Quote:
Originally Posted by booB
To be fair, Mata Hari was about a prostitute...
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No. She was a lot of things, and a saint wasn't one of them, but categorizing her as a common prostitute is wrong. Dancer, spy, courtesan, yes. I don't remember reading anything about her turning tricks on the street corner, however. And as far as that game cover was concerned, it entirely missed the point of how exotic and nearly mythological the Mata Hari persona has become. There are ways to sell with sex, and ways to say 'this product is pornographic'. The game was far from that. Marketing blew it.
Back on topic, I think the strip poker jabs miss the point. I think it's a very clever cover with some nice bits of symbolism. The ace up the sleeve concept is nice. Clearly they want us to see the heroine as being resourceful and plucky. The corsetry puts her in that class of female who isn't afraid of her sexuality, but her wardrobe bespeaks a woman who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. I know we had something of a rash of female protagonists in these games for a while, but a fair number of them had a kind of prissy quality that always made me wonder if they'd ever have gotten up the nerve to do what we were expected to put them through. This woman looks to me like someone who can do pretty much anything she sets her mind to. As far as I'm concerned, that's double plus good, yeah.
