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Ico? Chauvinist?
Written by Head Gic on Tuesday, November 22, 2005
My friend mukuface IM'ed me today asking me if I'd played Shadow of the Colossus, which I haven't. It's only a little less than 50 bucks over here in Japan at the moment, so I'd really rather just pick up the US version when I head back for the holidays. The subject then turned to Ico, and as any gamer expecting, nay, demanding a higher artistic standard from video games will tell you, memories of this game are usually quite fond.
The game is beautiful, yes - its ambience unrivaled. But my girlfriend, Teesh, who is not a gamer by any stretch once told me that she tried to play the game and just couldn't get into it.
There could be several reasons for this, of course. If you have no idea what to do next in the game, it can become a little slow and just a little too quiet. The platforming aspects can also be a little overwhelming and potentially frustrating. But perhaps another reason could be the fact that the game is just a tad sexist?
Ico, on the surface, could be the typical dream of any kid who has a crush on his big sister's best friend, but in so many ways, it also embodies the boyhood fantasy of any weakling runt who longs to becomes the alpha male. Just recall, if you can, the circumstances of the game: the main character is a young boy with no credentials or experience and whose only distinguishing characteristic is a body disfigurement. He leads a helpless maiden (who is also barefoot, if I recall correctly) to safety whilst battling off hordes of enemies who wish to drag her away into the darkness. Oh, and the boy is armed with only a wooden stick.
If that doesn't scream out "treehouse fantasy", I don't know what does.
Ok, so perhaps "sexist" was a bit too strong a term to describe the game, since I'm fairly sure that the story designers meant no harm whatsoever with the story they conjured. Yet, one has to admit that women might find it a lot harder to relate to the game than a socially awkward boy and/or socially awkward man would.
It's just a shame that, despite driving game design concepts leaps and bounds beyond the current standard of that time, Ico's developers were incapable of doing anything with the hackneyed "save the princess" archetype that has plagued this industry for decades.
