The Tifa-Aeris Debates show my age

Stirling,

What you're talking about reminds me of the Great Tifa-Aeris Debates of 1997-1998. Nominally, the issue there was, in a perfect world, who is more compatible with Cloud? The subtext of the debate, though, becomes clearer in retrospect, and it was this: who better confirms your vision of femininity, Tifa (busty, and in immodest attire, but also visibly childlike, and shy) or Aeris (slender, and dressed conservatively, but also outgoing and temperamentally childlike).

(I will note, Stirling, that along with you, I'm somewhat bothered by the fact that I find myself employing the word "childlike" to describe both characters).

But to return to your point, I'm not sure that what rankles me in your story is so much the specific differences between Eastern and Western men's tastes in women. What bothers me more is the assumption made by the fanartist and others that the game designer created a flawed product when he failed to account for their particular tastes in women. The implicit premise that those people rely on is that we ought to be lusting after the women of video games, and when we aren't, then we can blame the game designer for not making them attractive enough.

The idea that a video game heroine ought to be a wet dream is so deeply ingrained now that it passes without our notice. Frankly I'm glad that the game designer in this case ruffled a few feathers with his choices, and not necessarily because his vision of Faith incorporates my own ideas of physical perfection; rather, it's because it shows that the market for video games has broadened to the point where they don't all have to be about adolescent wish-fulfillment anymore.

I haven't played Mirror's Edge, but I think I remember seeing it advertised on TV. You refer to it as "an urban free-running game in first-person perspective." I assume that this means a literal, behind-the-eyes perspective, in which the heroine rarely appears on-screen. Sort of the way that the protagonist's face never appears in gameplay in Doom. Is that right? Because if so, doesn't it seem odd that all this hay should be made over what the girl on the box looks like?