Nov 24 2009
Dragon Age’s “Sex Scene,” if You Can Call It That
Many of you are familiar with my distaste for Dragon Age Origins which goes against the general consensus of the country who is proclaiming it to be the greatest RPG of the decade. One of my nitpicks was how hard it was to figure out the correct thing to say in conversation to get team members to like you, specifically ones you wanted to sleep with.
In the case of witch of the wilds Morrigan, you had to pretty much abandon all morals and make everyone else in your team hate you, and then finally, this scene happens. They’re calling it “sex” but it’s more like those body wash commercials where the couple just wrestle on the bed for the thirty seconds.
I find it funny that in a game that enemies spew blood, the main characters and constantly covered in blood, and even the map is drawn in blood, the moment it’s time for a little R-rated lovin’, everything’s suddenly PG-13. I’m not a weird hentai fan or anything like that, but it’s almost comical how scared game designers are of sex, as even the “brave” ones come up with ludicrous scenes like this.
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I made my main char a female in DAO.
Any word on a possible lesbo scene?
@illeaturfamily
http://trueslant.com/tassi/2009/11/24/dragon-age-origins-swings-both-ways/
@ paul tassi
good god man you’re right! thanks for putting that in the hot links!
you have quickly become my favorite blogger, especially for the xbox reviews on semi-mainstream to fully mainstream games.
i also enjoy how you arent a ridiculous fanboy who plays the japanese versions of games before they arrive stateside and such. those types really intimidate me. thank you for putting things in terms of the true mid-20’s aged common gamer, not the overly hardcore gamer or the silly casual gamer who thinks wii sports actually counts (or anything on the wii, really).
I concur. Towards the beginning of the game I went to the brothel and was quite dissapointed that it just cuts away to a dark screen a girl moans and that is it. No need for creepy hentai crap but if your gonna go all out then really go all out. I like the game. But like you I think it was rushed and missed out on some huge potential.
They never even made it into the tent.
Quite honestly I was surprised that it was even tamer (a real word?) than the sex scene at the end of Mass Effect. And the scene from Mass Effect was about as tame as you could get. It is truly amazing how parents and the like don’t really care about all the blood/gore, and yet freak when there is the natural process of “making babies.” Lame people, lame…
@illeaturfamily
Thanks a lot man, I appreciate it. I try to write from a position of relative neutrality aimed at other non-fanboys like myself. I think you can have an opinion without being firmly in a “camp” somewhere.
I wish I had the cash to do more game reviews, but the studios ain’t exactly sending me copies of stuff to review yet. Hopefully they will soon.
Re: “how hard it [is] to figure out the correct thing to say in coversation” You do realize that’s the point right?
@Erik
But it’s to the point where it doesn’t make any sense. How can I have a ten minute conversation with Morrigan about her past and life and family and have her come out the end of it hating me despite me saying nothing that would warrant that?
How am I supposed to know which dialogue options are potentially game-changing? LIke in the sense of, “shit, that was important? Now I have to reload from five hours ago or start an entirely new character to not do that again.”
I felt like the characters were pretty well defined personality wise and once you figure them out you can kind of judge what you need to say and how you need to react to keep them happy. The gift system helps to negate the negative effects that your incessant pursuit of one specific romance option.
In my second play through I decided to try for the Morrigan romance with a dwarf just because I thought it would be a funny ’sex’ scene and I was actually surprised at how east it was to get the tent invite from her. I managed to do it my first time in camp going through all of her dialogue options and replying as I thought she would like. Of course none of this matters to you since you’ve stopped playing so I’ll quit rambling now.
My question is where does the bra come from? I mean, she has some cloth draped around her shoulders covering up just enough, and then she takes it off and has a bar covering more than hat was visible before?
I agree with the rest of the posts, if you are going to add it, dont worry about the 13 year olds whose mommy wont let them play it, and if they are, then add a filter or something.
The major reason game developers are so skittish about graphic sex scenes is because they don’t want the dreaded AO rating from the ESRB. If a game is rated AO (a step up from Mature) then it cannot be sold in stores such as Walmart or Gamespot — major sources of revenue for most publishers/developers.
An M rating can have sexual content, but graphic sexual content/nudity gets a game bumped up to AO.
Here’s a link to the ESRB guide if you’re curious: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
I think the big problem is that the ESRB will allow ridiculous amounts of violence into an M rated game, but show any polygonal nudity, and you get slapped with an AO. It’s kind of a stupid double-standard that has never made sense to me. It’s OK to portray actions that would be wildly illegal in reality, but as soon as you try to portray a completely legal and natural action between two consenting parties, you have crossed the line.
The thing is, it’s not that most people are wanting to be turned on by naked video game characters, but it’s about immersion. It makes no sense in Dragon Age for a bra to suddenly show up on a character that was only wearing a cloth draped barely over her breasts. In-story, it actually means that in order to have sex, she took off the little clothing she had on, and then put on a bra and panties to get it on.
