I have seen my share of video game boobs, uncovered, and they are polygonal.
The last time I witnessed bare female flesh in a video game was during Afro Samurai, a game that’s saturated with enough “not for kids” content that I chalked it up as par for the course and continued dismembering near-helpless foes. Don Reisinger, on the other hand, came across a pair in his playthrough of The Godfather II, and he’s pissed.
Am I pissed that he’s pissed? No, because his concern is valid: Shouldn’t this game be rated Adults Only? After all, AO games are described as “prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity,” while the slightly more tolerable Mature games are marked by “intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.” The addition of content descriptors on the back of the box, including one for nudity, did little to placate Reisinger.
So he took his questions to the ESRB. In short, they blew him off, something to the effect of “Get bent, our ratings are fine,” to paraphrase, of course. What Reisinger didn’t mention is the unspoken subtext: “We won’t rate anything short of Manhunt as Adults Only because console manufacturers won’t support it and retailers won’t sell it. Kind of like NC-17 films.” Why raise a stink over a pair of breasts, right?
I haven’t played Godfather II, so I don’t know if what Reisinger saw qualifies as prolonged nudity or the kind of brief encounter that would fly in a coarse R-rated flick. Trouble is, if the ESRB had a problem with the boobs, covering them up would be the only way out. Tone it down or the game dies.
Reisinger thinks the boobs didn’t belong in Godfather II to begin with, but that’s beside the point. The important thing is for naked humans to have a place in video games, safe from censorship. If it takes a notch up to Adults Only, so be it. Too bad the games industry won’t allow it.
