bleetman wrote...
I wouldn't really hold up Witcher 2 as some pinnacle of sexual content in games, myself. The stuff I've witnessed thus far has been unbelievably silly, focus-on-the-girl stuff. I can't say I find 3d models of naked people clipping into each other all that erotic.
But then, I'm English. I'm automatically a prude.
Yeah, from what I've seen I don't particularly think its sex scenes were mature or even tasteful. They were mostly gratuitous tittilation.
I think I have a larger problem with games such as Mass Effect adhering to a 'PG-13' mindset because it actually weakens the quality of the writing and where some of the storylines can go.
Consider, say, that Jacob's loyalty mission was let down because we couldn't see exactly how far his father had fallen (the 'abuse of women and killing of rivals' was presented rather tamely), or that Morinth was a wonderful opportunity to present a genuinely nihilistic character that just descended into sex appeal - not to mention the ridiculous line from Nef that being attracted to 'a girl like me' made her a freak. These are hardly adult plots, don't particularly engage in much adult content beyond some swearing and violence, and don't even challenge the stereotypes of storytelling.
It's arguably not a very mature approach to writing or story and it occasionally insults the intelligence of its audience, some very good exceptions aside (I was really impressed by a lot of Garrus' loyalty mission and Thane's dialogue on the Normandy). Part of me feels like it was aimed at a late teenage audience, and as a result the storylines tend to fall along a lot of traditional lines and don't pack anything particularly challenging or confronting.
Relatedly: I found Hudson's 'PG-13' line rather mystifying, given the content of Mass Effect 2, and his attempt to link it to the absence of same-sex romances was pretty galling. Gushing about how nice it was to give fans the chance to romance Tali or Garrus ust made the absence of s/s more bting. The fact that he wrote something like "if people want to romance a bird-like alien with an exoskeleton (in his words), then okay" wasn't encouraging.