6 Video Game Sex Scenes That Will Give You Nightmares
Video games and sex have had a long and uncomfortable relationship. From General Custer and his six-pixels-long Atari boner to the tradition of female characters wearing outfits that would be better suited for a strip club than the battlefield, gaming's never quite gotten a hold on the whole sex thing.
Some games have tried to address the subject head on, only to end up making things worse. Whether their detailed sex scenes are intended to titillate or add important character development, they all wind up being somewhere between hilarious and terrifying. Like ...
Ride to Hell: Retribution -- Hellish Mannequin Sex
There's a whole lot to hate about Ride to Hell: Retribution, already considered one of the worst games ever made. But the sex scenes in this biker revenge tale almost defy human language, unless you consider incoherent screams of revulsion to be language.
"You know what always turns me on? Ludacris hands." -game designers
Early in the game you can fight a thug harassing a prostitute, and as soon as you knock the guy out, and without any type of transition, the game cuts to a porno groove and a scene of you banging the damsel in distress. It's simply assumed that she would open her legs for you after that, but, you know, that's video games for you. It's only a few seconds into the sex that you realize that someone forgot to animate the characters' faces while they're doing it, resulting in this haunting abomination:
Whatever the opposite of the uncanny valley is called, this is it.
Seriously, did the budget run out while they were making this part? Because they look like they're in a horror reboot of the movie Mannequin.
Luckily the porno groove drowns out the soft flesh-slapping sounds.
Later, after you rescue-fuck a random hooker, you're tasked with tracking down a key. You find out the key is held by a flirty mechanic's ex-husband, so you go beat the shit out of him. The mechanic is so impressed by your ability to dole out unnecessary violence that she immediately comes on to you with a lame line about how she can do a lot more than just start an engine.
And yet operating a simple toothbrush is too complicated.
So you get down and literally dirty in her ex's filthy bed, presumably while the man's unconscious body lies sprawled out nearby. But then, instead of anything vaguely recognizable as sexual arousal, the woman is shown with an expression that looks somewhere between religious fervor, screaming in terror, and letting out a massive turd.
Which is also the same face made by anyone playing this game.
By the way, she's sitting on top of you at this point. Here, let's see it in action!
Apparently her coveralls have an emergency sex hole just for situations like this.
Yes, the name of the game is Seaman. Which sounds like "semen." Let's get that out of the way fast, because that's actually the least weird thing about it. Half life simulator, half art game, and all batshit insanity, this Dreamcast game tasks players with raising fish with human faces and mannerisms. As the game progresses, you'll find yourself with one male and one female Seaman, although we'll be damned if we can tell them apart.
For most species, the forehead dick is a dead giveaway, but in this case they both have it.
Being curious young fish-monsters with confusing new emotions and feelings, they soon explore the process of mating. And yes, you get to watch. You get to watch when they do it, and then every night after in your nightmares.
It's too late to close your eyes. Far too late.
After saying something seductive like "let the mating begin," one Seaman floats over to the other and they connect head tentacles. The top Seaman then begins pumping ... something into the other to the rhythm of what sounds like a heartbeat. This lasts for about a minute, by the way, and they just float there grinning at you the whole time. Fun fact: If you accidentally think of something sexy while watching this and get an erection, your brain will be permanently broken.
NS ... FW?
As the two detach with a gross suction cup noise, the one on top says something about "leaving some seamen behind" (we've been over this, dammit) and then immediately keels over and fucking dies. The developers could have made these fictional creatures reproduce in any way they wanted -- they could have been born out of question-mark blocks, like Yoshis. Someone made an intentional choice to put fatal forehead tentacle sex in this game.
This game was funded by Mothers for Abstinence.
To make matters worse, Seaman is controlled with a microphone, and gamers have conversations with the sometimes rude and sarcastic beings that should not be. So, sometimes the male Seaman will be complaining about the annoyances of modern life and then say "I think I'd like to make a baby" without missing a beat. That's life, kids -- one moment you're upset about cellphones, the next you're shooting genetic material into your partner's tentacle and dropping dead.
Remember the great "Hot Coffee" scandal of 2005, where an unused sex mini-game was discovered in the code of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the media went apeshit? Hillary Clinton claimed this was proof that games like GTA were inappropriate for children, because our nation's innocent young angels shouldn't have their wholesome car theft and hobo murder interrupted by pixelated boobs.
Of course, those gamers who were curious/horny enough to actually play the Hot Coffee mini-game probably realized right away why it was cut in the first place -- this thing is about as erotic as getting bludgeoned in the nuts with an iron.
Which might explain the face.
The scene begins with the girlfriend of main character CJ inviting him to her place for some "hot coffee," but apparently she's all out, so they settle for intercourse. In the final version of the game, you just hear a few saucy sounds while the camera pans over the exterior of the house, but with the mini-game unlocked, you get to control the sexy action directly. The gruesome, nightmarish action.
A rare instance when fan-made Rule 34 is probably less disturbing looking.
For starters, CJ's crotch is apparently a portal to an alternate dimension, as your girlfriend's breasts immediately vanish into them as she fellates thin air (he never even opens his fly). Once the empty space where his penis should be is suitably aroused, you move to the main event. Here you can control the position and camera angle as CJ and his lady friend slip through each other's bodies, the two becoming one in the worst way possible.
The excitement meter grades on a curve.
