If you want to see a game reviewed, please add it to the comments below.
If there is enough interest in a game, and I can play it, I will review the game when I have the time. I currently have access to the following systems:
- PC (Steam and independent releases)
- Mac (Steam, Mac App Store, independent releases)
- iOS (iPhone and iPad)
Games that I will review are listed on the Upcoming Reviews page. The more replies, likes, or general interest a title gets there, or in the comments below, the sooner I will review it!
Games on Consoles That I Don’t Own
While I would love to review games that are held hostage tied to specific consoles (such as Journey on Playstation), I really have no reliable access to any systems not listed above. For any games that I can’t play, I am forced to base my reviews off of other people’s Let’s Play videos. While this is fine for games that are linear (such as JRPGs or Half Life 2) it is not an adequate representation of games that have branching plots or wide open worlds (such as Telltale games or western RPGs). So there will be some games that I will just be unable to review.
Obviously Sexist Games
The goal is to get the word out about women-friendly video games, and to shine a spotlight on hidden sexism and misogyny in games that have otherwise gotten a free pass from other reviewers. Please don’t ask me to review any obviously sexist or misogynistic games here. Feminist Frequency has already done an excellent job highlighting all the sexist acts of a largely sexist industry, so we don’t have to re-create all her excellent work here.
With that out of the way, please add your suggestions to the comments below!
Hi! I’m so stoked to have found your blog! I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on an indie game I just finished called “To The Moon.”
Excited for the games on your to do list!
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It’s on the list. I am intrigued by the trailers that I have seen, and I like how they donate proceeds from sales to help fight autism.
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Hello! I just stumbled upon your blog! May I suggest Journey by thatgamecompany? It’s character has no gender and it would be interesting to hear your review of it!
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I would like to do Journey, but it’s locked to the PlayStation console and I don’t own a PS3. Perhaps I can see what I can do with some YouTube Playthroughs…
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Hi,
Thanks for your reviews, They are very helpful when deciding what (not) to buy for my kid.
Have you had a chance to look at beyond two souls?
I would love to get your opinion.
Best,
Anna
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Unfortunately I don’t have a PS3, so if I did a review of this game it would have to be based off of Let’s Play videos, which don’t always work well for games with complicated, multi-path story arcs.
But from what I’ve seen from videos, the game has some pretty nasty elements, like an attempted rape in a bar [Trigger Warning].
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Might I suggest Velocity 2X? It’s a Playstation 4/ Vita indie title. The main character is a woman who, in my opionion, is free from most female stereotypes in games. Thank you, and by the way, I found your critique of Thomas was Alone very interesting.
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This game has also released on pc I believe.
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What are your thoughts on the Batman Arkham series, including the Catwoman DLC in city?
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I haven’t played it myself. But another female blogger has noticed that, in the Catwoman DLC, the typical gaming power fantasy that male characters get is marred for the heroine by a steady stream of overt rape threats accentuated by Catwoman’s hyper-sexualization.
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I realize you don’t have have a way to play it, but I’m looking for a feminist critique of Destiny (by Bungie). I’ll keep looking and let you know if i find anything, otherwise I will work on constructing my own review and share it with you.
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That would be fantastic! We could always use more reviews (and reviewers!) for the site. Please feel free to send me your review when you have it!
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How about “Life is Strange”?
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Life Is Strange would get a Women-Hostile rating from me. [Spoilers Ahead] In the first season alone we already have the rape of a young woman and a suicide that wasn’t well handled. For me, when a game decides to take on issues of violence against women (such as rape, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, stalking, etc.) I expect the developers to give the subject the seriousness it deserves. I will come down hard on games that flippantly exploit such traumatic subjects, or worse, use the abused bodies of their female characters to ratchet up the drama. Life Is Strange is one of those games. Over the course of the first season, the game brings up several serious violence against women issues: domestic violence, date rape drugs, rape and suicide, bullying, violent sexual harassment, but Life Is Strange shows little time or interest in doing these issues justice. And that, in my judgment, is an injustice.
And that’s before we even address the disturbing setup of the entire first season: in which you the player must actively condone the horrific murder of a young, fleshed-out, female teen if you want to save your hometown from death and destruction.
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Probably an odd request, but there freeware games on PC I’d like to suggest you review, followed by just a general subject. I’ll start with freeware games first.
I’m Scared of Girls is a top down action adventure game with a young transwoman protagonist, and to quote the creator “…the game deals with how muddy a feeling gender dysphoria leaves a person with usualy.” The actual game itself is an action adventure game with inspiration from Yume Nikki and possibly Baroque. http://rpgmaker.net/games/3427/
Iji I probably don’t have to introduce. I remember it being a massive indie darling. Still, I think the game has a lot to talk about in it. http://www.remar.se/daniel/iji.php
Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle might be worth taking a look at. It’s a sandbox adventure game with a large focus on lesbian romance. The game is filled to the brim with very well written female characters and can often be very sex positive. And our protagonist, the Duchess of Elstwhere, is a parody of the damsel in the distress trope. However, despite how much it does right, I can’t really defend how it treats rape in the story. As a result, I really have mixed feelings about it, which makes it think it’d be an interesting subject to analyse. http://aeresland.net/
I’m interested in reviewing these myself, but I don’t really have experience with such a thing. I’m requesting this from you because I’m sure you’d be a far better job than I could.
The general subject I’m asking for is horror games. I’m particularly interested to see some coverage to because, probably due to the prevalence of the final girl trope, there’s a lot of horror games, especially older ones, with female protagonist. Silent Hill 3 alone would probally be interesting to look just because of how well Heather Mason (who’s one of my favorite video game protagonists) is written and portrayed. Plus, SH3 has an excellent PC port. Unfortunately it isn’t on Steam, though. The Clock Tower series would probably be interesting to look at because it’s NOTHING BUT female protagonist, though only the first game in the series has a PC version. With Fatal Frame V looming overhead, it might be worth taking a look at Fatal Frame IV on the Wii or the remake of II. Though, yeah, a lot of these games might be beyond your means to obtain; that’s fine.
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Would you be interested in reviewing Remember Me (sci-fi dystopian action-platformer), Alien: Isolation (sci-fi horror-survival), and Beyond Two Souls (interactive drama platformer featuring Ellen Page)? All involve strong female leads as the protagonist and it would be interesting to see your take on how well-written these characters are. Thanks!
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Remember Me and Alien Isolation are definitely on the review list. I am still dubious of Beyond Two Souls, mostly due to some pretty nasty elements that were shoehorned into the game’s plot, like an attempted rape in a bar [Trigger Warning].
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DEFINITELY woman friendly: Fable 3, Xbox. I haven’t played the other games in the series yet so I don’t know how they stack up, but in Fable 3 you have 2 character options: The Prince and the Princess. They are both realistic human characters with practical outfits (that you can change to suit your personal preferences), there is no gendered violence in THE ENTIRE GAME and the Princess has all the gameplay and fighting options/levels available to her as the Prince. The equality cherry on top? You can have same sex marriages and adoptions as either character and many of the protagonists in the game are strong, independent, well-developed women of color.
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Fable 3 does sound promising from your description. And I will be happy to review it if Lionhead ever figures out how to successfully bring the game to the PC.
If Fable wasn’t a complex RPG, I could to review the game using Let’s Play footage. But unfortunately that approach only works for simple/straightforward games that have a relaticely linear story arc. I suspect that I would need to explore the Fable world thoroughly myself in order to assess how the game treats women across all of its scenarios.
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Hi!
I am a 19 year old psychology student living in Singapore. As part of my Final Year Project, I have created a game about intimate partner violence. I hope to raise awareness through this game. While I have never taken any art nor programming classes, my passion for drawing and gaming drove me to complete this within 4 weeks.
I would really appreciate it if you can review this game. The game can be downloaded here: http://www.thehealingdoll.blogspot.com
A little gist of what the game is going to be about:
“In the first part of the game, you play as Celestial. You have amnesia, and as you explore your surroundings, you uncover your lost memories and the horrors of your previous abusive relationship. You end up severely traumatised. This is to portray the emotional turmoil that victims of abusive relationship go through.
In the second part of the game, you play as Alex, Celestial’s friend. Seeing Celestial in such a state, you blame yourself for it. Until a mysterious Cat Man promises you the power to travel back in time and change the past. From then on, the choices you make will impact the plot and final outcome of the game. This is to show that when we step up and step in, change can occur.”
Thank you very much! ^.^
Min~ ❤
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A game/game series I think you’d be interested in would be the Mass Effect trilogy, which is available for PC! Throughout the game/s you can play as a male or female character and gender has very little effect on the game because either way you’re a badass ship commander. The only ways gender really effects the plot are the romance subplots you’re able to pursue, and I think small comments here and there by some bit characters, but on top of the standard hetero pairings there are also several same-sex pairings (especially in the 3rd) that are available as well! There are also a bunch of badass women in the games and while they’re all attractive/sexy, they’re also ruthlessly intelligent and they take really big roles in driving the story. I also can’t think of any instances of sexualized violence in the series whatsoever. Also being that most of your crew is aliens, there’s decent racial representation among them, and the humans as well. It’s my favorite game series by far!
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Hello have you done the Batman Arkham games? You could write about how all the females ae oversexualized! Please and thank you!! This game is on the computer or on x-box not sure..
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Unfortunately, I don’t have much time in my schedule to review games, and so I try to stick to women-friendly games that have been overlooked, or women-hostile games that haven’t been called out by the press.
Fortunately, plenty of other reviewers have talked about the misogyny of the Batman Arkham games: from their rampant oversexualization, to their damseling and fridged damseling of female characters, to their angry obsession with the word ‘bitch’.
But if you would to write a review, let me know and we’ll see about putting it up on the site! (full details here)
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Ghost Trick Phantom Detective. There is an ios version, but I played the ds version and suggest you do the same. a ds light can be picked up for 20 or 30 bucks.
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