First sexy characters in video games

I think it is pretty well established that sex sells. I think there are a lot of politically correct people that are trying to squash this notion but good looking and well, scantily clad women are a big selling point throughout time and this is unlikely to change.

Video game technology limited this notion to the cover art until around the early 90's and this was when our lovely ladies of gaming started to jump from the comics and graphic novels onto the screen. Here are a few of the first that I remember encountering and are my first memories of sexy ladies in videogames.

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Was Cammy the first video game character to fight in a thong? It certainly was the first I ever remember. I also remember how we all tried to become good using her in fights but i think that needs to be reserved for people considerably more talented than i was. Try as I may I always felt as though Cammy was a bit underpowered. This is what brings us to the 2nd sexy video game heroine.

Chun Li was the only woman character in the original SF2 and she was dressed considerably more conservative, but there was no denying that they were reaching for as much sex appeal as they felt they could get away with. Chun-Li was also a far more usable character for me as I felt her combos were more effective than Cammy's.

I know that games got a bit out of control with the Dead or Alive games such as that volleyball game that is just crazy and obvious as to the true appeal of the game is. However, I am focusing on the firsts and that game and others like it wouldn't be released for many years. I think that for a lot of people the above 2 might have been their first exposure but there there is one video game character that stood out above them all.

It's hard to believe with what we have available to us these days but Lara Croft from the original Tomb Raider was incredibly risque at the time.

The low cut booty shorts and how "top heavy" Lara was contributed to many teenage boys fantasies no doubt. I know that it did it for me and yes, i probably played around with the camera angle a bit to get a look at the pixelated booty. I'm not proud of that but anyone else at that time did the same thing.

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Lara has evolved a bit over the years and the games have in my opinion, remained quite good as well and they were not just perve-fests like the DOA games. I am sure that all of these titles faced backlash from house-moms who felt compelled to fight against anything unpure but these days, scantily clad women are a mainstay in gaming and I don't know any gamers, men or women, who have a problem with that.