As the sweaty 45 seconds of lovemaking draw to a close, the scene shifts from ridiculous to terrifying -- CJ's O-face is less "I am enjoying this orgasm" and more "I have seen the Lovecraftian horrors that lurk in the shadows and wait to devour mankind, and they will haunt me until my dying breath."
"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"
Indigo Prophecy -- Awkward Zombie Humping
Indigo Prophecy is an "interactive film" (video game with lots of quick-time events) about Mayans and stuff. In the game, humanity is forced to move underground by an endless winter, which leads to the classic "we're boned, so let's bone" scene. We start with the emotionally damaged male and female protagonists shacked up in an especially romantic shipping container done up with rag curtains and a filthy mattress. Then this happens:
OK, we were wrong. This is the opposite of the uncanny valley.
OK, is that ... are they kissing? Yeah? Are we sure? Because this is how aliens would animate a making-out scene if all they had to work from were the descriptions of some 15th century monks. Anyway, the woman comments on how cold the guy's lips feel -- because, at this point in the game, he's technically dead. She's making out with a zombie. The worst part is that, rather than being put off, she says, "Your lips are like ice" with the intonation of an eager phone sex operator. We have no choice but to conclude that she has a corpse fetish.
"Just lie still and ... uh, try not to breathe so much."
Then she says "I love you, Lucas" as the screen fades to black. Well, that wasn't so bad, right? Except we're just getting started. The screen fades back to the two of them completely naked and moaning as they fuse their pixelated genitals on the bed in a scene as graphic as it is awkward.
Each pelvic thrust is marked with the "coin" sound effect from Mario.
Wait, weren't they freezing to death just now? Or more to death, anyway? If they had to go all nude, couldn't they at least do it under the covers? Then again, this place looks like a hobo recently used it as a ... everything, so we can understand why they wouldn't want to do that. Shortly after, the credits roll, and you're welcome to sit with your controller on your couch and ponder the depth and artistry of this game.
It's a metaphor for bad storytelling.
Heavy Rain was praised for its immersive gameplay, where your fingers essentially play a long game of Twister as a movie unfolds on your screen. One scene opens with two of the protagonists, Ethan and Madison, wallowing in misery: Ethan has just crawled through broken glass, cut off his own finger, and shot a dude in the face while he begged for mercy in his daughter's bedroom. The game wants you to feel the guilt, and the desperation, and the disgust. And now ... engage in the boning.
"Press triangle to ejaculate nervously and mumble an excuse."
Ethan doesn't seem to be as into this as he obviously should be, but he's not the God of this world. You are, and since you bought the game because of the mature themes, you're probably not going to skip out on the chance of boobies. So, as the characters start bumping faces Indigo Prophecy-style, you're told which buttons to press to make them undress each other.
The developers spent more time researching this scene than the rest of the game.
But don't worry, they'll still bone if you mess everything up, so there's no risk of this turning into your prom night (there's no "accidentally elbow her in the face," for one thing). After they're sufficiently unclothed, you're prompted to press a button to make Ethan neck Madison, which apparently causes her to start having a seizure:
Eventually, they end up having sex on the floor of the motel -- always a smarter choice than doing it on the motel bed, which is just an orgy displaced by time. But no one-night stand is complete without giving the player the opportunity to slink away in the middle of the night without so much as a motel continental breakfast: This time, your ability to press buttons on cue determines how cleanly Ethan makes his getaway.
"Oh, sorry, I was just stepping out for some hot coffee."
And finally, once you've hit it and quit it, you can take the time for some introspection with the game's "look at yourself in the mirror and think about what you've just done" simulator.
"Ugh, I should have gone square, circle, L1, shake controller sideways. Idiot."
Dragon Age is a classic fantasy role playing game set in a deep and colorful world as unique as every other game that involves dwarves and elves ... except with more public boning, because this game has lots of it. The amount of boning you do here is at your discretion (just like real life), but you don't always get a say in the locale. Let's say, for instance, that you're resting by a campfire when you get invited to spend some private time inside someone else's tent:
"Or I could just help you pitch one of your own."
After a while, you realize that this is a game developer's idea of "flirting" and agree to raise your tent inside her tent. Or his tent. This game offers a variety of potential sexual matchups, even between different species, but to each their own. The problem is that, after so much tent talk, your dwarf with a braided beard and the elf dude you seduced (if we know our audience) will end up doing it right in the open:
"Just be glad there isn't a circus dwarf joining in too."
See those plants? Well, you shouldn't. In some cases you can even see the bonfire right behind the characters as they bump uglies. Then the love scene ends and you realize the horror -- as you two rolled around butt naked, the other members of your party were right there all along, presumably coughing loudly or glancing at their fresh bag of marshmallows with a look of frustrated disappointment.
"Uh, you guys want to roast some weenies or something?"
"No, thanks."
So now you have to go through the rest of the game mutually avoiding eye contact not only with your one-night stand, but with every other fellow warrior in your group who's supposed to have your back. That's how you get killed by dragons, people.
You can read more from Mark, and watch the sex scene he starred in for Grand Theft Auto V, at his website. Eric and his brother Kevin write about all of their virtual and meat world bone sessions at Donuts for Sharks.
Related Reading: Bad graphics and crudely animated breasts aren't the only sex-related problems in modern gaming, the entire hobby is riddled with more maladaptive eroticism than a bus full of sex offenders. Fortunately (or perhaps tragically) video games are about to get a lot more fuckable, starting with Microsoft's Kinect. If you're shamefully aroused after all that, why not take a look at these geeky sex toys followed by a cold, regretful shower.