[NNC]

The 1998 one looks like an elf from Warcraft games.

My favourite is the 2018 one honestly.

[X-Vector]

The older sex doll Bombshell designs are rather embarrassing; first one is OK (though rather obviously inspired by Tomb Raider), but the second one is terrible even when disregarding the spelling mistakes - someone really should have told ms. Shell that her fly was open.

[Doom64hunter]

New Bombshell is the best.

A blonde Bimbo as a protagonist would be an embarassment these days, and I'm glad Interceptor and Voidpoint realized that.

[MusicallyInspired]

It's so funny to me how times have changed. That stuff was empowering to women in the 90s. Since the 60s even really.

[xMobilemux]

The more I look at the past designs, the more horrible the current design looks.

Micky C, on 22 March 2018 - 03:57 PM, said:

Looking at the 1999-2001 version, it appears she has a robotic arm, like in Bombshell? So this was conceived of a long time ago? I thought the robotic arm was a relatively recent idea.

That robot arm would have been such a cooler design, like a more badass version of the Blood Dragon arm.

Seems like the Whip was going to be a thing for a while as well, my guess it would have made for Bombshell's version of the Mighty Boot.

[Player Lin]

I like 1997 and 2018. Others just make me feel so weird...

The 1998 one for some reasons, I have feel about that looks like her from SiN...

[cybdmn]

Doom64hunter, on 23 March 2018 - 03:28 AM, said:

New Bombshell is the best.

A blonde Bimbo as a protagonist would be an embarassment these days, and I'm glad Interceptor and Voidpoint realized that.

Did you know, that back in the 90ies, developers tried hard to make their FPSes to be an embarassment. New bombshell is an boring and generic female scifi character. I would love to see that blonde bimbo with tits of mass destruction in a game.

[NightFright]

It's a prequel, so we see Bombshell before her "wilder" days. Therefore, I am totally OK with the "tamed" design approach.

[Phredreeke]

It's a first person shooter... Though I kinda hope she takes off her helmet for the in-game sprite.

[keiron]

Hi guys, I really enjoyed the preview campaign and I look forward to playing the rest.

A couple of points:

1. There is no 'Are you sure?' confirmation dialog when resetting keyboard keys. I changed all my keys to suit my left handed way of gaming and then accidentally hit the reset keys choice by mistake and it reset them all and made me cry.

2. I would love an in-depth developer commentary option.

Cheers and good luck with the rest of the build.

[Merlijn]

I like the 1997 design, it's like a female Duke Nukem. The 2018 version fits the best with the style of the game though.
The other designs are pretty bad to be honest.

[Zaxx]

I love how 3DR says that the early versions of the Bombshell design were "inspired by" Barb Wire. It IS Barb Wire, lol.

[cybdmn]

And that fits perfectly, Duke Nukem had the Body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the hair of Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Dragov, and Sylvester Stallones mouth. He is quoting Bruce Willis from Die Hard and Kurt Russell from Escape From New York, among others.
He is totally a 80/90 action movie Frankenstein.

And that’s what all the millenials misunderstand about the 90ies FPS, it was just more than big guns and action. It was some kind of a new subculture. And nobody back then gave a fuck about political correct.
Bombshell as how she is portrayed now, would be totally forgotten today. You had lived it in the 90ies, or you never fully understand it.

[Perro Seco]

cybdmn, on 23 March 2018 - 09:55 AM, said:

And that’s what all the millenials misunderstand about the 90ies FPS, it was just more than big guns and action. It was some kind of a new subculture. And nobody back then gave a fuck about political correct.
Bombshell as how she is portrayed now, would be totally forgotten today. You had lived it in the 90ies, or you never fully understand it.

What about Doom, Quake, Half Life... They all had very generic characters and all of those games are well known along with Duke 3D. I don't know why Ion Maiden character must be a copy of Duke Nukem.

[Zaxx]

cybdmn, on 23 March 2018 - 09:55 AM, said:

And that fits perfectly, Duke Nukem had the Body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the hair of Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Dragov, and Sylvester Stallones mouth. He is quoting Bruce Willis from Die Hard and Kurt Russell from Escape From New York, among others.
He is totally a 80/90 action movie Frankenstein.

And that’s what all the millenials misunderstand about the 90ies FPS, it was just more than big guns and action. It was some kind of a new subculture. And nobody back then gave a fuck about political correct.
Bombshell as how she is portrayed now, would be totally forgotten today. You had lived it in the 90ies, or you never fully understand it.

I lived in the 90s and still think that the early designs of her are super lame, the nice ideas only start appearing in the 99-2001 version. "Let's copy Barb Wire!" is not character design, that's just laziness and even if you compare that to Duke it's clear to see that Duke is actually the sum of all the classic action movie heroes while proto-Bombshell is literally Barb Wire and nothing else.

