Nudity?

[jansonmercenary]

I have a little sister. And I've done my fair share of "parenting".

 

On the grand scheme of things, I find violence -- the act of taking a person's life -- so much more deplorable than the simple mechanical nature of sex. Procreation versus murder. It's a philosophical methodology. The bottom line here? Children have no business playing games like Fallout. Period. If you want to "shield" your children from the sins of the world, then make the sacrifice and don't buy the game at all.

 

M-rated games are akin to R-rated movies. Yet in R-rated movies, nudity and fairly explicit sex is very much allowed. Yet in a game of an equal audience demographic are only allowed R-rated violence. There are somethings better left to the imagination. If I'm playing a T-rated game, I'd expect the innuendo to stay just that. But when I play a game designed for 18 and over, I feel jilted that I'm only given one extreme aspect because ignorant society has convinced the developers that I can't handle a bare breast or a tasteful love scene in my game.

 

The folks at Bioware got it right with Mass Effect. The God of War series, as well. They managed to find a right balance between, violence, story, and sexuality in a way that made perfect contextual sense and felt very organic. See, I'm not looking for gratuity. I'm looking to have simple expectations met.

 

Developers: "Yeeaaah.... We're not going to have nudity or sex of any kind... But we'll give you a perk that lets you shred an innocent bystander into a bloody mass of gore and meat when you shoot them with a pistol! See? That's just as good! If not better!!1"

 

What kind of gamer do think I am? You'd think they all believe we're nothing but blood-hungry savages who crave nothing more than to see the inside of a person's cranium. We can blow off a woman's breasts with a shotgun buckshot, just as long as we don't see it, right?

 

 

And to answer you question about stealing people's underwear... Have you even seen what the Raiders wear? All but one costume has them pretty much shirtless. Yet when we loot their corpses, suddenly, an undershirt appears where there wasn't even a shirt prior? Oh please... Raiders don't even seem the type to bother with undergarments, if you ask me. Although I ask you, which is more disturbing? Seeing a naked corpse? Or actively raiding the corpse of a person you just killed? Mmm?

[sumoftwosins]

Well the remark about daughters wasn't about protecting children from seeing something in a game they shouldn't. It was in reply to idea of secrecy of sex. I'd like to it remain secret... I won't want my daughters when they grow up to run in the house and say "Dad, I was involved in my first orgy today!"

 

 

as for everything else, I think the world lacks sarcasm and imagination. I'm sure a good portion of you gamers are older and remember times of not having video games and instead playing with G.I. Joes. Now if you see a kid alone talking to himself when playing... they think there is an illness. You know, the days when cartoons were called cartoons and not animation?

[jansonmercenary]

I think we don't give kids enough credit. In my experience, kids usually have sex out of curiosity and because they don't know any better. Children are less likely to experiment if you arm them with information, and are open to any and every question they ask. If the kids at school are talking about sex, and they haven't heard a peep about it from you, it's going to skew their perception of what sex really is, and why they shouldn't be having it yet.

 

Parents need to sit their kids down with a goal when it comes to the discussions on sex:

 

"Here's what sex is..."

 

"Now, here's what sex really means..."

 

"These are the changes you're going to go through..."

 

"Now here are the new "feelings" you'll need to understand..."

 

"Now, the good and the bad -- procreation versus recreation..."

 

"Why people use protection..."

 

"Here's what to expect when you have your first boyfriend, and what to watch out for..."

 

"If you have any question, at any time, no matter what it is, ask me, and I'll answer it!"

 

When it's all out in the open, and completely demystified, there's very little chance of them telling you that they were just in their first orgy. I don't want to insult you by telling you how to parent your own children. And it all really depends on how old they are, anyway. If they're 5 and 7, yeah, they're better off in blissful ignorance. Come 11 and 12, you don't want to sweep the issue under the rug. Because when they want to know, they'll ask whoever they have to ask to get their answers. And they're better off hearing it from you rather then their "boyfriends".

 

In any case... I hope I didn't insult you. I'm not in the business of telling parents how to raise their children. But I do want to say that open honesty is usually a more responsible policy than closing your eyes and hoping the problem doesn't rear itself. Because it will. Better you nip it in the bud at the right time before someone comes home, trying to hide a bewildering pregnancy.

 

And also, be wary of the company your kids are keeping. I can't tell you how many times I've observed parents being forced to discuss sex with their kids at a very young age because little Timmy's older friend downloaded pornography on his computer.

 

 

 

On the subject gamers... Gaming is mainstream now. Gamers are grown-up with families of their own. Pop-culture references are being made from popular games now. Production budgets rival movie studios, and revenue exceeds in the billions. It's a powerhouse of the entertainment industry. It's no longer the little eye-rolling "go get a real job" joke it was back in the 80's. Grown-up clients have grown-up tastes. If you want to sell me on a mature experience, then give me a mature experience. Don't water it down because you're afraid of offending someone. Games tell stories and incite experiences; and the provocative ones that make statements and refuse to shy away from content that takes you out of your comfort zone tend to stick with you. It doesn't have to involve sex. But if the blatant omission of sex draws attention, then that's a problem.

[sumoftwosins]

no offense taken. I do plan on having a simple un-biased talk. But I'd still would prefer that you not provide details at any age... even if she is 30.

 

Regardless, as I try to remind people, this has all been written with sarcasm.

[Khet]

While it's been mentioned already I'm just going to throw my own point of view out there.

