On one hand, the censorship breaks immersion; "fading to black", as you put it, is the worst offender in this sense. One minute, you're completely connected to the game. The relationship you developed has reached a peak is about to be expressed accordingly. You may get excited, anxious and nervous, almost as if you're actually going to have sex, until the screen fades to black and you remember "Oh wait, it's a video game." Explicit sex can have the same effect; whenever I play a God of War game and come across the random duo of naked women, I go from being the mighty Kratos to sitting in my room and wondering why the devs keep putting that in the game.
On the other hand, sex can make a game loose it's class, and in more ways than one. Other than the obvious level of difficulty in taking games full of raunchy sex seriously, it's hard to find good voice actors and models willing to have either their image used that way or degrade themselves with sessions of recording moans and pillowtalk. That's not an absolute either, plenty of artistic minds are willing to put support behind a "bold" project, so long as it does not cross the line between daring art and pornography.
Long story short, just like a painting or a sculpture, there's a difference between nudity playing an artistic role and it being a requisite to smut or simply for shock value.
I'm not sure if BioWare made the best decision, although I'm proud they stand up to it being their choice. Personally, I would like to see less censorship, or even more natural denials of nudity; Tali is fine as undressing would result in death, but perhaps the other characters could find their reasons rather than making you wait in the other room while Shepard has sex. A minute ago, you were Shepard and this fade away from his happenings forces you to resettle into your plane of escapism once more.
Unfortunately, this isn't as largely seen as the stance of people who think BioWare should have added nudity. More often, it's just excited kids who have a bulge in their pants, and now don't know what to do with it. Pardon my bluntness.
On the other hand, sex can make a game loose it's class, and in more ways than one. Other than the obvious level of difficulty in taking games full of raunchy sex seriously, it's hard to find good voice actors and models willing to have either their image used that way or degrade themselves with sessions of recording moans and pillowtalk. That's not an absolute either, plenty of artistic minds are willing to put support behind a "bold" project, so long as it does not cross the line between daring art and pornography.
Long story short, just like a painting or a sculpture, there's a difference between nudity playing an artistic role and it being a requisite to smut or simply for shock value.
I'm not sure if BioWare made the best decision, although I'm proud they stand up to it being their choice. Personally, I would like to see less censorship, or even more natural denials of nudity; Tali is fine as undressing would result in death, but perhaps the other characters could find their reasons rather than making you wait in the other room while Shepard has sex. A minute ago, you were Shepard and this fade away from his happenings forces you to resettle into your plane of escapism once more.
Unfortunately, this isn't as largely seen as the stance of people who think BioWare should have added nudity. More often, it's just excited kids who have a bulge in their pants, and now don't know what to do with it. Pardon my bluntness.
