There’s alot of furore surrounding the so-called sex scenes in Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 at the moment, possibly more so than those that were in Dragon Age: Origins. For the record I’ve not seen the scenes in either, my female Shepard (whom I’m using in Mass Effect 2) did manage to sleep with Liara in the first game, although I didn’t go out of my to reach that particular goal, so maybe I’m not qualified enough to comment on the particular game in question, but fuck it, this is the internet and everyone has an opinion, just as everyone has an arsehole and I’m going ahead and voicing mine.


So Mass Effect 2 has sex scenes in it, if they’re anything like those in Dragon Age: Origins that my partner has told me about, or the ones in the original game they’re hardly sex scenes. You see more action in Tweeny favourite Twilight than I recall seeing in Bioware’s first instalment to the series. Even so, do we really want some real hardcore alien action in videogames? Especially when you recieve achievement points for your gamerscore to go along with the fact you’ve bedded certain characters. This amounts to that whole jock mentality of bragging you slept with a girl whilst acting all sweet and innocent to her face and is a rather embarassing representation of the immaturity that surrounds the games industry. What I mean is, look at the treatment Jade Raymond received whilst her team were heavily at work on the first Assassins Creed. I also think that the manner in which sex is being handled by the games industry will never be taken seriously whilst its such a male driven medium. The Porn industry has put alot of effort into making something that doesn’t just amount to a plumber turning up at some horny woman’s house and her giving him her body in return for his handy work. This has come about as more and more women have gotten involved in the directing and writing of porn films, and whilst they don’t quite have the stories that a really great film would have, you wouldn’t expect them to, they still have substance beyond the titillation.

Likewise, I don’t expect videogames to challenge the film or porn film industries in how they handle the sexual content of their products, nor do I want the sex to be interactive, after all why would I want to press some buttons on a game pad to provide on screen action when I can enjoy some quality time with my partner?

I’m not saying that sex in videogames doesn’t or will never have its place, but at the moment it feels like a bullet point thats purely designed to attract teenage boys to whatever product in question. I also think that whilst the majority of videogames stories are so weak that most Hollywood blockbusters put them to shame (although I will clarify that the exception to this is anything that Joel Schumacher or Michael Bay have ever gotten involved in) maybe writers should focus on putting together well structured, cohesive plots that are entertaining on their own grounds using solid, believable characters before tackling something as complicated as sexual relationships between humans or indeed alien races.

Or as one commentor on Kotaku put it really rather well…

People of Earth: The Internet is full of porn, you don’t need to see some Quarian breasts to get your jollies

I also published this on my own blog yesterday, just on the off chance that someone has read this more than once.

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