This first entry in The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project from Anita Sarkeesian (successfully funded on Kickstarter) covers “damsels in distress” and is quite good:

We all grew up with videogames and while I don’t think any of it controls anyone’s behavior (as in the constant political grandstanding over violence in videogames) it does reflect and reinforce attitudes and patterns in society. Examining games with a critical feminist eye is fascinating both because we’re looking at vital pop culture and because Anita is a really good communicator making what could be pretty dry stuff into an interesting walk through some of the most influential videogames of our era.

UPDATE: This is a neat hack; a dad swapped the roles of the Princess and Mario in Donkey Kong so his daughter could play as the Princess and rescue Mario: