Two guys… fighting each other? I mean, what’s the point?
Dead or Alive is a 3D fighting game that offered players a breath of fresh air when it arrived in arcades in 1995. Quickly establishing itself in an already crowded market of fighting games, Dead or Alive had game play focused on timing instead of the control combinations that were de rigeur at the time. As well, it sported a countering system with which players could soundly defeat the practice of button mashing. Short of revolutionary, Dead or Alive was a fun new way to play a fighting game without the requisite fatalities and supers.
And, it had breast physics. Almost 20 years later, the ongoing franchise still has breast physics. After spin-off games were made featuring no fighting, a little bit of volleyball and a whole lot of voyeurism, it’s fair to say that the lasting legacy of the Dead or Alive fighting franchise is jiggling boobs.
It may have a tradition behind it, but with video games continuing to bear the brunt of public criticisms, breast physics are under fire for objectifying women as sexual objects. Frankly speaking, these heaving bosoms incriminate themselves: they’re ridiculous, insulting, and not essential to the game play. However, a proper understanding of where breast physics come from is essential to properly criticize it.
As an art form, video games are usually indulgent exercises in excess that are testosterone-fueled vehicles to reward its players. As a player, I enjoy breast physics the same way I enjoy bad voice acting, bad dialog, cheese, and gratuitous violence; it’s all part of a lineage that has defined the tradition of video games for several decades now.
It probably wasn’t the first example of breast physics, but Dead of Alive’s crude implementation was an “improvement” over its peers. Due to technological and audience limitation, features had to be exaggerated to create any kind of effect. As such, Lara Croft’s boobs were cone-shaped irregularities meant to represent a woman’s breasts.
However, some guy somewhere noticed that these breasts weren’t behaving as his experience, so Dead or Alive took the extra step to make them “better” than real-life. From then on, the presentation of breasts physics in the Dead or Alive series displayed a commitment to follow this video game industry joke to its unfunny end.
As it is, there’s not that much more room for breasts physics to get better, already having achieved hyper-realism that elicits squeals of approval from fan boys. Alternatively, there’s a whole unexplored universe of trying to depict human females as they appear in reality that is ready for the taking.
And that’s the position that we’re currently in at the moment: a refusal by the industry to start developing other kinds of games that differ greatly from its established traditions because the market of gamers isn’t interested in buying it. Video games with breast physics are currently standing on the right side of history at the moment because puerile traditions are allowed to continue because there’s no other commercial alternative to take its place.
If others have long been warning of a modern day video game industry crash like that of the 80’s, it’s clear that the artistic expression in video games have long stagnated and is headed towards a breakdown of its own. What gamers need are great games that are fun, not necessarily ones that sell, and for this to happen there needs to be a continued evolution that allows games to become something greater than they are.
I’d be sad to see breast physics disappear completely from video games, but let’s see it for what it is: a joke upheld by a insular community that has been improved upon so much that it shows how outdated it has become.
Breast physics are retro, and should take its place beside 8-bit and 16-bit.
* the branch of science devoted to replicating the movement of bewbs for the enjoyment of gamers
How far I got in 15 minutes: Got my ass kicked as Gen-Fu, the tutorial-less era of the 90’s is getting me down
The good: The old Chinese man speaks fluent Japanese
The bad: the brave new world of 3D polygons feels about 40 years old at this point
Will I be playing once this year is over: something tells me the countering system would be good for a fighter game novice like me, but Fatalities…
Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 14
Play-a-Daystation 