Any Gay heroes / heroines these days

MooseJam

or are games still a gay free zone

Tyranax

I'd be more worried about games getting their portrayal of women right first before something like homosexuality even comes into play (hur and indeed hur). Granted that's getting a little better, but we have a ways to go yet. As depressing as it is I can't think of even one gay hero or heroine. The two lead female charachters in Fear Effect 2 had a bit of, er action between themselves I believe, but they were hardly heroic charachters, and they aren't exactly positive examples of a healthy lesbian relationship, just titillation(there I go again, waheeeeyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!etc....)

ProjectColossus

Master Chief.

Feelgood

Isn't Snake from Metal Gear gay?. I heard he got that eye patch from teabagging some dude?.

Retr0gamer

Only really good portrayal of homosexual characters I've seen so far has been in Valkyria Chronicles. They aren't exactly the heros but you can recruit so gay and lesbian characters to your squad. It's a pretty mature game were the female characters and in particular the female leads are portrayed in a very positive sense and not as sex symbols. The females are very strong characters. Still the is one recruitable character who is a big muscular man with eyeshadow and a very camp voice. Suppose you have to cover all your stereotypes. Still it's a massive step forward for games in general in this regard and even has a very strong theme of racism in it that I haven't seen handled well in videogames other than Final Fantasy X.

Sorry if that was a bit off topic.

rizzla

I heard you can be gay in Fable 2. If you are playing a male you can bring home guys for some sex, or the opposite for females.

Call Me Jimmy

orly? might get it.

Kersmash

That whole section with Cloud getting his drag costume, especially the part obtaining the Bikini Briefs from Mukki, in Final Fantasy VII.

Overheal

Bully/Cannis Canem Edit. He was gay.

Then of course you had The Ambiguously Gay Duo, but that was a MadTV cartoon.

koneko

Tingle, in all likelihood.

Retr0gamer

I don't think there is a better game narrative about male bonding and macho man love than Gears of War.

Overheal

male bonding isnt necessarily gay. in fact our forefathers would tell us its the farthest thing from it.

Retr0gamer

Overheal wrote: »

male bonding isnt necessarily gay. in fact our forefathers would tell us its the farthest thing from it.

There's male bonding and then there's Gears of War.

Riesen_Meal

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's male bonding and then there's Gears of War.

"Queers of War"

:P

Sorry, I couldnt resist!

Retr0gamer

Fieldog wrote: »

"Queers of War"

Genius

Vegeta

koneko wrote: »

Tingle, in all likelihood.

Surely

Vegeta

Fieldog wrote: »

"Queers of War"

A pun at its best,

I tip my hat to you, love a good pun.

Praetorian

Lesbeans r hot!

Mr Trade In

I played an RPG for the GBA called Summon Night, if you play as a girl in the game your summon monster is gay, bit weird as it is a game rated E rather than M.

koneko

In Temple of Elemental Evil you can be gay, if you choose to marry a particular character.

Cy_Revenant

If you play as a woman in Mass Effect, you can be gay.

You can be gay as a man too, but Alenko doesn't swing that way, so expect to end up lonely.

The Sims.

L31mr0d

Mario and Luigi are clearly closet homosexuals. I mean they are one step away from wearing leather hats and chaps

ProjectColossus

Oh of course, left4dead has subtle gay undertones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW8tE93Vx8Q

evad_lhorg

In the smackdown vs raw season you can edit the fighters entrance which can make for some very gay and hilarious things. like Triple H coming down with one of the girls entrances and he is prancing around and doing cartwheels and stuff. comedy gold!:D

tman

evad_lhorg wrote: »

In the smackdown vs raw season you can edit the fighters entrance which can make for some very gay and hilarious things. like Triple H coming down with one of the girls entrances and he is prancing around and doing cartwheels and stuff. comedy gold!:D

Wrestling games are a given though...

seraphimvc

Voljin classic grabs balls action is the only thing i have ever seen in video game history lol

wait,handsome Leon who failed to get laid 3 times in our record too is also a potential gay....?

