Honestly, might be nostalgic for guys, but as a girl who was playing games in this era, it made me feel like I wasn’t a part of the culture, rarely if ever were there ads marketed towards me, but man were there a lot of half naked ladies. Glad we don’t do this as much, but god this caused a lot of younger girls to feel ashamed of playing games “for boys”.
I originally came from a conservative country, and yet there were plenty of ads for softcore porns in TVs and billboards in those days. Even as a child, I questioned why do they show such images in front of full view to everyone.
The thing is, such mysoginy was the norm without us even realising it. I remember reading an article of a woman reminiscing her college days in early 00s. There were pictures of college girls on pin up boards and they get graded on how beautiful they are. The author said no one thought bad about it but looking back, it was very degrading and also invading privacy. There was also the matter of the infamous wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson. She got all the public spotlight afterwards because she is a woman, but Justin Timberlake pretty much got away with it for free. JT also shamed Britney Spears about losing her virginity to him, instead of keeping his mouth shut, while Britney was branded as slut.
Dreamcast ads got real weird. I vividly remember this one ad for Seaman: It showed a pair of feet and a fish tail sticking out from under a blanket. The accompanying text was "I will not mate outside my own species " repeated several times.
I can’t even process what’s going on with the reflection in the mirror being from an angle at about head height over the bed. I like that they didn’t even trust teen gamers to understand the allusion of a woman standing in a bedroom doorway without comping in this extra element.
Media today might be less sexist but I think part of it is also that it became drastically more sex averse. Mortal Kombat is gorier than ever for anyone to see, but god forbid anything shows a nipple.
I remember TR3 was a huge disappointment after 1 and 2. The new mechanics weren't very good and the level design was more confusing. I remember they added the Desert Eagle pistol and it was a giant brick (seriously the model consisted of probably 3-4 polygons total).
It really felt like they were just milking the franchise at that point.