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Feared censorship once more fails to appear in Age of Conan
Just what does it take to kill a rumor, anyway? Not so long ago, we investigated rumors that the mature content in Age of Conan was being 'scaled back', and came away unconvinced that any such thing was happening. More recently, the anatomical changes to the succubus model suggested that rather than taking mature content out, the developers might in fact be adding more. Even then, however, there was still one point of concern: the impending changes to the Pyramid of the Ancients. Many AoC players who believed censorship was happening were convinced the harem girls in the Pyramid, who had previously been notably lacking in garments (and occasionally hair), would be covered up in order to placate a hypothetical lobby of 'prudes'.
Anti-Aliased: Age of Con-troversy-an
I'm going to hijack my own column this week to cover a topic that I believe is worth spending some space on - Age of Conan and the buzz of negative media attention it has been getting. Age of Conan's controversy spans almost all aspects of the game, from fatalities, to nudity, to even such odd things like race selection.Now, I've written a few of these articles. I enjoy controversy as the next person and I'm always interested in seeing the opposite viewpoint. It wasn't until I started getting some very, very nice hate mail in my inbox that I began to wonder if anyone understood my own viewpoint on the matter. So, this column is dedicated to other people's opinions, my opinions, controversies and, of course, Age of Conan.
Controversy never ends with Age of Conan
First it was the gore. Then it was the fatalities. Then it was the promise of nudity. Then it was the nipple toggle. Now there's more controversy in the Age of Conan - the Stygians.Richard Cobbett brought up a new area where AoC might offend some of the more religious people in the population in his online journal. The Stygians, the infamous followers of Set, love demonic magic. And when we say love demonic magic, we really mean that they can turn into demons if you're a Herald of Xotli or summon demons if you're a Demonologist. The word Stygian can even be translated as "dark" or "infernal".While this is pretty tame for those of us who are into fantasy settings, it's just another part of where AoC can be offensive to those around it. Funcom has no doubt pushed the envelope with this game, but as any good Conan fan will say, "It's just another normal day in Hyboria."
Petition for the black bar of censorship in Age of Conan
Apparently people already want the black bars slapped on the chests of the fine ladies of Hyboria, as 1UP got wind of a petition being crafted to add a nudity toggle to Age of Conan.Now, obviously everyone anticipated that the nudity would be a hot button issue - the developers already added an option to turn off nipples in the game. The source post in the forums though does add a decent option - simply a switch to give ladies bras for players who would like to play the game without the nudity.1UP, however, went a step further and created some pretty funny ways of blocking out nudity in AoC. If you haven't dropped by yet, you should check it out. They have a considerable amount of fun with a simple black bar.[Via 1UP]
Age of Conan ratings for all territories revealed
Today FunCom received word on the ratings for Age of Conan in each territory and what to expect in each version. Of course, we already know about the US version. The rating subject has been heavily speculated about over on the official forums for a while now. So finally getting to let the Barbarian out of the barracks must have felt good for community manager Pharamond. According to Pharamond these are not design issues, but legal requirements for the ability to sell their game in each territory.[UPDATE] It looks like nipples will be optional in the US version, according to this post.
Playboy shows game character digi-boobs for 4th year
Further affirming our belief that the entire human race is doomed, Playboy is publishing the fourth in their series of annual "Girls of Gaming" pictorials. Just in case you're still considering picking the issue up (it's the December one) these are not real girls playing game characters (still dorky but not as creepy), these are digital versions of characters showing off their digital bathing suit areas (just creepy).Included this year are "Keaira" from Age of Conan, "Church & Black" from Clive Barker's Jericho, "Morenn" from The Witcher, "Yoko Retomoto" from Kane & Lynch, "A'Kanna" from Conan, "Sarah Morrison" from Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa and "Whyareyou Stillreadingthislist" from Please Get Your Life Together.
Sword of the Nude World
You type in your username and password on the logon screen, the game loads, and you see your character... in the buff. No, you haven't been hit by a keylogger-- if you're playing Granado Espada (a Korean MMO known as Sword of the New World in North America), then odds are you got hit by some kind of weird hack or hoax. Apparently, players logged out of the server on October 20th, and then logged back in to find their characters naked (NSFW, even though pics are blurred), complete with.. umm.. anatomically correct graphics.How incredibly strange. Random Battle suspects that it's a hoax of some kind, but changes like that have to come server side, so either a player was able to dial into the server and change models somehow, or a wayward mod messed with something as a joke. IMC Games, the game's maker, is reportedly looking into the incident. In other news, Sword of the New World's subscription rate among males has skyrocketed. Go figure.
Leipzig, booth babes, video, nudity, NSFW
The picture above is about to get NSFW in one frame ... in just one frame it goes from normal marketing cosplay to borderline furry pron. GameTrailers put together a Girls Gone Wild-esque segment of all the Leipzig booth babe fit for video (which we have placed after the break). We joke, the video is very tastefully done, as tasteful as one can get editing together flesh shots meant to titillate. On some level it's great culture context, for our puritan American eyes, public displays of boobies burns us they do.Leipzig obviously takes a different approach to displays of the female form than E3. Although it was a moot point this year, the last "real" E3 had a ban on booth babes. We re-emphasize that the video after the break is not safe for work, don't come crying to us if your boss catches you -- although, for all we know, he might be into furries.
