First mainstream news media has a field day with big, bad virtual worlds–and now it seems television is having a go, too. Television, I loved you so. Why must you forsake me? You regained my trust by wearing through layers of crusty alternative cynicism with such excellent programming as Lost, Dexter, and The Office. Now you take Law & Order Special Victim’s Unit, my favorite guilty TV pleasure (whether they’ll admit it or not, everyone loves CSI ’cause it’s sexy in all the wrong ways), and make an episode called “Avatars”? Crime and virtual worlds… You can imagine how it goes. I’ll admit, I haven’t watched it. I hear it’s just too painful. And now apparently there’s some imminent discussion of Second Life in The Office. Okay, that’s not as bad, but why can’t TV leave well enough alone? As much as I cringe to say it, I’m sure there’s more where this is coming from…

P.S. On a largely unrelated note, Scott and I have a weekly travel blog we’ve been keeping up to let family and friends back in the States know we’re still alive here in the land of squishy cheese. If you’re interested in our real-life French-y escapades, feel free to check it out!

Update: Apparently now CSI: Miami is doing a Second Life-esque episode.  Why?  Why!?!

And yet another sex game turns out to be totally unsexy…

Last year at the Sex & Video Games Conference in San Fran, one of the big names that kept floating around was Redlight Center. Along with a bunch of other titles (which has since flopped or never got made) Redlight Center was heralded as an innovative MMO dedicated entirely to sex–a sort of distilled, high-efficiency, misguided Second Life, if you will.

A year and change later, Redlight Center is indeed up and running. Unfortunately, as expected, it’s not getting rave reviews. First of all, there’s the $20 a month subscription fee. Second, there’s the fact that the place is underpopulated and crude. Oh, and apparently the dancing is more hilarious than tantalizing. Leigh Alexander wrote an Aberrant Gamer column all about the unsexiness (from whence the above picture is most definitely stolen). She can tell you first hand. The boys: skeevy or dorky. The social skills: seriously lacking.

In my opinion, the problem is Redlight Center’s unwillingness to go all the way. Maybe I’m being all theoretical and idealistic–but if you want a game about sex, make a game about sex. Heck, it could even work in random matches. Bunnygrl19 could get pit against Makehercum2001. One, two, three, go! Whoever makes the other come first wins? I don’t know. At least it would be interesting… Or, if you want social interaction, go to Second Life where the nudity (and the creeps, and the dorks, and occasionally the good cyberers) are free.

I suppose I’ll have to check Redlight Center myself soon enough. In the meantime, I’ll be bracing myself. At least dancing with polygonal dorks will make me feel better about my simplistic skills at real-life hip wiggling…

Apparently Burger King has a new promotion going with Viva Pinata. Buy a kids meal, get a colorful, game-related hunk of plastic. Not a new idea, or even a bad one, though other blogs sound pretty down on it. Maybe it’s because the last thing video games need is to be associated with low brow, fast food, throw-away culture–or just because these particular toys look pretty darn cheap. Either way, I’m the sucker who’s actually excited. I mean, look at that crocodile (I’m sorry, Cocoadile). Creepy, adorable, and so collectible! If I weren’t living in a country where the closest thing to Burger King was 17,000 “McDo’s,” I would totally be in line with the rest of the greasy children, keeping my fingers crossed I didn’t get Goobaa. He’s scary–and I mean that in the bad way.  Still: ooh, the colors!

Well, do they?

My fiancé asked me that question the other day, after reading my “Adventures in Hentai Games” posts. He had that sexy twinkle in his eye, and I hate to disappoint, so instead of giving my standard “It’s for research” line I decided to stop and think.

It’s true that I’ve enjoyed my recent experiences playing h-games (short and few as they’ve been, admittedly), and maybe even more than I expected. It’s also true that they are, well, about sex. And when you watch/do anything concerning graphic sex for a few solid hours, it’s hard not to find yourself a little hot and bothered.

Still, I can’t say that–for me, at least–h-games serve their primary purpose as pornography. That is, I can’t see getting off on them. I think they’re fun, fascinating even… but I don’t know how well they’d function as masturbation material. Maybe, as with live-action porn, they’re more sexy when they’re clandestine–when you sneak them onto your computer and play them late at night while your family is sleeping.

