a rose by any other name...

Geek On Stun asks a very important question: "Will the Next Generation Be Wankable?" (Part 1, Part 2), with references to the recently released Dead or Alive 4 and the upcoming Rumble Roses XX. Sophomoric commentary aside, I think they bring up a disconcerting trend. Especially when the industry is "doing its part" to curb the sleazy use of booth babes at E3.

Ever since I saw Mai Shiranui coyly jiggle her way to victory in Fatal Fury 2, I was certain there would be a market for this kind of stuff apart from obviously sexual Hentai games that contain a disturbing number of transgressions against what is considered natural human contact. But anyway.

Partially clothed female characters have always been a staple of fighting games, even before Lara Croft's hot pants made their way onto the screens of PC gamers. It's like any issue of Maxim; it's covert enough to be sold on any news stand, but it still may as well be porn.

The girls in Dead or Alive were obviously popular enough to get their own outing in Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, a game I'm convinced is as practical as a comic character swimsuit issue and did more to embarrass the games industry than anything else. Rumble Roses XX - a game that features all-female wrestlers - has taken it one step further to allow modification of character bodytypes. The title implies that there might actually be twenty of these games, but I think they're just missing the third "X". Though the opinion of a female gamer is probably much more useful; I'm a member of the group these games are supposed to appeal to.