Game

Gender Wars

1996 · DOS · Shooter · Strategy

About this game

Gender Wars is a real-time tactics action game for DOS developed by The 8th Day and published by GT Interactive Software and Sales Curve in 1996. After eons of fighting between the genders, men and women have broken into separate factions, each using genetic engineering to create new followers, and waging terrible war upon each other. Upon selecting the side you wish to play (depicted as either clueless blondes who can't drive, or beer-swigging lazy oafs), you select a team of 4 for your missions, arm them up with guns and other assorted weaponry, and wreak havoc on the 'enemy' in this isometric Syndicate-like game. Progress through the levels to the final conflict, collecting tanks and other assorted 'powerups' along the way, and watching the humourous cutscenes as you go.

In the future, after an era of "political correctness and equality", humanity is divided into two warring factions based on sex and enters a brutal conflict known as the "Gender Wars". Each faction is a caricature of conventional gender stereotypes. The Male faction are crass jocks obsessed with alcohol and other "manly" things while the Females are vapid Valley Girl archetypes preoccupied with fashion and other stereotypically feminine interests. Both factions conduct raids against the other to steal cloning material and capture the other's leader. The player has to choose between the Male or the Female faction. Regardless of the player's choice, the victorious faction will put the remaining members of the defeated sex into servitude. The game ends with the narrator mentioning the player's faction was overthrown by rebellion caused by men and women working together, taking place a few years after the end of the Gender Wars.