Responsible Pyromaniac on 6/15/2007 1:09 PM · Permalink · Report

I felt it necessary to include those people that give a game extra points for being gory are stupid as well. So as stated, feel free to give this extra points for sex to offset those games a little.

As you know I love postal 2. the gore and violence is awesome, but I only give it points with its execution. not the concept.

Daniel Saner (3514) on 6/15/2007 1:25 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

I think I'm slowly starting to understand what you're getting at. I still haven't played the game, but I'm going to see if I find a used copy somewhere and see for myself.

My opinion is that games should be rated based on their individual, independent quality. But I don't see anything wrong in rewarding a game for bringing up something new. Take movies, for example: the companies that can afford to produce the really big blockbusters usually stick to well-known, successful formats they know will not totally fail. It's usually B-movies or cheaply produced, elitarian French Arthaus short flicks who come up with the really new influences. And they are rewarded for their new elements, without being bashed because they couldn't afford to decorate them with multi-million-dollar special effects.

Having said that, I don't think that Lula 3D has actually been treated as unfairly as you seem to think. From what I've heard, as a game it could be called "mediocre". The MobyRank of 42 says about that, maybe a bit lower. Furthermore, if you look at the ratings that make up the rank, 4 of them are 60 or more, 8 are at least 50. And if you look at the really low ratings, they come from, with all due respect, not the sources you would call the most respected. If reviewers name the right, proper reasons, I think they should be allowed to not give games a higher score even though they brought something new to the genre.

Another game came to my mind while thinking about this: Fahrenheit (a.k.a. Indigo Prophecy). It was the first (and as of yet only) game I played that had "adult" sexual content that didn't come across cheap, unfitting, aimed at pubescent boys or as having been added because "sex sells.", but as an integral part of a gripping, emotional story. It went as far as to make the sex scenes player-controllable. I never heard anyone mention that as a bad or "dirty" part of the game. Maybe that was because the sex scenes have been censored (removed?) from the American version, maybe it was because it concerns just some scenes of the game and those people could pretend "it didn't happen", but personally I was under the impression that games and reviewers were finally mature enough to handle sex. I might have been wrong, I don't know.

[Q --start Unicorn B. Lynx wrote--]Well, I belong to those weird types who find sex more attractive than severed limbs or buckets of blood splashing over the screen. And it infuriates me that instead of giving this game some credit for that, people ridicule its minor flaws, distance themselves from the sex, and then proudly state that they felt disgusted while playing this game. How noble and pure, indeed.[/Q --end Unicorn B. Lynx wrote--]

I know what you mean, but I doubt that those disgusted by sex are the same that are fascinated by gore. If someone's going to feign morality and austerity, they should stick to that.

But it's an interesting point. It's funny how some people see making love and giving life as more objectionable than taking life and destroying families. I used to think (hope?) that it's an age/maturity thing. But it's probably also a culture thing. In games and movies, they take out the blood and gore for the German market, but they take out the sex and erotics for the American market.

Edit: Here's a nice quote from Randy Sluganski's review of Fahrenheit on Just Adventure: «a European developer once asked me if I thought it would be advisable to leave in a scene that showed a woman’s nude breast in his game for the North American release, to which I replied, “Only if you also blow out her brains with a BFG"»