wayne040576

I remember that Link was voted as a gaming Gay icon by a US gay mag a couple of years ago:

From the mag: "When darkness enshrouds the land, Nintendo's sexy farm-boy-turned-wolf sets out to save the day in this upcoming game. His weapons: a sword, a bow, arrows, and kick-ass grooming skills."

http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/action/thelegendofzelda/news.html?sid=6151905&cpage=7

pixelburp

Well considering that racial stereotyping and the crass, sexist representation of women is still prevalent, if not as happily married to the culture as ever, I wouldn't get any hopes of a fair, mature treatment of homosexuals in games (bar stuff like Fear Effect 2 which tbh falls into the previous category of the depiction of women to titillate the male gamer).

It's a sad reality but the market is driven by what the developer think is still the core demographic, ie, lusty young males; so first of all gaming needs to get rid of the image that it considers women to be nothing more than under-dressed sluts (and conversely, that busty women are needed to sell games).

Until then, it's a bit much to expect gamers to display any maturity about homosexuality (I know previous posters are only teasing, but the jokes above do somewhat prove this ) when gaming shows an even poorer grasp of mature heterosexuality.

In my opinion

Cunny-Funt

Ah sure gays don't play games anyways, they'd be too busy worrying about fashion and the x-factor:p

Nah but honestly the lesbian aspect in mass effect is decent enough. But I suppose male gay gamers didnt get any options in that game.

But I mean what should they do? Have characters go to gay bars during the game? Theres not all that many movies that feature male gay love scenes and those that do are movies about relationships and comedies etc.

Your not gonna see it often in action movies where the hero blows up a building full of bad guys and then goes home to fck his boyfriend. And games are generally action. I think they'd pretty much have to build a game around the fact that the character is gay cause instead of having generic shooter 1004 and "oh yeah the main character is gay" and that's all you'd hear of it. I'd assume there'd be pressure to feature a gay relationship into the game.

So RPGs would really be the most likely genera they'd do it in I'd say, where the player makes the character whatever way they want. They'd just need a game where the theres gay male characters in it also for the player to have a relationship with.

Stephen

Imagine if the daily mail got hold of a story about a gay game.

"VIDEO GAMES MAKE YOUR KIDS GAY SHOCKER! - BAN THIS SICK FILTH!"

Retr0gamer

My Beautiful Laundrette - the game.

Ciaran500

But most games don't make any comment on the characters sexuality how do you know if they're straight or gay?

im...LOST

Vegeta wrote: »

A pun at its best,

I tip my hat to you, love a good pun.

Ah, he didn't come up with that. There is a Flash Cartoon on Newgrounds.com with that name and I'm sure he didn't come up with that either.

Retr0gamer

Maybe the next step for this issue is online gaming. I've heard many a person having their sexuality questioned on xboxlive by 10-15 year olds.

noodler

I swear I came up with that Queers of War gag over Xmas. I would have posted it but I was assured it was NOT funny.

Stupid little brother.

elekid

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Ah sure gays don't play games anyways, they'd be too busy worrying about fashion and the x-factor:p

Heh, I'm gay and I do nothing but play games

It would be nice to see proper portrayals of gay characters in games but in some ways I'd prefer no portrayals at all to some of the awful stereotypes you do see in games. I honestly can't think of an example of a gay male character in a game I've played who isn't portrayed either as screamingly camp or butch, leather-clad and creepy. It would be nice to see an ordinary guy who just so happens to be gay in a game with no big deal made of it and without them having a one-note "I'm gay" personality. Rpgs would be the most likely genre for that but I do realise the audience most games are aimed at so it probably ain't gonna happen any time soon.

As Ciaran500 says, characters sexualities usually aren't specifically stated in games where it doesn't have any relevance so there's always a chance there are more out there than we think, like what happened with Dumbledore after the final Harry Potter book was released (hehe, I just realised Dumledore is probably one of the most down-to-earth portrayals of a gay man in videogames assuming he appears in the many Harry Potter tie-ins).