 

To me, yes it does seem like sex is taboo, but not the way that was mentioned. I mean, you can pick up a rated R movie (aka: ESRB Mature rating) and it might have a sex scene. That's not to say they're showing genitalia and all that, but they do SHOW it. There's NO doubt in your mind that says the two folks on the screen are not having sex. To me, sex seems to be taboo in video games. I don't think I've ever ran across a mention of sex in any games aside from Fallout and Sims. Fallout 2 handled it very well if you ask. You folks remember the radio-repairman that was being held hostage by the slavers? As a female character you could use sex as a way to get him free. Now, if you ask me, it was handled well. Walk to bed, screen goes black and the slaver tells you how shoddy of a job you did, not bad. Another reference was the super mutant (or just mutant, I forgot) that would challenge you to an arm wrestling match for his Power Fist. If you failed, the 'sex toy' was added to your inventory. Tasteful, humorous, no explicit scenes, and yet sex was still in the game.

 

Now, while the Sims is no where near this genre, they would show sex, but you'd never SEE it happening. Couple would cuddle, jump under the covers and voila, sex. That's it. In my opinion, both cases and developers handled it very tastefully. There's no need to have pixel-hentai game sex, there's no need to SHOW it happening.

 

Now, we have Fallout 3. There is Nova, the prostitute. When speaking to her, her dialogue implies sex, and the first time I seen that I had worries that Bethesda would have handled it all wrong (compared to previous Fallouts) and I was right. She sleeps in the bed and nothing more. There's no waking up and Nova saying she had a 'good time' or anything like that. Sure, you can imagine it happened, but there's no implying that contact ever happened.

 

There's a fine line between having 'tasteful' sex in a game, and full blown 'hentai' sex in a game. Previous Fallouts (and the Sims, I suppose) took a tasteful approach. Fallout 3 however, makes it seem Taboo.

 

Dunno, my two cents, and I know that this doesn't imply to the last few posts in this thread but whatever. Read into it how you will, I'm not saying Fallout 3 should have sex, but I'm also not saying that it shouldn't have it at all. Just saying that it's possible to have sex in the game that is tastefully done which I doubt would suddenly make the Mature rating jump to Adult Only rating.

[enkephalin07]

I think it's less about what the players want than what the designers seem to be contorting into unnatural directions to present. All flirtable characters seem to be designed completely mercenary or complete fruitcakes. When you loot a corpse, you see a set of underwear that's implausible for any time period. And you can't help butl wonder what the hell went into these choices here. For what sakes exactly do they make it so immersion-shattering and unfun for?

 

And really all the possible motivations only suggest that the Fallout franchise has been taken on by a load of joyless twats who'd be uselessly frozen in panic in not only sexual situations, but these violent situations that they so freely depict. There's your *ban* hypocrisy, and it's without a doubt the saddest sort you could see.

[Khet]

Yes... your logic is infallible. Personally, I think Bethesda still wanted to keep anything that could be seen as even slightly controversial out of the mix. Violence is rampant in videos games, and it's becoming more and more accepted as to what can be done. Yet, I think for a lot of folks out there having sex, or implying sex, would still raise a red flag. And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the developers being a 'load of joyless twats'

[sumoftwosins]

I guess it also depends on your definition of fun in a game. For me this is only the 3rd RPG that I've played. It was the first Fallout game that I've played. I enjoyed all of it, granted there were things I would like to be done differently, but I have that opinion to almost everything I encounter in life. Just from the name I expected a game that was war torn and what was left was hanging on by threads... and that was delivered.

 

Maybe if I had played more RPG's in the past, I might have a number of other ideas and opinions.

[Khet]

Precisely. The difference is, that I have played Fallout 1 and 2, and you have not. Someone who never knew what the first two entailed would not be having the same expectations that someone like me, who HAS played the first two, would have. Bethesda also stated themselves that they were trying to hold true to the Fallout feel, which in my opinion they failed miserably. I remember getting very, VERY frustrated because I'd have to trade four or five rather decent items just for a 10mm gun and a bit of ammo. I remember getting mowed down by a group of 5 or so Enclave soldiers while running around with my spear. I also remember the gritty feeling of the game. You, on the other hand, know none of this and as such don't feel the same attachement to the Fallout name as I would. I'm not meaning to sound harsh, just stating it rather bluntly. I'm rather confident to say that if you HAD played the first two Fallouts, you'd feel the same, or at least similar, as I do with how Bethesda handled the creation of Fallout 3. That's not to say it's a bad game, in fact, it's a good game. It's fun, it's moddable, and I'll probably be playing it until TES 5 or Fallout 4 (if either happens) just as I played Oblivion since it's release. It's just not Fallout as I see it.

 

To me, Fallout 3 is an entirely new game BASED off of the concept of the first two Fallouts. It's not the next game in the series of two great games.

 

 

Again, I hope you don't draw offense from my post, and I know I assume a lot about you, but I have a habit of stating things rather bluntly at times.

[enkephalin07]

Yes... your logic is infallible. Personally, I think Bethesda still wanted to keep anything that could be seen as even slightly controversial out of the mix.

Dude, if you know how to be facetious, then you probably know how to be funny;]

But I hear your point, and it's something I've already thought of, except that they could have brought that across subtly and with some humor. They didn't do either, they brought it across with a clumsy sledgehammering as if to say, "We're going to unwelcome any thought of sex, humorous or prurient or otherwise! We're going to make it as unfun as possible so that if it ever touches our product, it'll be sorry!"

 

And that's a hell of a contrast to the previous Fallouts, which had a philosophy closer to, "Yeah, sexual connotations will happen. And though we're not responsible for all of them, the ones we're responsible for, we will do right."

 

You're also overlooking that if they wanted to keep sexuality out of the mix, they could've. Every introduction and exposure they included really wasn't necessary. But they did include it, and they made it as unappealing as possible every time they included it.