In a hilarious parody of Mass Effect, you roam around your pale blue sheet metal ship talking to your NPC comrades. This is made clear in your character's first opportunity to get boned. Saints Row 4, however, is concerned with the more varied circumstances in which intercourse occurs. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with this old-fashioned, practically platonic vanilla courtship, but that's only one kind of fornication. The main offender in the latter category is Mass Effect, where player character Commander Shepard is given the option to say various nice things (always highlighted blue) to the NPC they fancy and at the end - before the final mission - sex happens. In most games that contain sex, it's either portrayed as a ludicrous lark with nameless, drone-like NPCs (Grand Theft Auto, God of War) or it's a long, drawn-out, squeaky clean climax to a tender problem-free courtship. On that note, Saints Row 4 allows your character to get laid constantly, and yet, shockingly, the game has a surprisingly sophisticated and mature attitude towards sex. Games like Saints Row 4 are meant to be wish fulfilment after all. Despite the game's inherent goofiness, I actually grew attached to my extraordinary well acted id-gone-amok leading lady and after about two minutes I stopped thinking about what would make her attractive to me and instead thought 'what would I wear if I looked like her, had super powers, and was about to kick some alien ass?' I'm still a little envious that she can pull off purple zebra print leggings and I can't. Despite my character's gang moniker, I'm no saint and at one point attempted to strip my character down to her skivvies because I figured the game was already pretty much mental masturbation anyway so I might as well make her as sexy as possible, but I quickly realised that I was distracted by her impractical choice of clothing (or lack thereof). You could play as a transgendered person, an approximation of Breaking Bad's Heisenberg, or a strapping fellow running around naked. Of course Saints Row 4 gives you the option to tailor a character however you want and I'm not suggesting everyone make a similar character to my own. My Saints Row 4 character is more badass than any of y'all. News flash: blowing up trucks and alien ships is just as fun with an older lady as it is with a man modeled after The Rock.
It's not that I don't like more experimental or esoteric games, but rather that a game doesn't need to cater to a different crowd to star an atypical protagonist.
Instead, I've always wanted a big, stupid action game starring a chunky badass lass. But that's not necessarily what I'm after. Whenever I tell people this they assume I mean some sort of experimental curio - maybe an "interactive drama" (whatever that means) like The Walking Dead or Beyond, or perhaps the sort of casual adventure game that gets marketed to stay at home moms who frequent Bigfish. Call it my weariness of alpha male space marines or my undying affection for Love & Rockets lead Maggie Chascarillo, but I've always felt that this is a thing that needs to happen. For years I've been saying I've wanted a game where I could play as an overweight, slightly older female protagonist.