"Mada, mada dane"

(Here from meta_roundup.)

I don't play many FPSes either--mostly because I love playing games with strong plot and characters, and too many FPS plots consist of just "here's a gun, now go shoot things." Of the ones I have played, though, I can think of only one that doesn't have invisible vagina syndrome, Outlaws, which is over 10 years old at this point. There's at least a few women in the game--admittedly, one (the main character's wife) is there only to get killed off by the bad guys, but then you have one who's a level boss (also a relatively tough one) and the main character's daughter, who seems to exist only to get kidnapped until she saves her father's life at the end of the game.

Personally, I stick to RPGs and adventure games mostly...adventure games seem to do a lot better with including women (and including them for more than just nice scenery), and there are some female and gender indeterminate player characters. RPGs...I've got two female characters running in the RPG I'm playing right now, Morrowind. And it's pretty evenly balanced/geared towards female PCs as much as males except for one thing--the game has a series of romance side quests involving a female NPC that, absurdly, you can only get if your PC is male. And there's no alternative set of side quests with a male NPC for a female PC. So, while your male PCs can have an actual romance in the game, your female PC is just stuck with creepy "Uncle Crassius" calling her "dumpling" all the time. No romances. (Male characters have to deal with "Uncle Crassius" too, for the record. At least he's an equal opportunity lech?) That's always bothered me...you can download mods that'll substitute for your female PCs, but it's still something that should really exist in the actual game somewhere.

(Come to think of it, there's also another small side quest, where you meet a bandit on the road--if your PC is female, he'll ask for a kiss from you. If your PC is male, he just wants gold.)

Also, I see no problem with letting a female character go around wielding a wrench, but that's just me. *g* (In fact, one of my favorite video game characters is a woman who's been known to wield a wrench on more than one occasion.)