I’ll grant the themes are predictable at times and there are plenty of games that appeal to more basic interests like Mario, but lets face it, Guitar Hero is probably one of the biggest fantasy trips of all. Lets face it, nobody wants to be a “rock star” because they dream of just making music. Rock stars get money, admiration and women screaming at the base of the stage.

Sexuality is probably one of the worst subjects humans have been intentionally equipped to handle so we tend to lump anything risque as “mature”. We view sex from the perspective of what effect they have on small children and work our way backwards from there. Thus everything errs on the side of caution. It certainly doesn’t take an adult to process a joke about the male anatomy or boobies but it is part of this “just in case” approach. We are terrible at increasing the grade of cultural experience as age increases because we are afraid they won’t be able to handle it.

It’s rather silly to view adult themes from the perspective of how children process them coupled with a societal obsession to delay adult behavior in teens. I don’t think we are brave enough (or socially mature enough if you like) to differentiate between “mature” and basic sexual desire anymore. We use love to paint in broad strokes because it makes us feel secure about a subject we don’t want to handle with actual maturity.

Sadly I think we tend to shame “immature” sexual behavior far too readily. I hate to be blunt but all this maturity and trappings we learn in life are designed to control and understand this fundametal drive. Again, we are viewing the desire for sex backwards as adults, looking back on our past as opposed to sexually drive people that learned how to contain themselves in culture. I think game developers are often seen as shut-ins and nerd (they are) but there is a keen awareness that sexy girls in a fantasy environment appeals to a part of male nature that we spend a great deal of time controlling in the real world. They aren’t just selling sex, they are selling a release, much like God of War sells fantasies of violence and revenge.

Does anyone remember the Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball commercial? A German ad firm was paid millions to engineer an erection joke…millions.

I think given there are big names and starched shirts driving these development firms then the status quo is going to remain. Our cultural inability to deal with sexuality will continue to give them all the room they need to profit from a culture that for all it’s advancements, fails to fully confront the truth of very thing that keeps it in existance. I’m all for taking a more logical look at ratings and expectations, but I don’t think that will happen until we come to terms with how society views sex, I don’t see that changing. Movies and television has been around forever by cultural standards and we are still slow to figure out ratings that work for them.

More’s the pity.

Good line. The line that begets the majority of selfish, destructive acts I have witnessed in my life. That working for the good of others has no place without reward. I’m sure the Red Cross follows this mantra. This could be also applied to your recent articles about the poor state of sex in games, “I rescued you, now repay me with your body.”
The problem with such an idea is that it is ignoring the fact that humans, by and large, have become a self-destructive organism. The technology born of wars and conflict spills its fruit with its application. That the vaunted technology of today is good, only for today. That in time, it will create more problems that it solves. That it is the result of a culture of psuedo-intelligence which believes that it is great and its creations are great, without the caution such things should be approached with. But then, “Whats in it for me?” is all you seem to have to say about this, so I will take my concerns about the world elsewhere.

Let’s start here. I can’t believe a fan of the game would spout this, seeing as everyone who doesn’t see the point of a game like Guitar Hero says this line at least once.
I never really noticed a great change in the games difficulty in it’s ongoing iterations, except for the “boss battles” in 3, and those simply required some patience and forethought to get through. Easy is still that, normal is pretty much the same outside of the boss battles. It was hard and expert that got a boost in difficulty, seeing as the only people who played on these modes were LOOKING for a challenge.
I honestly look at Guitar Hero’s change as keeping up with the culture of excess that the rock industry is infamous for. Bigger, flashier, louder, live fast and die young, this is what the industry itself has presented to people for decades, only fitting a game based from it should go the same route.
And your comments about Metallica says more about the company you keep than the status of their renown. Everone I know has heard of Master of Puppets, Enter the Sandman, Justice for All. There are few bands that have achieved what they have and are still performing and releasing recordings. Every dog has its day, next will probably be a country group to round out the selection.

