I just hate Metroid Other M so very much. It's like some otaku wrote a fanfiction where they, as Adam Malkovich, got to order Samus around and save her from Ridley and paralyze her (what) then save her life again through heroic self sacrifice. And she goes along with it all because he can't write female characters so she's a 1-dimensional waifu with a baby fixation who needs a firm heroic man to face enemies she's already killed by this point in canon.
Which is fine, I mean, there's some dumb-ass fan fiction out there. Except...
It's totally canon (and possibly the last one)
It's programmed by ... Team (Jiggle) Ninja. And her power armor keeps disappearing mid-fight somehow even though that's never happened before.
Okay, fine, I'll just ignore it - OH WAIT, the story was written by the same guy who wrote the rest of the games (except the Prime trilogy). So Samus was retroactively a traumatized submissive pining over her dead master, it just never came up until this travesty wedged into the narrative. (Not counting her comic book backstory, where she was a young girl. Of course she was traumatized *then*, but then she killed Ridley and avenged her parents)
Oh, and the Prime Series? Declared noncanon. Even though it was far better gameplay and story wise, but I guess he didn't like an actually competent team having anything to do with his deadly-yet-subservient waifu.
Ugh, just... fuck that guy.
It's like the opposite of Tomb Raider. Lara Croft was designed to be a strong female role model, but due to technical limitations became a popular example of gamers demanding unrealistic boobies. Eventually a game was made where she got actual character development, looked realistic, and kicked a lot of ass.
While with Metroid we find out that we only *thought* Samus was a strong role model because the NES/SNES didn't let this dumbass write much.
Mainly posting this rant because I don't expect it to actually bother anyone. Pretty much everyone seems to agree that Other M is awful. Even some random athletic guy in the grocery store who complimented my Metroid Metal shirt (<3).
I checked the current Steam sales looking for examples of exploitation but didn't see any major ones. Just a bunch of military shooters and cartoony indie games. Very few women at all, actually. The ones I saw had boob armor, which is of course ridiculous and somewhat pandering, but it was at least better than this:
(Sorry I know that's from 2003 but I just had to share it, my sides, why do people like me buy stuff like that)