularly until we've got all the main female characters included.

The scary thing is, these aren't all the female characters we've seen so far in the game, these are just the ones that you will deal with on a deeper level. There are plenty of others that wander the worlds. Any questions about Mass Effect, just stick them in the comments section and we'll hopefully be able to answer them for you. We hope you like our exclusive article 'Female Characters in Mass Effect'.