While not entirely accurate, sex is held to a much tougher standard in games than violence. Most whiners bemoan games for violence content but the Mass Effect hysteria made it pretty clear that games are still seen as children’s toy no matter the rating system or cultural exposure. Violence is bad and constantly debated, sex is a taboo. I hate to take this route but I can’t wait for culture to become apathetic to these issue. Mainly because I am just about at the limits of my patience.

Games are essentially developed by nerds and after it leaves their greasy paws it is purchased by some oblivious dolt named mom or dad for their kid. Created by the emotionally retarded, bought by the culturally inept, a great way for the issue to be handled with reason.

The total silence of the developers is another thing that drives me mad. They made the game, stick with it. Tell people it’s not for kids and if kids see it, then thats not their problem. The huff over kids sneaking in to R-rated movies has gone down with theater enforcement but generally because most people realized that movies aren’t going anywhere, the studios don’t care and it’s the parent’s problem. Some responsibility would be a nice change of pace. Try looking at the back of the box or playing with your kid. Maybe read a review.

I don’t think mature sexual themes will come anytime soon, but then again the industry is still fairly young by comparison. Sex will come in games and will be available for consoles in the future. It’s just an natural progression. It will eventually happen as games continue to be interwoven deeper in to society as a legitimate passtime and form of expression. Why people are in such a race to get there is silly. It’s the “bull in a china shop” mentality. Small steps will be made, big stinks will erupt, but in the end for better or worse we will arrive at the destination. I think most people who want to see mature content handled in games are more miffed at the anti-gaming/dolt crowd and see this as an ideal means to stick something up their pretentious backsides.

Besides,any sexual content is going to be FMV and thats bound to be little more than a clip dropped in the middle of a relationship to take away the coy and clever innuendo aspect. I think we are already at that juncture so again, I fail to see his argument. Kratos is double teaming two women in God of War and they invite him back to bed (both topless I’ll point out). The sex scene was detailed as him trying to distract from his heavy loss with earthly pleasures. What more does the above guy want? it showed adult material, it followed a storyline where the sex was meaningless because the character was in emotional pain and nobody freaked out in the media that I noticed. Actually viewing the girls in detail was optional.

What more does he want? A sex simulator? Isn’t that just porn or in the realm of creepy?

Lets not even talk about demos and testing.

I think of all the concenvtions out there, gaming ones have to be some of the biggest wastes of time. You can tell by the sheer quantity of gimmicks, freebies, flashy displays and videos. Only conventions with nothing tangible to offer feels it has to wow it’s audience with that many side-shows and trinkets.

SPOILERS ABOUND! YE BE WARNED!!!

So while I agree that Liz’s sitcom style temper tantrum at the beginning was just plain silly, the rest of the movie didn’t bother me because I truly did see it more as an amusement park ride than a conventional story. I guess I just had different expectations.

I did like that Liz was a little more sure of herself.

Now, for grins, I did pick up the two animated movies yesterday and I don’t know what that will do to my impression.

Even after reading your (Corvus) account of how you thought the movie should end I still felt that was just another variation we’ve seen before as well. The stock “The hero can’t win on his own and only overcomes evil with the help of his friends/lover/pet/etc.” or exactly what they did with Iron Man. I will agree that del Toro needs a writer though. Oh sure, “anyone can write” but just because anyone can drive doesn’t mean we let anyone into NASCAR.

Granted, that would still have been better than what they did but with Nuala’s death telegraphed within the first 15 minutes of the film I guess they couldn’t let go. I was still surprised that she didn’t challenge and how is a crown made for elves able to care about the royal bloodlines of demons?

Ok, granted, it was silly, but the whole movie was silly.

I guess I’m just not looking for much more than popcorn entertainment in what is essentially a comic book movie.

I can understand the pregnancy frustration but being outwardly hostile about it wasn’t her character.

The subtle parts I liked were the jokes. They didn’t beat us over the head with them, if you missed the joke, thats fine, they weren’t going to give you a wink or a nod and a big set-up liek so many films do. Too bad the interaction between characters didn’t get the same.