The Implied Sex Cut Scene Has Got to Go
- Thread starter Lauren Admire
- Start date
It would be difficult to pull these scenarios off as detailed affairs without them becoming crude and tasteless. The scenes would become pornographic and mostly a novelty.Farenheit (Indigo Prophecy) tried to create 'realistic' sexual encounters but failed miserably. Similarly to other games, while they are technically 'soft' they are so poorly made as to appear stiff and lifeless almost like dolls.Lauren Admire said:
Perhaps if developers put in the quality of Uncharted 2's mocapped scenes and graphics there would be an improvement. Dragon Age origin has the relationship and dialogue slightly developed, the voice acting is spot on but when you watch your character kiss another it's like they've never been so uncomfortable in their lives.
Some games such as Fable 2 even remove the visuals which are paramount in every other part of the game. The audio lines may give people a chuckle but these can't be taken seriously as dealing with sex. They show the equivalent understanding of a child, as if babies are delivered by Stork. While we can see that the developers are giving us a wink and a nudge about the whole issue it is almost offensive. We are adults, we can cope with adult themes.
In our quest for a 'plausible' sexual encounter in games we may be missing what is clearly being shown to us; games just can't handle it. But is this so different from film? Ever scene a sex scene that wasn't either a bit pervy or uncomfortably cringeworthy? As long as we think of sex scenes as another way to deliver 'quick time events' or show 'T&A' it will always fall woefully short of expectations. But what else is there to do? A dialogue tree of emotions? A
game like 'Flower' where the event is an experience? An exploratory visual map?
One studio that may be able to pull all this off is Rockstar. They're not afraid to push the envelope or deal with controversial subjects. In GTA IV they captured the essence and reality of 'strip clubs'. They also do this with many other subjects by showing them without judgement, just laying them bare leaving the user to interpret them.
In any case, if games can't bring themselves to deal with a fully intimate display of love from a developed relationship how are they ever going to confront sexuality and emotional and psychological factors behind it? How long until games can address the complexities of lustrous encounters and intimate dependency let alone face homosexuality?
Funny thing about that: real women like it if you're nice to them over extended periods of time and see more in you as a potential mate. Granted, you don't exactly build up the amount of experiences you'd need for a real relationship in Mass Effect, such as healthy conflicts, but you have to realize that in the end, this is a videogame, and it's sort of limited in what you can do with it. Sure, you could have a lot more scenes of talking with Liara, with more things to talk about and different ways that it would take your relationship: but you'd have to get someone to write and plan and program it all, and it would mean that the game would be costlier and take longer to make.Amnestic said:
The Consort, well... she's basically just there to make people feel better, and that's it. So yeah, she's not exactly what you'd call a realistic person, but then again, she's also a blue-skinned telepathic alien in a future society.
But that's the thing, I never felt any development with Liara. There wasn't any development of the person - Shepard or Liara - when I was mindlessly holding diagonal up-right and mashing X.scotth266 said:
Yes I have listened to all of the conversations. It's faster to just mash it now.
Relationships build people, change them. They're a clash and meshing of ideals, world views and personal secrets. Liara was nothing like that. It wasn't a relationship, both players were already at the finish line. They just had to pick up their medals before trotting off to bed. That's what annoyed me about it. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a game at this stage, but it'd be nice to see a relationship which isn't just "Agree with the other person until they sleep with you."
Relationships like that quickly sour, I've found. They're never quite as interesting as we would like.
Ironically, the fact that you can start new relationships in the sequel probably has something to say about that... or maybe not. Who knows, we'll have to wait and seeAmnestic said:
But yes, the relationship with Liara/any other ME character is far from reality, partially because of the type of experience you're encountering and partially because of limitations. The second bit is self explanatory... but as far as the first goes, I don't think that we'll see anything approaching realistic relationships coming from most games for a while now. You'd probably be better off looking in visual novels for complicated relationships: they're games built specifically for that purpose. Games like ME, on the other hand, have other priorities, and as such the relationships are downplayed in importance. It's a low part on the totem pole, for now at least.
Aheh. Heh heh heh. Assuming that, I'm going to be far too busy riding my winged unicorn while accompanied by a swarm of rainbow-colored fairies to be bothered with playing video games.