As for me, I live with my fiancé, not my family, and I play my h-games in the middle of the day. Alas, perhaps I’ve ruined the magic. But I’m still free to enjoy the sexy (if less sexual) pleasures of an art critic and cultural observer. I may never fantasize about two beautiful men making out, for example–but thinking about it sure gets me intellectually hot.

So the real question is: Am I a sex dork? Yes, yes I am.

I should have known I’d be a hentai fan. My strange thing for Asuka suddenly makes so much more sense.

It’s with a twinge of sexy regret that this newly discovered h-game fangirl has to leave behind the last two games in her J-list.com goody bag: Brave Soul and Absolute Obedience. I do hope to play them when I get home from France, a million months from now (okay, like seven). In the meantime, I can pine over animated body parts loved and lost.

Brave Soul is a bishoujo game turned RPG. Instead of powering up, earn “love points” to use with your female companions. Gotta give ‘em credit for genre-swapping on that one. Absolute Obedience is actually the game I was more psyched to play. Not only is it BDSM-y, but it’s also a yaoi game–so it’s all men, all pretty, all the time. It’s also sex/gender enthusiast gold.

Has anyone out there in the Heroine Sheik readership played either of these two games? Tell me the truth. I promise not to be too jealous…

P.S. Am I the only one who sees a magic eye penis in the lower right hand corner of that Absolute Obedience still?  I’d say it shows where my mind is, but in a yaoi game, where else could it be?

“Ooh, you’re so lecherous!”

“Yes, I am, and it’s all your dick’s fault.”

I’m a sucker for good writing. That means bad writing is normally my number one turn-off. So when I started playing the second title in my h-game pile, The Sagara Family, I couldn’t help but see visions of all the un-sexiness that was certain to come. Unlike A Drug That Makes You Dream, The Sagara Family isn’t trying to be high art, and the quality of writing–or at least of English translation–sure reflects that. The awkward language in this h-game takes an already awkward genre and infuses it with, well, even more awkwardness.

Maybe that’s fitting though, since–like A Drug That Makes You Dream–The Sagara Family is about an inexperienced teenage male who suddenly finds himself surrounded by a plethora of well-endowed women (i.e. potential make-out partners). This particular virgin, however, is living with a host family while he’s away at university. Surprise surprise, the entire family is female. There are numerous hot sisters–and, of course, their hot mother. All of whom, it seems, are secretly in desperate need of a little male attention.

But despite the laughable writing and even the totally porno plot, I actually found I enjoyed this second title a lot more than the first. It moved faster: within the first few minute of play I was rewarded with a peak at one of my housemates naked in the bathroom. Granted, things got silly. I mean, I’m supposed to be an awkward college kid, and suddenly everyone is dying for me to jump them? Still, I really felt like my few decisions (”Listen to her? Laugh at her? Yell at her?”) really made a difference in which buxomly beauty I ended up in bed with most often. I was having fun.

Instead of turning the game of in frustration like before, I actually finished it–without even noticing how long I’d been playing. Plus, I really dug my ending. Sorry for any spoilers, but… Well, it turns out one of the more demure women in the family is really wild in bed. Together, we seduce her red-headed sister (yes, admittedly, that’s a weak spot of mine) and end up in a sexy three-way. The story comes to a close in the schoolyard the next day. While my two playmates are talking with friends, I somehow slip vibrators into their underwear. They in turn explain that our three-way romp has evolved into a three-way relationship. Of course, since I’m magically turning up their vibrators as they speak, they explain this with a smile.

Does any of this make logical sense? Not really. But the reason it’s fun is because it’s sort of like a porn fairytale (”and there were six maidens, all quite lovely and supple, who lived in one house…”)–and that was definitely a porn happy ending. In fact, if my PC weren’t stuck State-side, I would even go back and play again. Other sexy endings? Gotta catch ‘em all!

It seems the message is hentai games–heck, probably all sex-related games–might have to be playful to also be sexy. Not so surprising, considering that we’re playing them. Then that makes us wonder whether playing in general isn’t sexy. Of course, we already know how sexy video games are…