Alyx Is A Nerd Succubus
In honor of the second and final day of the Sex in Videogames Conference— the premier event for women to gather and discuss the latest ways to not feel lonely while they masturbate, and maybe some other stuff— the Metafuture Women’s Studies Division would like to present an essay on other stuff— why Alyx of Half-Life 2 is not an engaging character to her peer group women.
Our research revealed that Alyx is too aimed in her design— aimed at the young videogame-playing men who are too genteel to slaver for the plebian oversized and impractically exposed tit or the common man’s leather-swaddled buttock, while still being susceptible to yammering on about whom they would acquiesce to bone.
Figure 1: The urbane male’s perspective.
The asian features, the measuredly tomboyish denim and jersey knit clothing, the de-fetishizing lack of glasses despite the technobabble words coming out of her un-glossed mouth, her faithful giant robot— it’s all designed to make the lonely sensitive boy say, “There’s a pretend woman I can unashamedly admit is to my taste. I will do so now on an internet forum.”
Alyx, to critical ladies in their mid-20s, is still fanservice— just to a different sort of fan. It’s her unending congeniality, mostly. That, and the plucky science girl routine, her pet-like convenience and utility, and probably even her “y”. She’s just too slick and attendant to Gordon for them to believe her as a character.
Figure 2: The uncompromising female’s perspective.
Conclusion: For maximum appeal to women, when Alyx says something unauthentic and pisses them off, causing them to take revenge by chucking paint cans and concrete blocks at her face, she should at least say “Ow.”
And as a plausibility footnote for the plot, the part in the beginning of Episode 1 with the van ride turns them right off as well, even though it is Dog-related. The eyes start rolling and the tongue starts clicking right after the first turn. That might have been some lingering Alyx hate, though.
June 10th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Guys do see Alyx as fanservice too. There is no reason to attack her Asian features and tomboyish attire as some sort of smoke screen (and really, what does her race have anything to do with it?). Females should be happy there are males put off by the breast plate bikini character.
Yes Alyx is still intentionally attractive and attending to the player, but it is a video game. You can’t seriously get upset over unrealistic attraction between video game characters, it is just a cliche. Like what about male characters who always rescue the girl they only met 2 minutes ago and then dot over her for the rest of the game? This is just as unrealistic to me. Hmm…perhaps critical ladies in their mid-20s secretly wish the player was the girl in this situation so they could get all hot and bothered over the male character’s attention?
June 12th, 2006 at 8:47 am
“And as a plausibility footnote for the plot, the part in the beginning of Episode 1 with the van ride turns them right off as well, even though it is Dog-related. The eyes start rolling and the tongue starts clicking right after the first turn. That might have been some lingering Alyx hate, though.”
Or it might have been that it’s just not a very good game.