Have some video game critics completely given up on the idea of verifying their claims before issuing them?
We ask because we're flabbergasted by what's been said about Xbox 360 role-playing hit Mass Effect in recent days.
GamePolitics reported last week on bizarre accusations by the conservative Cybercast News Service that Mass Effect featured "explicitly graphic sexual intercourse."
That those charges are just wrong didn't stop conservative blogger Kevin McCullough from picking up the CNS nonsense and running with it. McCullough, in fact, tries to turn the alleged porn in Mass Effect into a presidential campaign issue. In a (not so) cleverly-titled Townhall.com article, The "Sex-Box" Race for President, McCullough writes:
[Presidential candidates] all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on, but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys.
GP: Do we really need to point out that Mass Effect is rated "M" for players 17 and older? More from McCullough:
It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players... to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of...
GP: Has McCullough played - or even invested any time at all in researching - Mass Effect? Based on what he has written, we can't imagine that he has. His screed continues:
Here's a question [for the candidates]... "How much moral judgement should the President push into legislative issues that are likely to severely damage our children's innocence, function, and capability?..."
If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the women DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie streetwalkers, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the women in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.
...And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes.
With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.
McCullough wraps up with a call for legislation apparently designed to drive Mass Effect developer BioWare out of business:
How refreshing would it be for a President to... put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such simulated sex excess in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?
GP: We've seen some ill-informed criticisms of video games over the years, but McCullough has definitely raised (or, perhaps, lowered) the bar in that regard.
Once again, for anyone who cares to actually, you know, research the well-known love scene in Mass Effect, here's the video:
Comments
Specifically "Orgasmic" rape
"Virtual Orgasmic Rape"
So... There's meant to be "virtual non-orgasmic" rape as well? Something along the lines of "Yes, your honour, I did indeed rape the prosecution, but not for my own enjoyment. I committed this act purely as a matter of protocol, and did not enjoy it at all." Perhaps non-orgasmic rape is where neither party actually wants to be involved?
Damn, Mass Effect sounds a LOT more entertaining now! ;)
Geeze, this guy practically sounds like he's salivating. He sounds like he just heard about the general idea (shots of curves, some writhing, sound effects, etc, IE no worse than a PG-13 movie), and then let his imagination run wild...
I haven't bought Mass Effect, and I wasn't going to. I don't like Bioware games. At this point, I'm considering it, simply to see personally just how far from the truth this lying pundit actually is.
I'm seriously at a loss for words. Not even Wacko Jacko is this ill-informed. Every single word out of his mouth is a load of crap. Someone needs to run him out of his blog.
I own Mass Effect and it's NOTHING like that. The only "forms" you can adjust is the shape of your character's head and nothing else. They don't allow you to change their body shape or breast size like this stupid asshole claims. Also they don't even show sex in the "sex scene", so how the hell is this the most "realistic sex acts ever conceived" when they don't even show actual sex. They just show the characters naked in PG-13 form might I add where nipples and genitalia is never shown and the closest thing to full on nudity is a quick flash of an ass.
These people don't even try to do research anymore, they just make up a whole crap load of outrageous lies.
They'll be calling to ban displays like that next because they allow you to view such filth.
"It’s called “Mass Effect” and it allows its players… to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived."
Sure. Sue BioWare via Thompson's law firm. I'll fetch some popcorn.
OMGWTF?!?!?!?
It's things like this that make me wonder if there should be mandatory IQ testing for everyone, so that humanity can isolate the droves of morons that cover the earth.
Perhaps we could send them all to a remote island, dredged from the bottom of the ocean, shaped like a giant broken heart, or ruptured brain.
On this new moron paradise, no videogames, movies, tv, newspapers or any other irrationally lumped form of "voilent media" will be created or imported. The unlucky newborn children of the runoff of human intellect will inevitably rebel violently against their biological sources, leading these droves of blame-displacers to take torches to every palm tree that can be found, as surely these vulgar coconuts must be responsible for the upbringing of their idiot-spawn.
A man can dream, can't he? CAN'T HE?!?!?!
*Huge breath of air* HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAAHHAHAHhahahahahahah
If the game didn't exist, no adults or children or fools could have had the dream about it. Ergo, Bioware's fault for being an enabler.
Shame on you, Bioware! Boo! Hiss!
Yeah, fuck the economy, and health care, and our foreign policy, and the war, and our national debt, and the rise in gas prices...WE NEED TO FOCUS ON VIDYA GAMES!