Honestly. The playable sex scene isn't cut out to avoid an "R-rating" (equivalent of an "M" in the U.S.); it's taken out to avoid an "X" or "NC-17" rating (equivalent of an "AO" in the U.S.) Farenheit removed the interactive portions of its sex scenes (as well, apparently, as making some changes in the character models' "skins") to secure an "M". Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was discovered to have poorly-rendered, fully-clothed coitus hidden away in one of its nooks and crannies, and promptly got slapped with an "AO" until they came out with a version they could assure wouldn't feature that content. Game companies can't get a game with an AO rating on the shelves. There's maybe twenty games with the "AO" rating on the ESRB's web site (www.esrb.org), most of which I've never seen in a store at all, a few of which I've only seen in edited versions, and at least one of which (ThrillKill) was never officially released. And I presume I don't need to remind anyone about how assininely incensed Fox News was at the (mistaken) idea that there was interactive sex in Mass Effect?
The moment you have a sex scene that's involved enough that it requires mastery, that allows the player to spend more than five minutes engaged in it- to many minds, you've basically made pornography. It may be that the remaining 99% of game play is a Real-Time Strategy game; it doesn't matter, it will still be considered porn. We can debate whether the description is accurate or not, of course, but pretending it will be overlooked is a non-starter. The medium is still very young, and still considered by a lot of people who refuse to learn any better to be a medium which caters mostly to children.
Now, to be fair, a lot of movie sex scenes don't have the kind of depth the main article's author describees, either. They're either markers that The Relationship Has Changed (time to bring on the stupid crisis so the man can run after the girl in the last five minutes), shorthand that Now These Characters Know They Can Count On Each Other, or, well, a decision that two fourty-five minute long sequences of shooting and explosions would probably be well bookended by boobs.
Sex, and romantic relationships, tend to be a lot more complicated than most fiction media can compellingly present. And because it's been implied a couple of times, I feel it should note: it isn't simply a matter of "be nice to her until she has sex with me", either. People's needs are all kinds of wacky. This woman needs to feel protected, even if her protector is distant or abusive at the same time. This guy needs to feel in control, and is willing to accept constant arguments as the cost. This couple latched onto each other because they reminded one another of their respective, oft-absent parental figures. It really takes a masterful hand to present relationships that seem believable, or show things that could conceivably apply to real people. We're only occasionally getting anything that resembles human relationships in games, as yet; why would we expect to get something that more closely resembles human sexuality?
Frankly, if sex even had as much depth as a typical conversation in a Bioware game, that would be pretty remarkable. But for all the reasons I mentioned and more, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Kaiden is hotter than Liara anyway, and cuter. And a better character. With a better voice actor...
I'm gonna have to agree with this. What I would like to see, though, is more freedom in the romance options, similar to Dragon Age but on a much grander scale. If you can program an entire gameful of NPCs to react to your heroic/evil reputation, why can't they react to your character's charisma or flirtatiousness?LordNue said:
I actually have not played the Fable games, but from what I've seen, read, and heard, yes - similar, but better.LordNue said:
I have this habit of "adopting" an NPC as my character's romantic interest in pretty much any game I play. Sometimes it comes down to silly little things, like patrolling their town for dangers or even just hanging around worshiping them. Granted, I know it's a silly-RP thing to do, but I can't be the only person alive who wished you could romance Moira from Megaton City in Fallout 3, or fell in love with Lucien Lachance in Oblivion, or masochistically wanted Sten to be a romance option in Dragon Age - just for the challenge he would represent. ("Sure, Sten, we'll do whatever you want." Sten disapproves, -10. "Shut up, Sten, you're worthless and I'm in charge here." Sten approves, +4.)
It doesn't seem like an insurmountable hurdle, to me, to make romantic availability the default for all characters. Remove it from a few who are married or have religious hang-ups, insert a few (like, a realistic population percentage) homosexual or bisexual characters, and let the player go nuts. You don't even have to have a sex scene, implied or otherwise - as long as the player character is able to make personal, romantic connections with non-player-characters. If the option is there, a lot of people will make use of it.
Some people will make it their goal to romance as many NPCs as possible (I could see this happening especially in a sandboxy game), and some people will play celibates, of course. It's just about having the option.
