At this point, it would be easy to trot out the standard answer: Young, straight men design most of these games. Some of them don't get out much. Either way, this is their way of making a dream woman, a la Weird Science. It's like a little boy drawing tits on a stick figure. But perhaps it goes deeper than that.

How do you represent power in a video game: the courage of a lion, the fearlessness of a snake, the strength of a warrior? It's hard, and let's face it, most game designers are having a hard time coming up with cohesive dialogue, not to mention their "character's motivation." Violence would be the easiest way to show power. One critic noted that murder is the most natural expression in video games because it is the most logical function of a computer. A binary bit is either on or off. The switch is either active or inactive. Alive or dead. Therefore, having one object eliminate another object is a natural path.

For young men though, it could be argued that sexuality is the ultimate expression of power, and this is something gaming technology is finally able to capture and express visually (we won't get into Custer's Revenge here). Since Genesis a woman's sexuality has been the one thing man, in his eyes, has not been able to control. He can go to war, like Paris of Troy, abuse women like Ike Turner, or even turn on his charm like Bill Clinton. But he will never be able to stop his fascination of the womb, the place from where he came and where his linage, his life's work, will arrive. Women have this power. He does not.

And so we don't see powerful female leads armed to the teeth like Rambo or as smooth talking as 007. Instead we see an exaggeration of womanly properties like a modern-day Venus of Willendorf. Wide hips. A round ass. Back-breaking breasts. To some people, these attributes are more intimidating than any weapon of mass destruction. These women are literally packing.

The young men making these games are acknowledging that these female leads are strong, but their expression of this is skewed based on their own phobias, desires and repression.

A few years ago I talked with the creator behind Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix, generally acknowledged as the first lesbian video game, and asked him why he decided to make the physical interactions between the two female leads so intense during the cutscenes. He said "I just wanted to make a classic story. The sex was just a part of it."

At the time I felt he believed that statement. I still do.

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