Gender Kombat: The Video Game Battle of the Sexes

Plenty of games include the option to play as either gender, and in most cases, the designers either try to keep things equal, or take the easy route and make the differences between the two sides purely aesthetic. Sometimes, though, you can't help but feel that they're playing favorites.

It can go both ways: Sometimes girls may get all the good armor in a role-playing game, while sometimes guys get all the most powerful moves in a fighting game (as opposed to ones designed to show off their asses and high-kicking abilities). Which gender do game developers favor? Who dominates the digital domain? Well, let's examine the evidence for both sides...



Girls Rule

Damn Dirty Ape Games

The unwritten rule seems to be that female characters are always superior in games featuring our lesser primate cousins. In the Donkey Kong Country universe, girls are all born with the innate ability to fly like helicopters by twirling their hair. Giving one character the ability to fly in a platformer would be like a first-person shooter letting one character use shotguns and missile launchers, while the rest have to slap enemies unconscious with a dead fish.


Our next exhibit is Ape Escape 3. While you don't play as the apes themselves in the game, you can choose between human characters Kei (male) and Yumi (female). Turns out, a number of the apes in the game are harboring rather creepy interspecies crushes on Yumi, and many will simply let her catch them without a fight.


Finally, girl character MeeMee is clearly the best choice in Super Monkey Ball. This is simply a fact, and I challenge anyone who disagrees to a Monkey Target duel at dawn.



Dragon Quest Series

The Dragon Quest games may seem to be charming, kid-friendly fun on the surface... but the more you play them, the more you start to realize Dragon Quest master Yuji Horii is a bit of a dirty old man. He likes to play dress-up with the female characters, who -- in addition to their regular armor -- can usually be equipped with a fetish-tastic array of corsets, bunny ears, fishnet stockings, and chainmail thongs. This equipment is not only, um, visually stimulating, but it's also often the best armor available to you at any given time.


The latest in the series, Dragon Quest IX, tries to even the playing field a bit -- but the way it's done is somewhat unorthodox. Rather than give guys more exclusive equipment, they simply let male characters don formerly female-exclusive outfits, like a frilly maid costume.




Mario Sports Games

In most mainline Mario platformers women are little more MacGuffins in puffy dresses for Mario to collect, which is odd, since the ladies absolutely aren't afraid to dominate the Mushroom Kingdom's various friendly sporting events. Female characters have always been some of the top-tier racers in the Mario Kart series, which makes sense, considering Mario Kart is as much about causing destruction as it is about driving well. Haha, am I right guys? Haha... ha... ha...


Ahem. Seriously, though -- Baby Daisy will beat your ass.


It doesn't end with Mario Kart, either; Peach will leave you spinning with her girly underhand pitch of death in Mario Baseball, and whoever manages to grab Daisy as captain first in Mario Strikers has pretty much declared themselves the winner in advance.



Early Resident Evil Games

In the first few Resident Evil games, the ladies are given a number of advantages. Whether it's Jill Valentine in the original Resident Evil, or Claire Redfield in Resident Evil 2, you got more inventory space, the ability to pick locks, and a more versatile array of weapons. All pretty major perks, considering all the locked doors, limited ammo, and a damn tiny inventory were more challenging opponents than any zombie.


This pretty much continued on until Resident Evil 0, when they made the inexplicable decision to give Rebecca her own game... and, well, that predictably stopped the Resident Evil tradition of female supremacy dead in its tracks.