I know I’ve been doing a ton of Duke Nukem comics lately, but I’ve been asked to give my thoughts on the Capture the Babe minigame Gearbox has announced by a couple different people over the past few weeks. On the subject of the minigame itself, I can’t really pretend I have an opinion until we get to see the game in action. For all I know it could be on a level of charmingly comical sexism equivalent to something like a friendly chat with Sean Connery, or Conan the Barbarian running in terror from a dragon with a ye-olde-swimsuit-model slung over his shoulder screaming that she “Runs like a pregnant camel”.

What I have stronger feelings about are the people I see claiming that anyone who might be offended by the prospect of game that involves slapping hysterical strippers but cool with dudes smacking around other dudes are being hypocritical. I’ll just put it out there that where hulking 80’s macho men slapping strippers might not sit well with the public, you don’t see a whole lot of people complaining about things like Anne Lewis getting punched off a ledge in fist fight with a member of Boddicker’s gang or Aveline getting pommel smacked in the face during a run-in a Tal Vashoth berserker. People who aren’t on board with Duke slapping his booty babes aren’t necessarily promoting double standards, they’d just be more comfortable if a game about women being hit focused more on the sort of women who hit back.

Maybe someday all of my dreams will come true and we can have Duke Nukem Forever Extreme Slapfight Beach Volleyball Edition full of equally objectified jiggling bikini girls and rippling Venice Beach musclemen. Until then, I’m not gonna hold it against anyone if they aren’t particularly sold on the idea of Capture the Babe.