But yeah, Christ almighty, what kind of crap is this guy spewing? Mass Effect offers nothing of what this guy is talking about. I shudder to think that out and out lie will take priority over honest to goodness RESEARCH.
I read your comment, well said.
I seriously hope they pick up your comment, but with all due respect, I doubt it'll happen.
A quick scan indicates the sort of political leanings the article author and the site's readership seem to take - Christian conservatives.
That doesn't change the fact that McCullough proved himself to be one grossly uninformed wannabe "journalist."
And from the looks of it, that article bashing Mass Effect isn't the vilest garbage they've got on display.
People who are so moronic, so utterly mindless that they will make up completely far-fetched lies and throw them at a soft target, caring nothing for the target, but only for themselves.
People who use religion as an excuse for repression.
People who use ANYTHING as an excuse for repression.
May they all be thrown out of influence, and only have the capability to yell from their porch.
With it’s “over the net” capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away."
Methinks this schmuck got ripped off at the store - the clerk probably replaced his copy of Mass Effect for a copy of some raunchy Japanese Eroge, and he was none the wiser.
mabey noteveryone on earth should take an iq test, but before you brodcast, you defenatly need 1.
Seriously. Mass Effect is a game where you can create your own character, male or female, with some customisation options for their looks. And if you follow a certain path in the game, you will get the option to have sex with a female alien. The scene is mildly erotic. Both characters are naked, but it's too dark to really see anything. If I'd have to compare it to a movie, it's more like the love scene in an old movie like Ghost, and certainly not explicit like in Jerry Maguire. Oh and the game is M-rated. I wish people would get their facts straight.
Call it sourgraping. Most guys rant against stuff they can't get on a regular basis.
without sexuality none of us would be here, so why are all of these uber christain conservatives going apeshit
we are currently facing a ton of shit coming from a fuckload of stupid
@Zerodash
I am a conservative but find this to be (to be politially correct) bullshit. Please refrain from sweeping such statements. One fool does not (or should not) label all.
I'm surrounded in this world by idiots. I swear they will go after Smash Bros Brawl.
Incidentally this is the first I've heard of it being rated M in America. Sup with that?
And the worst part is that people in the comments section believe and agree with him. He's apparently arguing that the government should regulate the sale of widely available interactive rape simulators, while ignoring the fact that THERE ARE NO WIDELY AVAILABLE INTERACTIVE RAPE SIMULATORS. Mass Effect is nothing like what he's described.
And @koku: I also thought that Bioware should consider suing for slander (or libel, as the case may be.) The question is how widespread the article ends up being. Bioware probably doesn't want to look like it polices the internet and threatens lawsuits against everyone with an internet connection and an unfavorable opinion. But if McCollough's article is read - and believed - by a lot of people then I think it'd be an entirely appropriate move on Bioware's part.
.........sorry for the chatspeak as a response, but... ROFLMFAO.
"With it’s “over the net” capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away."
Excuse me sir, but... how exactly can one 'rape' over the internet? Unless it's, like, rigged on one end?
"[Presidential candidates] all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on,"
Yes, they do. There's like, i dunno, THE WAR ON TERROR. Get out from under your rock, good sir.
"but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys."
*cough readthedamnlabel cough*
"If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the women DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie streetwalkers, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what’s to stop that same male from assuming that the women in his “other world” shouldn’t be forced to do the same."
Simple. Video games aren't the Matrix. They don't download things into people's heads. I assume next you're going to say cameras steal people's souls?
Looks like some guy going by the monicker David Austin has just pigeon-holed us alongside hardcore trekkies. Quoting his retort to the last few GP dudes who posted:
Pathetic Mass Effect lovers
"...gives us gamers the ability to connect and really sympathize."
Wow. You want to "connect" and "really sympathize"? Get out and talk to a real woman for a change. Interact with a human being in flesh and blood. You might not get the easy cyber-sex action you're looking for, but you might end up with something far more valuable:
REAL HUMAN intimacy.
Sheesh, why you don't crawl under a rock out of pure embarrassment is beyond me. You guys are like the convention-going trekkies who flip out because episode #27 violated a scientific principle. WHO CARES IF Mc Coulough GOT SOME DETAILS WRONG? What's wrong is that this is, among other things, a simulated sex game where losers get their jollies ...
... and you can guarantee that 100's of underage future Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold types will be doing the same thing. That's what this article is about, and it's spot on._
_______
Cripes. The site's readership us just as anal as the author.
...i'm not even going to read that article. It looks like something your average 13-year-old would put on youtube as a hate-video toward fans of something that's popular.