Promotional Consideration: You Can't Do That On Television
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.Commercials that work for European markets aren't always in-line with Nintendo of America's more traditional approach. Join us past the post break to sample a few of the edgier, more risqué TV adverts our friends across the Atlantic have been enjoying.
Halo 2 Vista delayed because of "partial nudity"
Whoops! So, Halo 2 missed both of its Vista release dates, also missing the opportunity to be called the first Games for Windows Live-enabled title (that honor now belongs to Shadowrun). Their first excuse was the relatively banal: we need to "make some improvements to the install experience and address other technical issues." Their newest excuse? Oh, it's much juicier than that. According to GameDaily BIZ, this second delay was due to "an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity." Oh yeah, cue the chanting monks, we're imagining some Hot Coffee style minigames with Master Chief and the Arbiter.Microsoft has updated the packaging and is making a patch available at Halo2.com to remove the content in question. Future releases will have the content removed. What was the content? Do you really want to know? According to the ESRB: "a photograph of an individual showing his bare backside to the user when a particular error occurs." Oh Microsoft, you could have made this so much more scandalous if you only tried harder.
Tips for avoiding asses on XBL
Xbox Live Man-Ass Avoidance Technician Christopher (aka the Xbox Live Policy Program Manager) has some tips for protecting yourself and your family members from the glut of exposed anatomy in the post-Vision Cam XBL universe. Rule # 1 for teens: If you run across any overly friendly congressmen, staple your eyes shut.[Thanks AoE]
Vision Camera: Uno uncensored
I picked up a Vision Camera a few days early thanks to the stock first, ask questions later policy at the local Toys R Us. After a weekend spent playing Uno under the watchful gaze of complete strangers (at the expense of this blog I'm afraid), I can report that the camera is a worthy purchase based on that cool watery dashboard effect alone. Webcams have been around forever, but it still feels strange to have to check your boxers for complete scrotal coverage while playing a console. Just pray the guy on the other side does the same. I talked to a couple girl gamers who had already witnessed Uno hands that devolved into a sordid game-within-a-game of "show me yours, I'll show you mine" to the shrieking glee of the zit-faced participants (and presumably, the horror of the ESRB). Wild Cards never had so much economic clout. Expect this type of seedy peep show bartering to take off as the Vision makes its way into more sweaty palms this week. It will probably take a couple months before the novelty of pimping out your girlfriend for color changes wears off, or at least settles to a tolerable level. In the mean time, YouTube should prepare for a flood of poorly lit softcore with the same soundtrack.
Paris Hilton as an E3 booth babe
The press release arrived with a subject line that screamed, "DON'T MISS THIS E3 CELEBRITY APPEARANCE." A split second away from hitting the delete hotkey, I paused when I noticed that Paris Hilton was the celeb who'd be making an appearance. But this will be no typical Paris Hilton gaming appearance. This time, Ms. Hilton will be working the chubby hordes who visit the West Hall to snag her signature and maybe check out the game that will bear her name, Paris Hilton's Jewelry Case. (No joke.) Paris will be hanging out (and we do mean hanging out) at the Gameloft booth (#2200) on Thursday for two hours. We wonder if she'll have to abide by the new E3 booth babe rules, which state: "Material, including live models, conduct that is sexually explicit and/or sexually provocative, including but not limited to nudity, partial nudity and bathing suit bottoms, are prohibited on the Show floor, all common areas, and at any access points to the Show." Break the ESA's rules at your own risk, Paris. No sexual provocation, or we'll have you bounced. Be a good girl, got it?
Verizon and Cingular go censor crazy with mobile content
You might want to look elsewhere if you were hoping that snazzy new 3G handset of yours with a large screen was going to be conveying any spicy content, or really much of anything some suit might label "controversial." Turns out Verizon and Cingular are really putting the FCC to shame in their clampdown of vulgarities and what not in mobile content. Cingular, for example, has banned the words "lesbian," "condom," "pee pee," (that was getting out of hand, but what about "Wii Wii"?), and all Mature and Adult gaming content. Teen-rated content doesn't even get a free pass, so developers will have to really watch it if they want to be promoted to the largest mobile subscriber base in the country. Verizon is similarly conservative, even though they have taken to some risque advertising methods, featuring the sexy Joanna Dark (pictured at right, censors courtesy of our friends at Joystiq). But they'll have none of it from content providers. Along with the standard sex and vulgarity bans, they don't allow the "glorification or promotion of tobacco, alcohol or drug use," and ban derogatory references to Verizon, Verizon Wireless, or Vodafone. We'd better stop talking about this before we get banned as well.[Via Joystiq]
Eidos cools coffee, de-nipples Tomb Raider
The left half of the above pic is a nipple-licious stripper skin from the European PC version of Tomb Raider: Legend that Xboxic (post not entirely safe from work) speculates might be responsible for possibly delaying the April 11 U.S. release of the game. The right half is the same skin after applying an areola-erasing patch. Eidos denies that the U.S game has been delayed, but our fellow bloggers have provided pretty solid proof that Legend was indeed smuggling raisins overseas. Is Eidos performing a last minute emergency nipplectomy on the U.S. PC and 360 versions to spare American kids the horror of seeing something they used to suck on everyday—narrowly avoiding the next Hot Coffee scandal? Will Senator Cankles and her Fundie bedfellows be able to sleep at night knowing they missed an opportunity to further demagogue games as pixelated pornography? Only Lara knows for sure, and she's keeping her shirt on.(I swear this is the last breast-related post for a while.)
