Traumatic mammary

[Warning: NSFW, even if censored, images following.]

"At the beginning of the 22nd Century, an anomaly began occurring in the bodies of women," so goes the tale of Boob Wars. "All the women of the world became either E Cups and up or A cups and under. 'Big Breasts' and 'Flat Chests' ... Due to their division into these two groups, the debate over which was superior began. 

"After the first incident of armed conflict, known as the 'Nyuuhen Tragedy,' the entire world was split between the Big Breasts Tribe and the Flat Chests Tribe and an intense conflict ensued."

I have seen the conclusion of this story by playing Boob Wars: Big Breasts vs. Flat Chests. My reward? An overwhelming, intense feeling of self-loathing. I think I hate myself entirely, and I owe it all to the fine people at Manga Gamer.

Boob Wars: Big Breasts vs. Flat Chests (PC)
Developer: Softhouse Seal
Publisher: Manga Gamer
Released: October 19, 2012 (Digital), February 2013 (Boxed)
MSRP: $24.95
Rig: Intel i7-2600k @3.40 GHz, with 8GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 580 GPU (SLI)

Boob Wars puts you in the role of an Erorist -- a man paid to teach women about pleasure by having sex with them whether they want to have sex or not. Our "hero" is charged with the task of reuniting the titular tribes who constantly war over which breast size is superior -- however, this being such a socially progressive game, the protagonist aims to spread the word that breast size doesn't matter, promoting peace and tolerance instead of enmity.

Because this a socially progressive game. 

The objective is to force sex on as many women as possible until they like it. The main message of the game seems to be that women secretly enjoy any and all sex from any and all men, so you might as well just make them do it and wait patiently for their gratitude when you're finished. So like I said, it's socially progressive and has an important moral message at its narrative core. Chapters involve beating women in combat until they're too weak to fight back, then having your way with them. If that sounds monstrous, just remember -- the women want it. No matter how much they beg our heroic hero to stop, the story consistently reinforces the idea that they definitely want it, as much to convince itself as the player. 

Holding itself to fairly loose standards in terming itself a game, Boob Wars gives players a modicum of choice in influencing how the story goes, letting them conquer one or both tribes, and selecting which characters to rape -- sorry, seduce -- first. Once a decision is made, some narrative plays out, detailing the player's ambush of whatever victim -- sorry, opponent -- was chosen. What follows is a card battle, though again, Boob Wars plays fast and loose with terminology in a bid to just scrape by the genre's requirements. 

Players and enemies are dealt a hand of seven cards, each with random numbers on them, and can choose to play up to three cards per phase. The protagonist and his opponent take turns alternating between attack and defense, aiming to play cards of high value. Basically, if it's your turn to attack and you played three cards valued at five points each, while the enemy plays three cards valued at two, you'll deal damage to the enemy's hit points. The greater the difference between the two scores, the more damage is dealt.

That's really all there is to it. On Normal difficulties, it doesn't take long until the cards are whittled down to two per combatant (two new cards are drawn per turn) and battle consists of simply playing all available cards while leaving it up to chance. Variable cards that let you reshuffle or play more cards pop up occasionally, but battles are otherwise a brainless and tactic-free affair. 

Once our intrepid Erorist beats his opponent, a sex scene will play out, complete with lurid descriptions of how he sticks his "sexy kebab" in her "honey pot." The text overlays some fairly simple drawings of the action, with a very rare bit of animation now and then. The usual routine is that the women will be frightened and confused as they try to fight the intense pleasure being violated by a stranger gives them, before eventually surrendering themselves. At the end, you get to choose whether or not ejaculate on her body or deposit the semen directly into her womb, because Boob Wars wants to make sure you're complicit in this behavior. 

That's more or less it. Beyond that is a more subtle metagame played directly between yourself and the developers -- how long can you play before you truly, utterly despise everything that you've become? I hit that level within the first twenty minutes, which doesn't sound impressive until you remember it's a very short game and does a lot with its brief gameplay to really make you feel that if there is a God in this cold and merciless universe, he did something awful in putting you among decent people.

Translated by scribes who clearly used a thesaurus without the requisite understanding of chosen words (Unless they really thought the use of "stinky" in a blowjob scene was erotic), and featuring drawings you could find cheaper and better equivalents of with a quick Google Image Search, Boob Wars: Big Breasts vs. Flat Chests is a game you play not to get off, or even to laugh, but to question whether or not your parents wasted everybody's time in conceiving, giving birth to, and educating you.

Of course, the question remains is this -- it's an H-game, what on Earth was I expecting? I don't know. I don't know why I do any of the things I do, but deciding to review games like Boob Wars certainly makes me have a really good think about my life and forces me to resolve to be a better person. I only did it because readers asked for it, but that excuse will never be enough to cover the stain on my conscience.

While not the most overt, violent, disgusting, or graphic H-game available, there's nonetheless an inherent layer of unsettling sleaze to the whole thing, a subtly nasty edge to the way it tries to convince the player that women just walk around wanting it all the time, and you're a bad person if you don't give it to them the moment there's nobody around to see you. In this game, you're not supposed to do what you do out of sadism, or dark humor, but out of a sense of heartfelt nobility -- the end game is peace, and tolerance, and everybody agreeing that unbidden penetration is beautiful. That, somehow, manages to be a worse reason than any. 

Even playing devil's advocate and writing this from the perspective of somebody who might be into these games, Boob Wars isn't good. By the standards of those who want to masturbate themselves silly over violent cartoon sex, we're looking at something sub-par, lifeless, and cynical. To offend a regular bypasser is one thing, but this feels offensive to even the target audience.

Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe this truly is the game fans have been waiting for. I don't claim to speak for them, and nor would I, but all I can say is, if you want to get off with cartoons, there's much better out there. I can give you the links later. You really don't need to waste your time with this brainless, gormless, depressing little exercise in grisly misery. 

All that said ... the soundtrack's pretty good.