Real stars of women's ice hockey to appear in video game

Last year, EA Sports's "NHL 12" game let gamers create a female hockey player in the "Be A Pro" fantasy mode. You could barely tell the difference, apparently, because under the equipment, everyone looks pretty much the same – and within the game, player ratings started at the same point as the men and built from there based on merit, not gender.

This year's version, in the interests of what Kotaku's Owen Good calls "inviting women who are hockey fans to its product," has signed up actual women's-hockey stars – Canadian Hayley Wickenheiser, and the U.S. national team's Angela Ruggiero – to appear in the game. The "NHL 13" "Legends" mode puts past hockey superstars on the ice of the present day; that's where players will find Wickenheiser and Ruggiero, who have both earned Olympic gold in the sport. But Good points out that, as "the first two real-life female athletes to appear in a video game simulation of an all-male professional team sport," they're hard to rate on the men's game's terms.

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The game's producer, Sean Ramjagsingh, had a ready answer when Kotaku asked how the women's numbers would stack up. "They're good players," Ramjagsingh said, adding that "Hayley is rated 81; she can compete with men. That's on par with the average third-liner in the NHL." Ramjagsingh also said that, aside from the facial modeling, the in-game women are subject to the same rules and terms as the men: the same motion-capture movements; the same gear, including the plastic faceshield; the same checking, which doesn't occur in women's leagues in real life (Ramjagsingh admits that, while the women can hit, "they aren't the greatest checkers out there compared to the size and strength of some of the other men"; they can even fight (yes, fights are in the game too, with permission from the NHL itself).

So is this more a well-meaning gesture than good gameplay? Or does it signal the start of something – will we see more female players in other videogame sports, like EA's "Madden" football game? Could Japanese "Knuckle Princess" Eri Yoshida make an appearance in 2KSports's "MLB 2013"? Women's hockey is growing in popularity in recent years, and Wickenheiser is the first woman to get a point in a European professional league. But the women's game is different; even at the college level, for instance, the women's game is easier to follow, as there's simply more room on the ice to see what's going on. Good deems the effort on EA's part "admirable" but premature, noting that "No woman has yet appeared in any regular season game on an NHL club."

But for EA, it's probably a bottom-line decision – if they think adding women to the lineup increases its appeal, hey, enough said. EA clearly believes there's a market, and for more than just Ruggiero and Wickenheiser; asked by Good if they'd considered on-boarding the entire U.S. and Canadian women's teams, Ramjagsingh said they'd looked into it, but ran into licensing issues that forced them to abandon the idea. Ramjagsingh says, "It's really about creating an experience for all hockey fans out there, and there are a lot of women who are hockey fans out there. It's about giving them an experience they want, and giving them the same benefit of participation in a video game that male fans have."

Women don't only enjoy sports where we see ourselves represented, of course. But if the reality is that women players can hack it among the men's leagues, why not start reflecting that reality in the game – even if the scoring set-up isn't perfect yet?

Are you psyched to "be" Ruggiero in "NHL 13"? Would the presence of Yoshida or Tiffany Brooks in "The Show" make you more likely to buy it – or to let your kids have it? Talk to us in the comments.

Copyright © 2012 Yahoo Inc.

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