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[Caz]

It only counts if everyone in the game is female. Portal works, Metroid doesn't.

I'm trying to actually think of a game with an all-male cast. Even War games usually have the 'female pilot' that takes you to the battle.

[smjjames]

It only counts if everyone in the game is female. Portal works, Metroid doesn't.

I'm trying to actually think of a game with an all-male cast. Even War games usually have the 'female pilot' that takes you to the battle.

I thought the main character in Portal was genderless?

As for all male cast, maybe early Sonic the Hedgehog before the other characters were added?

[Loud Whispers]

I thought the main character in Portal was genderless?

Chell is very much a woman.

[10ebbor10]

Despite what some people might think, the companion cube is not the main character.

[Loud Whispers]

Despite what some people might think, the companion cube is not the main character.

And it will not threaten to stab you.

[smjjames]

I thought the main character in Portal was genderless?

Chell is very much a woman.

Not having played Portal, okay.

might have been thinking of Portal 2 with the two robots.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You could make the case that GLaDOS isn't a woman, though. She has a female sounding voice modulation but is still a computer. Even with super cool Portal 2 spumblers, she deletes the human upload part of herself once she knows it exists. And, unlike SHODAN, she never really refers to herself in any way.

[Caz]

You could make the case that GLaDOS isn't a woman, though. She has a female sounding voice modulation but is still a computer. Even with super cool Portal 2 spumblers, she deletes the human upload part of herself once she knows it exists. And, unlike SHODAN, she never really refers to herself in any way.

Eh, her AI was based off the personality of a human woman, which is good enough for me.

[Urist Tilaturist]

While women disguised as men wasn't common, (and I wouldn't want that specifically in a game) it was possible, and generally your character is considered heroic and above ordinary. 1 in a million if you will.

Yes you can depict historical racism, but to exclude a gender or race entirely is still not a good idea regardless of history. Don't get me wrong, it's done, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I'm honestly not even saying EVERY single game needs to have women characters, though I would add people are less likely to take a game with all female characters seriously, unless those females are highly sexualized.

Faintly possible, yes, but I wouldn't want to see a multiplayer with disguised women running around everywhere - breaking immersion and all that. It was possible, but EXCEEDINGLY unlikely to the point where very few such characters should really be present. Besides, as I said, the only British woman to have certainly served in WW1 did so openly. An eastern front game could have openly female soldiers playable.

Excluding a race or gender entirely represents the situation. Southern courtroom in the 1930s? No black jurors or judges! Why? Because the legal system was racist. Forgetting this is an offence to those who suffered under this discrimination (you have yet to respond to this argument). Black and white cattlemen ("cowboy" meant a criminal at the time) riding together in the Old West are fine, however, because western states were often liberal enough to allow this.

I find the way you think history can be brushed aside so you can enjoy whitewashed versions without facing the truth quite strange. Yes, you could have a gender equal society as a setting, but that belongs in the future and not in the past.

[Loud Whispers]

Not having played Portal, okay.

might have been thinking of Portal 2 with the two robots.

Chell is also the protagonist of Portal 2 main storyline and single player mode. The two robots Atals & P-Body are the protags of the additional Co-op game mode.

You could make the case that GLaDOS isn't a woman, though. She has a female sounding voice modulation but is still a computer. Even with super cool Portal 2 spumblers, she deletes the human upload part of herself once she knows it exists. And, unlike SHODAN, she never really refers to herself in any way.

Whether or not she really did get rid of Caroline doesn't really matter. She is a computer. And I suppose I should be saying it is a computer, but I can't help but ascribe personality and character to aforementioned computer much in the same way I ascribe such qualities to an inanimate cube or on a more meta level fictional characters in video games themselves.

[Rolan7]

It's a video game, not a historical reenactment.

Some games are specifically historical reenactments. FPS games that depict previous world wars, for example.

Hardcore historical reenactment FPSes are incredibly rare (for good reason.  War is deadly and mostly boring, even as an world-class ace pilot or commando).  I understand there's a necessary suspension of disbelief for game mechanics, so it's not fair to say "You kill thousands of enemies and absorb health kits, why can't you be female".

But even the narratives of these games are about extraordinary individuals achieving unbelievable victories.  There's plenty of room for, say, a french resistance fighter who happens to be female.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this happened in the old Medal of Honor games:
http://medalofhonor.wikia.com/wiki/Manon_Batiste

Oh huh, and Call of Duty had a female soldier in the Russian army.  Makes sense.

There were a lot more female spies in WW2 than I thought:
http://listverse.com/2013/09/05/10-women-spies-who-brought-down-the-third-reich/

A lot of them parachuted into France and fought with the resistance.  The first entry became second in command of the Paris resistance chapter!

So for typical WW1 and 2 shooters can include women, even the relatively historically accurate ones.

It only counts if everyone in the game is female. Portal works, Metroid doesn't.

I'm trying to actually think of a game with an all-male cast. Even War games usually have the 'female pilot' that takes you to the battle.

Half Life 1, amusingly.  But yeah, all-male casts are pretty rare.

It only counts if everyone in the game is female. Portal works, Metroid doesn't.

I'm trying to actually think of a game with an all-male cast. Even War games usually have the 'female pilot' that takes you to the battle.

I thought the main character in Portal was genderless?

As for all male cast, maybe early Sonic the Hedgehog before the other characters were added?

I used to think Tails was a girl for some reason 
And Chell isn't genderless, just mostly characterless...  A blank slate for the player's imagination, much like Gordon Freeman. 

[Graknorke]

Half Life 1, amusingly.  But yeah, all-male casts are pretty rare.

Well if you want to pick really finely there's the ninjas which are women. Also I think that the big testicle monster is female. The queen of the headcrabs or something to that effect.

But it would be more sensible to stick to characters that make repeat appearances. As in, more than 2.

[scrdest]

HL1 with no add-ons still had the Black Ops Assassins, who were female. Quite... visibly... so.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I used to think Tails was a girl for some reason 

It probably has something to do with all of Tails' VAs (except one, I think) being women.

And Chell isn't genderless, just mostly characterless...  A blank slate for the player's imagination, much like Gordon Freeman.

A bit less so than Freeman. The void of her constant muteness gets pointed out frequently, and in the supplementary comics she's listed as an extreme positive outlier when tested for tenacity.

[Caz]

Hardcore historical reenactment FPSes are incredibly rare (for good reason.  War is deadly and mostly boring, even as an world-class ace pilot or commando).  I understand there's a necessary suspension of disbelief for game mechanics, so it's not fair to say "You kill thousands of enemies and absorb health kits, why can't you be female".

But even the narratives of these games are about extraordinary individuals achieving unbelievable victories.  There's plenty of room for, say, a french resistance fighter who happens to be female.

This is true. I wouldn't mind a 'historical' war game with a female protagonist, I'm just saying that it's unreasonable to expect lots of women running around in a video game set in WW2 (Unless you're in Russia, I guess.)