Hot Alien Rumpy

As an addition, this got to Fox News's ears and apparently they did a "SHOCK HORROR THINK OF THE CHILDREN GAMES ARE EVIL" segment which included a round table discussion composed of uninformed worriers and foaming mouthed Neo-cons. All well and good.

However,http://kotaku.com/348187/ea-calls-fox-out-on-insulting-mass-effect-inaccuracies

BioWare, who made Mass Effect, are now run by EA, an Industry giant. An industry giant who are singularly unimpressed that a major news channel have bad mouthed a signature game that cost a lot to make. They have publicly asked for an apology.

I'd have demanded.

EA are clearly getting in early for fear that this turns into a "Hot Coffee" and gets the rating ramped up to AO, and hence barred from 90% of all US retailers. If you remember the Hot Coffee Controversy in Grand Theft Auto: San-Andreas, there was a sex based mini-game (On the explicit-o-metre the footage of that I saw measured about 6, Compared with Mass Effect's 2 and Seven Sins 7) it was cut from the final release of the game but (As occurs quite often) the half made code to run the game still existed in the GTA:SA code, as it transpired, this code could be unlocked by a mod, most easily on the PC. This caused uproar as people found out that a game which you could murder with weapons ranging from guns to chainsaws, steal and extort, and which glamorised gangsta lifestyles, had sex in. Despite the fact that someone wanting to engage in aforementioned virtual bonking would have to install a mod in order to access these scenes, it instantly upped the rating to AO (Adults Only) and meant that many big retailers in the US wouldn't stock it, this lead to a major loss in share value for Rockstar (Makers of the GTA series) and forced them to re-issue the game with that code deleted in order to regain their M (Mature) rating. EA are clearly aware of this, and since Mass Effect is one of their Big products, and the culmination of Millions of dollars of both production and marketing, the last thing they want is for it to be pulled from shelves in a hand wringing campaign by overly-moralistic nutters and wildly uninformed parents.

This is good, it’s good that a big games company is actually willing to respond to these accusations and to try and represent gaming and gamers in a more positive light to the general public. Hopefully more companies will do this when the next ignorant nut-ball tries to start a "Gaming is EVIL" bandwagon.

On this subject, the "Hot Coffee" did show the very odd nature of what censorship considers obscene enough to get an Adults only rating. Murder, crime etc, that’s mature, but the first hint of sex and it becomes Adults only. Not only that but it wasn't GTA's traditional implied sex with ladies of the night, no this was girls you meet, woo by taking on dates and eventually, after effort, get to have sex with, but basically you can have levels of violence for an AO rating but not levels of sex. Now, as far as evils in the world go, random violence and crime are both well above consensual sex. But yet it’s about the only thing that means an automatic AO rating. I could understand if it was rape, or at least sexualised violence, but it isn't. Take 7 Sins, a game where you have to sin your way to the top, largely by cheating, stealing and sleeping with any and all things in your path (Sort of Season 1 Torchwood: the game)

Anyway, actual contents were cartoon violence, some letching and sort of simulated sex, sadly it chickened out on Nudity and showing actual sex. Regardless it was referred to advisory groups and is yet to be rated by the ESRB. Now while its UK 18 rating was borderline on content, an AO for that is just hung up about sex being in some way evil. AT most it should have been an M rating on the ESRB.SO, good for EA, but really, we should rate more on context and content and loose this hang-up about sex in games.

Then BioWare can make the game that McCullough described, that sounded ace.