Edit: And really even the idea of using Barb Wire as inspiration is pretty embarassing. It's an absolutely terrible movie and Pamela Anderson is not a badass action heroine in BW, she's just "hey, sugartits is acting all weird and ackward with those fake guns, let's laugh at it!"

[axl]

Forge, on 22 March 2018 - 04:24 PM, said:

1997 = lara croft
1998 = pam anderson stripperella
1999 = hm fakk 2
2001 = space marine
2018 = anne lewis robocop / dredd (2012)

Héhé, that pretty much nails it.

Actually, I pretty much like all the designs... You just have to put in the right context. The 90's version of Bombshell would fit perfectly in an 80s / early 90s themed action game.

[3rdmillhouse]

90s Bombshell looks a lot to me like Nancy Callahan from Sin City.

[xMobilemux]

It's funny how everyone saying that a sexed up, leather clad, pole dancing, babe with guns would be an embarrassment today when in fact that very kind of babe is one of, if not the No 1 gaming babe today.


If Ion Maiden wasn't a Build FPS, no one would give a shit.
Also Fred pointing out and apologizing for the sexualization of those designs multiple times proves exactly what kind of developer he is. Ion Maiden will be the last 3DR product I support.

[Perro Seco]

xMobilemux, on 23 March 2018 - 05:07 PM, said:

It's funny how everyone saying that a sexed up, leather clad, pole dancing, babe with guns would be an embarrassment today when in fact that very kind of babe is one of, if not the No 1 gaming babe today.

I don't want to offend, but I think you're obssesed with the character idea. As I said before, there are lots of well known shooters that don't have even a character (Doom, Quake, etc). Why would we need a weird female character here? I'm expecting a coherent answer.

[xMobilemux]

Perro Seco, on 23 March 2018 - 05:20 PM, said:

I don't want to offend, but I think you're obssesed with the character idea. As I said before, there are lots of well known shooters that don't have even a character (Doom, Quake, etc). Why would we need a weird female character here? I'm expecting a coherent answer.

Personality wise, Doom mostly let the weapons and violence be the character, you were ripping and tearing your way through the forces of hell and Doom 4 improved on that with the Doomslayers pissed off persona.
I hate what the new God of War is doing to Kratos but Doomslayer can fill my need for a pissed off masculine power fantasy.
Ion Maiden can't do that cause the weapons so far are nothing special. Nothing bad, but nothing special.

I can't say much about Quake as I didn't play much Quake, but Half Life has a unique protagonist, a theoretical physicist who fights off alien invaders with a crowbar, how often do you see something like that? Also his look was a grey and orange suit of armor with his glasses, had some color much like the Doomguy.

To me Shelly from Bombshell 2016 had an ok look, but horrible personality as the result of a rushed attempt to make a new game out of a failed Duke Nukem game and now in Ion Maiden she just looks like some random soldier you'd take control of in a CoD game with obligatory Build Era oneliners.

I'm so obsessed with the character cause I wanted Shelly to be something new and cool in an era of bland and boring western female leads, there are so many things that could have come from building the whole game around one of those past designs.
I mean if they designed Shelly from one of those past designs, the rest of the game would be designed with that in mind, that would set up an interesting game, just makes me wonder what the themes would be, the music, the enemies, the bosses, the atmosphere, etc.

Ion Maiden has nothing noteworthy in those areas so far. I mean the final boss of the preview was just some mech.

Voidpoint is not to blame for these problems though as they are limited by the garbage world 3DR/Interceptor set up and they can't get that creative.

[MusicallyInspired]

Voidpoint's Shelly has really grown on me. It's a lot better than Interceptor's Bombshell. I don't know. I just like it. It's nothing special, but it's also nothing overtly "non-embarrassing".

[Forge]

xMobilemux, on 23 March 2018 - 06:24 PM, said:

now in Ion Maiden she just looks like some random soldier you'd take control of in a CoD game with obligatory Build Era oneliners.

I'm so obsessed with the character cause I wanted Shelly to be a rip off of bad 90s tropes

I mean if they designed Shelly from one of those past designs, the rest of the game would be designed with that in mind:

by that, I mean boob physics

[Forge]

xMobilemux, on 23 March 2018 - 05:07 PM, said:

.......a sexed up, leather clad, pole dancing, babe ..... in fact that very kind of babe is one of, if not the No 1 gaming babe today.

Exactly.
It's overused.
How about a normal, wise-cracking soldier or police officer for once, instead of an over-used cliche that belongs on some sad person's pillow case

[OpenMaw]

Let's not go there, Forge. Seriously.

I don't agree with everything that xMobilemux is saying, but I do share his sentiments with regards to the idea that there should be any "embarrassment" over the designs. What the fuck is that? It's the same mentality that transmogrified Lara Croft into the shell of her former self. Lara Croft who used to be the witty, independent, globetrotting badass. Yes, she wore her sexuality on her sleeve, but unlike her modern interpretation, she didn't need to have a bleak origin story to "become" the suave, charismatic, awesome character that she was. It was apparent in her personality and the gameplay supported that. Fred in particular has a lot of nerve to talk about embarrassment given how much of an embarrassment the initial Bombshell reveal was and how out of touch the character's design was. Looking like all the current trends were smashed into a stock poser character.

