Adult Only Rated Games: They’re Already Here

I keep seeing and hearing debate over AO (Adult Only) rated games, and whether they should be allowed to be made.  The things I’ve seen many debates over look is the fact that there are already many Adult Only games.  From the flash games we all know are out there to some of the more adult oriented dating sims from Japan, there are games out there that have never been meant for the eyes of those under 18.

Online of recent there has been a trend of AO sims games (anyone that owns Sims and has ever typed in the wrong thing into goolge when looking for mods as come across at least one) which can be downloaded from the comfort of your home and don’t require knowledge of the Japanese language. 3dsexgames (I will not be linking to any of the games because I’m not going to endorse them) makes a variety of sex sims: ‘normal’ (straight and lesbian), gay, and hentai. That’s right I said Hentai (yes you too can create your own tenical sex game). There is a MMO AO social game called Redlightdistrict.

Most of these games can be brushed aside as straight sex games, which at their heart they are. One game I stumbled across when I started researching for this post was something called Sex Station 7.  It calls its self a 3d Adult Explicit XXX FPS. It self rates the game with 18+ needless to say.

So the games are out there.

On a more mainstream note? Anyone out there remember Leisure Suit Larry from Sierra on-line back in the day? There is now a AO Leisure Suit Larry available.  And until the edits Manhunt 2 was in AO leuge.

The question isn’t should there be AO games or are there AO games out there, but will the AO game rating stay firmly in the hands of the sex sims?

 

Video Games and Neo-Medievalism

There is a growing trend within the Neo-Medievalist to see video games as tools for teaching as well as a way to explore the modern perception of medieval. Last year at the Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo I attended to sessions on Video games and Medievalism. One was a hands on event where among other things WoW, Guild Wars, The Guild, and more medieval building sim games than you can shake a stick at. The second session was a more traditional academic sessions with papers being presented. A very interesting one was about how certain medieval simulation games claim to be ‘historical accurate’ when often the historical accuracy gets lost to playability, and how is companies are going to push a game to be used as a teaching tool need to be more careful about how they present themselves.

In that vain I also just submitted (on the deadline no less) a paper proposal on King’s Quest as a Medieval Romance Epic (or Chason de geste). Some of you out there probably remember this Adventure game from the ’golden days’ of that genre. If you haven’t go pick up the King’s Questcollection it’s only 20 bucks or less(or if you look on line there are three remakes of the first three games with updated graphics and vocals).  I’m not going to go into my paper here, but if anyone is interested I will put up my proposal for you the reader to take a poke at.

On a side note its vast becoming obvious I’m not a history major but a Medievalist English major with grammar issues.

 

Why Parents Should Rely Less On ESRB « SOGamer

Why Parents Should Rely Less On ESRB « SOGamer

A very well thought out and informative post. Go check it out.

 

Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s

The 80s. The decade we can’t seem to get enough of lately and now it has its own Guitar Hero.

While I wished they’d could have gotten permission to use the original artist for more of the tracks (Radar Love just doesn’t sound like Radar Love. It has some of the same feel but they’ve changed up parts enough to make it a odd listen), I did enough playing it.

I grabbed it for my best friend, thinking she’d like it and that her parents who have been playing Guitar Hero with us would enjoy it.  We all wound up liking it so much we spent most of the evening doing career mode on easy (We called our selves Scantron). We had a blast and I only failed one song. 

The songs come from a wide range everything from the before mentioned Radar Love to the Flock of Seagulls “I Ran So Far Away”. The GoGo Girls are in there with “We’ve Got the Beat” and there are even some headbanging songs.  I do share that Activision must have gotten some sweetheart deal with the Police since both their track on the 80s and II are both original artist recordings instead of cover bands.  Maybe Sting likes Guitar Hero, I could see it.

In any case it was a fun game with lots of replay value. The price is typical of a PS2 game close to 40 or 50 depending where you get it (wait a bit and one or two will start showing up used at Gamestop I bet).

One more thing it does not come packaged with a guitar like Guitar Hero I and II, so if this is your first Guitar Hero game expect to shell out more for a guitar.