Apparently Zangief from Street Fighter is gay, there is a fair amount of theorising that Zell from Final Fantasy VIII is gay and, disappointingly, a male character who was in love with another male character in Wild Arms 2 was changed into a woman for the American localisation!

TheWitch06

elekid wrote: »

Heh, I'm gay and I do nothing but play games

It would be nice to see proper portrayals of gay characters in games but in some ways I'd prefer no portrayals at all to some of the awful stereotypes you do see in games. I honestly can't think of an example of a gay male character in a game I've played who isn't portrayed either as screamingly camp or butch, leather-clad and creepy. It would be nice to see an ordinary guy who just so happens to be gay in a game with no big deal made of it and without them having a one-note "I'm gay" personality. Rpgs would be the most likely genre for that but I do realise the audience most games are aimed at so it probably ain't gonna happen any time soon.

As Ciaran500 says, characters sexualities usually aren't specifically stated in games where it doesn't have any relevance so there's always a chance there are more out there than we think, like what happened with Dumbledore after the final Harry Potter book was released (hehe, I just realised Dumledore is probably one of the most down-to-earth portrayals of a gay man in videogames assuming he appears in the many Harry Potter tie-ins).

Apparently Zangief from Street Fighter is gay, there is a fair amount of theorising that Zell from Final Fantasy VIII is gay and, disappointingly, a male character who was in love with another male character in Wild Arms 2 was changed into a woman for the American localisation!

Makoto from Enchanted Arms is gay. He's madly in love with Toya, always flirting with him. So funny.

Retr0gamer

I've just found it on youtube. Quite possibly the most sensitive dealing of homosexuality in a videogame ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoomycJFIQ

And this my friends along with killer poisonous chihuahuas, bend over the knee spankings, special moves including a kick to the ballox, among many others, is why God Hand is one of the greatest games ever.

GothPunk

I agree with you Ciaran500, most game characters are quite sexually ambiguous. The game narrative never really goes there or isn't really a part of the story.

I like the direction most RPGs are going in that the characters are basically bisexual and you can lean them towards being gay or straight. This is something that annoyed me about Mass Effect, because I couldn't make my dude be gay. What's the point in having games where they let you be a gay female character and not a gay male? Valkyria Chronicles is also a great step in the right direction, the gay characters are a little stereotypical but it didn't really bother me considering the characters have traits that effect gameplay so every characters differences are played up a bit.

Then we have MMOs that were supposed to enable users to get married, but when gay people started asking for marriage they just got rid of marriage entirely (I think it was a Lord of the Rings MMO.) Seemed a bit childish to me.

I doubt an FPS this gen would ever have a gay character, it costs too much to make an FPS and risk having it flop because homophobes won't play as a gay character. Although with proper female characters like Alyx (Half Life 2 series) and Faith (Mirror's Edge), I'm sure there will come a time fairly soon when a main character that is gay is present in an action game and is presented in a way that it's 'just a character that happens to be gay'.

The Sims games are a great example of how gay characters should be handled. There's just no difference to what you can do whether you choose gay or straight couples. They can adopt and stuff as well which I think gives out a good message.


@Retr0: I now have another reason to get God Hand.

Kersmash wrote: »

That whole section with Cloud getting his drag costume, especially the part obtaining the Bikini Briefs from Mukki, in Final Fantasy VII.

One of my most favourite gaming moments

ProjectColossus

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I've just found it on youtube. Quite possibly the most sensitive dealing of homosexuality in a videogame ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoomycJFIQ

And this my friends along with killer poisonous chihuahuas, bend over the knee spankings, special moves including a kick to the ballox, among many others, is why God Hand is one of the greatest games ever.