You can install the “Natural Bodies” mod to make the love scenes more realistic. You can download it from the official Dragon Age: Origins website, or from Dragonagenexus.com. In both cases you have to be registered with the site in order to verify age. Even then, the scenes are nothing worse than what you might see in a PG-13 rated movie.
@illeaturfamily
You sound like a fanboy of Paul Tassi.
@Paul Tassi
I can see why game developers aren’t sending you games to review. Your opinions seem personally biased rather than neutral and you neglect to take into account the whole picture rather than your own omg it is hard for me stance.
To prove my comment isn’t just to bash you personally but to show your complete inability to understand the depth of Dragon Age: Origins allow me to elaborate:
Your complaints here seem rather based on your own personal difficulty at understanding the characters of the game and how you couldn’t get the storybook ending you wanted on one play through. Dragon Age: Origins was not meant to be fully experienced on one play through, nor were the characters meant to be simple targets for you to sleep with. Just because you wanted to sleep with Morrigan doesn’t mean it should be easy. They made the prostitutes in the pearl for people looking for an easy polygonal sex scene. Morrigan is a deep character and comes to life in that she has a very specific view of things. One of the main themes in Dragon Age: Origins is sacrifice. To relate it to something you might be able to understand better allow me to quote Full Metal Alchemist: “To gain something of equal value must be lost.” This game shows that being the hero isn’t about a fairy tale ending or perfect person. Each choice you make to do good or do what you want causes you to sacrifice something else. You want to have a romantic relationship with Morrigan? You have to appeal to who Morrigan is. She is out for herself and to accomplish her own personal goals. That is who she is. Of course characters who are fighting the blight to save those they care for and are generally out to do the right thing will disagree with her views. As for a difficulty understanding the ‘right’ dialogue to pick perhaps you’re just socially retarded or incapable of cheating like other people have been doing in RPG’s since the beginning of time. Save before you talk go through the dialogue if it doesn’t end how you want, reload and try again. It isn’t that diffuclt and people have been doing it forever with RPG’s.
Or here is a thought, experience the RPG and play a character. Develope their own personality and make choices based on that. Watch how people react to you and your actions.
While it is true I do enjoy Dragon Age: Origins, I’m far from a fanboy. I’m not going to dress up like my character and go LARP. However I do recognize the fact it is a very well made game. The characters have depth and exist as more than just targets for your virtual sexual conquests. As for your comments about the intimate scenes that just exemplifies your lack of knowledge about how games are made. As has been pointed out, the reason they have to limit what they show in intimate scenes is based on our every day society that has no problem with blood and gore but the instant pixels combine to show nudity they are up at arms with their cries of Jesus loves you and we must protect our children from this sin!
In closing, if this post is any indication of what your other reviews are I can see why you’re not being sent games to review. You lack the scope and ability to see a well made game when it is right in front of your face. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion and you disliking the game isn’t what discredits you. It is the way you post as if you know what you’re talking about and as if your opinion is fact when it isn’t.
@ Truth:
Wow. Please don’t be offensive. The Paul acting as if his opinion as truth thing like you felt was probably just for the benefit of reader’s entertainment (throwing in a few curse words or so).
Speaking of depth, this may be true with the characters but the story is very 1980s oldschool cliche, which is not to bash it but I couldn’t find much of a bio for the main antagonist anywhere other than a mention of an archdemon possessing the body of a powerful dragon. This in fact sounds like the story of a PS1 game called Dark Stone, but it wasn’t overly interesting there either.
I agree that combat should be hardcore for anyone willing to be hardcore, but all of the complaints Ive read have been about the game’s interface and graphical and AI errors that really deter people who don’t go OCD on saving, thus the five hour restarts.
So reread the review and comments because personality may be there for entertainment but the actual complaints are about serious problems with difficulty pacing, interface, controls, and the party (on Xbox 360 version anyway) AI.
…..On this article’s topic, I think I would actually get a little better game experience if the sex was only alluded to. What I mean is instead of giving me a hours of meaningless dialogue to get virtually laid just let it fall into a natural part of the story as “yeah they probably did it” and nothing more because honestly bachelors and sometimes even married couples need to worry about getting laid in the real world without a game taking time away from these efforts.
Plus the only benefit these scenes have to the game is only apparent if you take time away from the game for a good jerk.
the game was 5 years in the making, so obviously new technology would come and go as DA:O was being made. if they wanted to keep up with the better graphics as it came out, they would have had to repeatedly switch engines…if they did that then we would never have gotten the game. i think it turned out as one of the best releases in a long time.
Paul, You my friend is pathetic, this games isnt made like the games that comes 2 minuttes into the game and you see a sex scene, this is meant to be an rpg game not a porn game, you dont see people going to the stores and buying this game for the “Porn” in it, they buy it to play an actual rpg thats have great graphical features, and those who cant play it at maximum graphics really miss out on something all the blood and gore, just what i wanted in this game.
they had full frontal nudity but removed it because of pressure from parents etc.