The Babekeepers

So I failed to set my standard very high last week and failed to please the (justifiable) anti-sexploitation crave of a modest amount of EoFFers. Today I plan to raise that bar, and interestingly enough, it should illustrate why its so hard to raise such a bar. In this example I bring to you a heroine that I have personally loved since the moment she graced the screen, in her zen pose on a cliff overlooking a beautiful ocean, only be disrupted by alien attackers raining down. That's right. A favored and ultimately widely respected video game girl, from a favored and massively respected video game

Today I bring to you fine folks the one and only:

Jade from Beyond Good and Evil!



Jade is a kung-fu fighting photographer from the planet Hyllis. (yes, I know, the real martial art she's into is jodo). Her and her best friend Pey'j, a portly little porker, run an orphanage together for children who've lost their parents to the invading alien attacks that take center stage for the game's plot narrative (at first )



Jade and her camera, an inseparable duo. Early on in the game you run into some problems with the electric bill. So Jade takes up a part time job of photographing wildlife for money; until she's recruited by the rebel alliance to take on the dreaded empire! Or something like that



Jade is very well respected in the video game community by both adoring male fans, and admiring female fans. She's continually cited as a shining example of how to do a female video game character "right".



I hate to say she's not sexy; because she definitely is. But she's not "sexy", y'know? She's no Lara Croft. She's not a super busty anime pedo-fetish. Her attire is conservative yet tasteful. And a lot of her appeal comes from her personality. She's very down to earth, smart, and intuitive. She's very "real"



Oh look, a couple different shades of Jade ;] Here is a little taste of what Jade could have turned out like from her concept drawings:



I kinda like all the designs. And considering *dun*dun*dun*! the game is being re-released next year on XBL and PSN in HD, perhaps we'll have a few changes of clothing for her



And before I sign off this blog post, I just wanted to point out how similar a lot of these pictures are. There's a complete lack of quality Jade fan-art on the internet. Though a few have tried, I didn't find any that I felt was worthy of posting here. And her official art is very few and not very varied (quite unfortunate)



Take care EoFF'ers and hope you enjoy today's babe of the week. And as a special treat, here's Princess Elika from Prince of Persia dressing up like Jade for whatever Halloween-like tradition they have in ancient-fantasy Persia

(And my apologies for the larger images. But I have to post this before my connection dies :} I don't want to risk losing my signal due to a delete/edit/upload. Plus, bigger Jade is better, right?)

-Rico Suavé