I've been looking for a copy of this in shops for ages now

Guess I should just pick it up online.

seraphimvc

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I've just found it on youtube. Quite possibly the most sensitive dealing of homosexuality in a videogame ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoomycJFIQ

And this my friends along with killer poisonous chihuahuas, bend over the knee spankings, special moves including a kick to the ballox, among many others, is why God Hand is one of the greatest games ever.

oh lol that's another one i've totally forgotten lol

was a pain in the a** to beat them tho :(their attacks are pretty gay too.........

noodler

seraphimvc wrote: »

oh lol that's another one i've totally forgotten lol

was a pain in the a** to beat them tho :(their attacks are pretty gay too.........

Zell wasn't gay, he had a thing for a bird in the garden library.He was just an idiot.

EDIT: He did like hot dogs more than any straight man should though.

pixelburp

GothPunk wrote: »

[...] What's the point in having games where they let you be a gay female character and not a gay male? [...]

Don't fool yourself; that wasn't so much a step forward for gay characterisation in video games as it was more a case of another sop to the horny fratboys & whipping up some controversy / interest with the promise of lesbians. To be fair, they handled the romantic subplot fairly well regardless of gender, but you can be sure the gay female character was just there for the promise of a foursome of funbags.

Cunny-Funt

elekid wrote: »

Heh, I'm gay and I do nothing but play games

You must be secretly straight then. I was obviously kidding man , look at the comment before mine.

elekid wrote: »

It would be nice to see an ordinary guy who just so happens to be gay in a game with no big deal made of it and without them having a one-note "I'm gay" personality.

Thing is, if they make a character gay in a game, its gonna have to be a game where gameplay/story involves a relationship of some sort.

I can't see them making a game where they state sexual preference and then nothing else is said and the character goes on killing bad guys or whatever.

elekid wrote: »

As Ciaran500 says, characters sexualities usually aren't specifically stated in games where it doesn't have any relevance so there's always a chance there are more out there than we think

Indeed.

GothPunk wrote: »

I like the direction most RPGs are going in that the characters are basically bisexual and you can lean them towards being gay or straight. This is something that annoyed me about Mass Effect, because I couldn't make my dude be gay.

But you could make him gay! He just doenst get it on with anyone. See this is my point of them having to include a sex scene or a relationship, as otherwise he's not gay.

The way masseffect worked was you can have your character swing whatever way, but the other character/potential partners didn't. They were gay or straight (or in the case of the blue chick...no gender at all)

So if you picked a male character and wanted him to be 'gay' fine he was. But there just didn't happen to be other gay character for him get it on with.

elekid

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

You must be secretly straight then. I was obviously kidding man , look at the comment before mine.

No offense taken here, I found your comment quite funny actually!

That's kind of crappy about Mass Effect, it's probably kind of true to life but why include it in a game at all if nothing comes of it. I think Pixelburp is spot on about why they included it, hot lesbianz with none of the discomfort of having to watch 2 guys doing anything together.

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

I can't see them making a game where they state sexual preference and then nothing else is said and the character goes on killing bad guys or whatever.

I'm sure it could either be done subtly with little hints or as a plot point, maybe even with a discrimination angle (rpg territory?), but again I'd rather not see it done at all if it's forced and detracts from the game by pushing an agenda or just plain done badly.

Cunny-Funt

Well the thing about masseffect is. Theres this blue Alien chick that simply put..swings both ways... So if you make a male character or a female character, you can get going with her (if you play your cards right) & thats why its possible to have a lesbian aspect to the game.

But its not some feckin sex game, its just a small , tiny part of the story.

Yeah its true about the difference between the sight of 2 women together versus having to watch 2 guys doing anything together. Its not something the average gamer looks for in a game. & video games companies wanna make money so you know...

But there is always a chance of featuring a gay character in a way that your looking for . I personally can't think of an example but maybe you can?

One good example in terms of TV shows in the show The Wire. One of the best characters in the show was this gangster in the hood type guy, but who actually robbed drug dealers in a Robbin hood style way. He was also gay. And is miles away from any gay stereotype thats for sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWbq-WgE6yo&feature=related

Stephen

^ Omar. He was awesome. Sticking up drug dealears with a shotgun and making off with their loot

Vegeta

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

One good example in terms of TV shows in the show The Wire. One of the best characters in the show was this gangster in the hood type guy, but who actually robbed drug dealers in a Robbin hood style way. He was also gay. And is miles away from any gay stereotype thats for sure.