So what? Why was that ever an issue? It seems we're teaching ourselves the lesson that women can only be "badass" and independent if they are victimized and abused first. Bombshell was guilty of that. Her entire character was about being tortured and traumatized, while also trying to fuse that with the vestigial Dukeisms needed for the character. It was off putting and it just wasn't true to the concept of the character. On the whole the modern thinking reeks of thought control and in some very bad ways. "Oh God, they can't show off their butts and boobs, that's sexist... I know! We'll make them all pseudo rape victims!"

Ion Maiden does a good job on the whole of repairing the damage done to the character in Bombshell. The fact that IM is a well designed and fun experience is very important and great. However, I would be lying if I didn't say I find the design of the character leaning towards generic sci-fi space marine in nature. She fits the cyberpunkian world she resides in, that's true, but she lacks some of the contrast-y punch that her male-kin had in their other games. The BUILDbros basically resonate in their games. I don't think Shelly quite reaches that. If we're all remembering BUILD engine games, all the good ones had a character who stood out and basically grabbed a piece of pop culture real estate and made it their hunting ground for character. Ion Maiden get's the most important parts right. The gameplay, level design, consistent theme. Ion Maiden feels a tad safe. That's probably the only weakness I can honestly point to after thinking about it a lot. There's nothing really bitey or provocative about the character, or the world she lives in. Don't get me wrong. None of it is bad. Not at all. It is all very well done, but there is a distinct lack of... I don't want to say Color. Contrast, shall we say?




My final point on this is, we have no idea what Bombshell would have been like had she made it into a decent build of DNF that we could have seen. She would not have been nearly so copy and paste of "Barb Wire" any more than Duke is a copy and paste of any of the characters he was based on. This is 3D Realms we're talking about after all. They know how to do characters. Tommy, Max, Duke, Wang, Caleb.

[cybdmn]

I wouldn‘t take the criticism too serious. The Bombshell character is only one aspect of the game. In my opinion it is a fail, but what I have seen from the game in the preview, the rest is developing very well.

I for myself can live with the ccaracter, even if I would not love her, and enjoy the rest of the game, for it is what I expect when it comes to 90ies FPSes.

[xMobilemux]

When it comes to female characters I do love the sexualized ones, I ain't apologizing for that and I support any good game and developer that has a sexy and cool female lead, but in Bombshell's case I very much would have preferred her to be more akin to this design:

Makes me think of a Heavy Metal version of Lara Croft, she would have the right amount of sexy and the design would compliment a witty personality very much.
I can't get over that whip either, it was clearly a thing among the 3DR designers for a while, I wish it could have been brought to realization.

[OpenMaw]

Just a funny aside, but the image of Bombshell from 2009 in their list is actually a picture I took(scanned) from my own copy of the BOSE art book.


I'm rather fond of this one:

[necroslut]

I do love the game, but the character design is pretty bland. Not bad - and it's a huge improvement from the mess it was in Bombshell - but it's hardly iconic material. The same goes for the enemies, really.
Again, it's not bad, it's adequate, it's just pretty bland and generic, and feels more like it belongs in a B-tier 90's FPS than one of the Build classics. Personality-wise she reminds me a bit of the dude from Powerslave.

And I still do think it was a mistake to make her a brunette. Not only was the blonde hair the only trait she had kept through the years, but unlike the 90's these days brunettes are 10-to-1 to blondes and a small thing like that could have helped her stand out more.

The '98 designs (the bullet belt bikinis and that) were pretty damn bad as well though, and looked more like they would fit in in Heavy Metal FAKK rather than a Duke game.Even then, Fred's (I assume it was him) apologies and "how far we've come!" was pretty damn embarrassing to read. The idea that there is less sexualization today is just dumb, There is a ton more nudity, "adult themes", more explicit sex scenes, etc today than there was in the 90's. Back then, Duke was pretty much the only game with a strip club - these days every goddamn sandbox game has one, regardless of it fits in or not (jungle strip clubs, space strip clubs...) - it's just the over-the-top comic book stylizations that have changed into something more "realistic" and gritty.

[xMobilemux]

With Bombshell being a character action game and all I think those bullet bikinis and what not would have made good unlockable outifts like a lot of character action games have done in the past.
It makes you realize just how rare unlockable outfits are nowadays, even if they aren't charged as DLC.

[Zaxx]

xMobilemux, on 24 March 2018 - 02:37 AM, said:

With Bombshell being a character action game and all I think those bullet bikinis and what not would have made good unlockable outifts like a lot of character action games have done in the past.
It makes you realize just how rare unlockable outfits are nowadays, even if they aren't charged as DLC.

Alternate outfits are expensive to make and that's not a joke.