Recently I've been playing quite a bit of Gears 3, seeing as it just released in the past two weeks. But talking about body practices and image and whatnot I took a deeper look into the characters in the game. The first thing I noticed is how absolutely ripped all of the characters are, even the Locust (bad guys) are buff as hell. This idea of being strong and buff is portrayed through the COG (good guys) such that people playing the game are going to get the thoughts in their head that in order to be badass and fight through an army of killer enemies you need to be a physical specimen. The main characters, Dom, Marcus, and Augustus Cole, are all outrageously big, yet some more of the "rookies" that show up are smaller, with higher pitched voices and they wear full body gear, so as not to show their arms like the aforementioned men. Realistically we know that not all men that go to war have 24-inch biceps, but this very popular game pushes us into a frame of mind where heroes are all roided out. All the guys are tatted up and carry around these giant guns with chainsaws and whatnot like they're little p-shooters. Tree trunk legs and minimal armor give the kids playing the game the idea that they could be idols like Dom and Marcus if they're buff and tattooed.
I'm a gamer too and I agree that sometimes the level of muscle on characters is ridiculous (the Heavy in TF2 for example), and this is part of the reason that I play video games. In real life if I was thrown into a gun battle I would hide and play dead in an instant, but through a video game I can feel like I am some huge burly man who can take out a whole army by myself. Video games are about escape, and who wants to pretend to be a wimp?
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