Omar is one bad mother fcuker. Class character

GothPunk

pixelburp wrote: »

Don't fool yourself; that wasn't so much a step forward for gay characterisation in video games as it was more a case of another sop to the horny fratboys & whipping up some controversy / interest with the promise of lesbians. To be fair, they handled the romantic subplot fairly well regardless of gender, but you can be sure the gay female character was just there for the promise of a foursome of funbags.

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

But you could make him gay! He just doenst get it on with anyone. See this is my point of them having to include a sex scene or a relationship, as otherwise he's not gay.

The way masseffect worked was you can have your character swing whatever way, but the other character/potential partners didn't. They were gay or straight (or in the case of the blue chick...no gender at all)

So if you picked a male character and wanted him to be 'gay' fine he was. But there just didn't happen to be other gay character for him get it on with.

I think I should elaborate more as that's not exactly what I have a problem with, however I must admit I haven't finished Mass Effect yet but I just now did a little research on the BioWare forums on this subject to find out a bit more. Their reasoning on Mass Effect appears to be that they just wanted to tell a story about humans interacting with aliens, and a human-alien romantic subplot is I think a cool part of the game and a great way to elaborate on the human-alien interactions. Perhaps they didn't have enough time to feature well scripted human relationships and instead opted for a 'genderless' alien relationship - some of the mods on the BioWare forum said that deeper human-human relationships could be a factor in the sequels. I guess we could be cynical about the Asari relationships and say that they made the Asari look female so that people would think 'OMG, HAWT LESBO ACTIONZ!!!1', but seeing as how BioWare have featured 'equal opportunity lovin' before in Jade Empire it's not like they are necessarily afraid to feature gay relationships. However as Sha'ira has a female body and a female voice and Nelyna, refers to her as "just a generous, compassionate woman", I just felt after playing those bits that I would have liked to get it on with Kaiden.

It's not like I hate the game over it, I love Mass Effect (must finish it!), but like it said it just kind of annoyed me that I couldn't go there. It's not a big deal really as human romance isn't really part of the story (at least up to where I am in the game), but in terms of a discussion about gay characters in games, I think it's a fair point to make that for all intents and purposes most people view the Asari as female.

Although I am bisexual, I'd rather watch two dudes go at it than two women :pac: Anyway, I'm sure we can all agree that developers of RPGs are no longer afraid to offer 'equal opportunities' realtionship wise in their games (like the Fable series), but what about other genres?

pixelburp

GothPunk wrote: »

I think I should elaborate more as that's not exactly what I have a problem with, however I must admit I haven't finished Mass Effect yet but I just now did a little research on the BioWare forums on this subject to find out a bit more. Their reasoning on Mass Effect appears to be that they just wanted to tell a story about humans interacting with aliens, and a human-alien romantic subplot is I think a cool part of the game and a great way to elaborate on the human-alien interactions. [...]

Which is fair enough & a great part of Mass Effect was the story of tension between humanity & the rest of the galaxy's races. But you can also establish a lesbian relationship with the human female crew member, so in my eyes it lessens the impact of the alien themes & just reinforces my own view it was there was a deliberate bait to boost exposure. As it were.

GothPunk wrote: »

Although I am bisexual, I'd rather watch two dudes go at it than two women :pac: Anyway, I'm sure we can all agree that developers of RPGs are no longer afraid to offer 'equal opportunities' realtionship wise in their games (like the Fable series), but what about other genres?

Perhaps they do, but RPG games are still guilty (and to my mind, the most guilty in gaming) of the D-cup-slut misogyny that's rife throughout gaming, which is the first hurdle you have to get over before you even consider "legitimate" gay characters. You only have to look at the RPG game covers to see what I mean (though my fav RTS at the mo, RA3, takes it to another level).