All game avatars are the same...

[SAMAS]

Then why'd you say it?

Besides, The idea is... actually, I'm not sure if they pulled that out well. You could contest Jade's inclusion, for example. While her outfit isn't overtly sexy, Jade herself arguably is to many, and she is featured prominently on the cover.

You could also contest Nicole, simply because while she's not shown as being sexy (even if she is apparently rather well-built underneath that armor), the rest of the game's female cast most certainly is, and Nicole is hardly mentioned at all. Should she get points simply for being odd girl out?

A lot of the others though, are right on the money.

[Zixinus]

I don't know about Jade. Yes, she's featured on the cover of the box, but not in an erotic way.

Being sexy is not the problem: women are certainly allowed to be sexy, real or virtual .

My point is that the criteria should come up about using that sexiness as a centrepiece to the marketing/presentation and overemphasising it. The fact that Jade is a beautiful woman (to some, my elder brother didn't like her) is not played for any worth within the game, at least not to my memory. No gratuitous shots, no shower scene, no half-naked moments, I can't recall any fanserviece at all, unless you like reading into things.

EDIT: Actually, just while shuffling trough my boxes, Kate Archer from No One Lives Forever should be there. She is a fully-capable, pretty secret agent that can just as easily shoot the living hell out of you as flirt with you if she feels like it. She had a shower scene and maybe some other fanservice, but throughout the game she does pretty impossible things, all on her own will and power.

[Ryushikaze]

I'm surprised that list didn't mention Samus Aran. Definitely a looker, the vast majority of the time you don't even see her out of her armor, and even in the shots where she's just wearing the skintight suit, or showing her in other outfits, it doesn't generally feel like they're sexualizing her- well, SSBM's promo trailer, perhaps, but not in the series.

Certainly, she deserves to be mentioned far more than Nicole, who wasn't in the series she is supposed to originate from, and is in DOA4, which I think entirely defeats the point of her not being sexualized to sell the game.

[Gramzamber]

While this is true of Samus in the excellent Metroid Prime series elsewhere it's debatable, given any time she dies her suit explodes exposing her body, and the end screen where various increasingly scantily clad pinups can be seen depending on the time it took you to beat the game.

I agree I'd rather have her than this Nicole person but like I said that list is pretty inaccurate anyway.

[Ryushikaze]

Well, yeah, not saying they're prudish with Samus, but it never felt to me like they were sexualizing her. Certainly not to sell the series.

[Dooey Jo]

They weren't, but that Zero Suit silliness is nothing but fan-service. But Samus spend most of her games in a big-ass suit anyway; her gender is completely meaningless. The ending in the first game is like "oh BTW, it was a girl".

[Zixinus]

Well, yeah, not saying they're prudish with Samus, but it never felt to me like they were sexualizing her. Certainly not to sell the series.

I don't know: seeing her in undies as a reward for high game performance should count for something.

[SAMAS]

Well, that's more of a incentive to play well after you've already bought the game. The clincher is that 4 out of 5 promotional pictures of her are of the big-ass Power Suit. Literally when it comes to selling the game, Samus' attractiveness rarely if ever enters into it.

It used to be 9 out of 10, until Brawl game out. I swear Samus fanart tripled after that first trailer.

[Oskuro]

Or, to put it differently, her cleavage is not featured prominently on the box cover.

[Gemini-Preserver]

Just to carry on filling the list youve also got 1-3 Nath Drake from Uncharted 1 and 2.

[chitoryu12]

EDIT: Actually, just while shuffling trough my boxes, Kate Archer from No One Lives Forever should be there. She is a fully-capable, pretty secret agent that can just as easily shoot the living hell out of you as flirt with you if she feels like it. She had a shower scene and maybe some other fanservice, but throughout the game she does pretty impossible things, all on her own will and power.

Are we talking about the first game? If so, the shower scene wasn't really ANYTHING. You heard the shower running and her talking on the phone, but you didn't see anything but a slow pan of her bathroom counter (apparently, nobody who visits ever uses that bathroom; she has an MP-5 by her perfume).