In our first episode of Sexy Time!, Conrad took a moment to explore the memorable flickr-in-your-pants moments that Fear Effect 2 had to offer. When he asked me to help him in getting this series off the ground, I found while there are many memorable erotic moments in modern videogames, my mind immediately wandered to those which had the strongest impact on me: the first ones I saw as a gamer.
While anyone who listens to RetroforceGo! knows that the first time I came face-to-face with sexual content in a game was playing Leather Goddesses of Phobos on my uncle's Commodore 64, the game I chose for today's article came along just a little later (and don't worry, I'll examine Leather Goddesses in a future installment!). That game is Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, and you can find out why it turned my eleven year old eyes into saucers by following me past the jump.
As a kid I used to walk two blocks every other day to a game store that happened to be on the corner of my street called Performance Hobby. They sold models of airplanes and tanks and such, but noticing the popularity of the recently launched Nintendo Entertainment System, they decided to rent games as well. I'll never forget walking down there with a five dollar bill, carefully picking out my two games and walking back to my house with the green plastic rental boxes in my slightly shaky hands. Those were incredible days.
I had no idea what I was about to witness when I made that walk with Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, but I was captivated by the game from the moment I turned it on. The moody atmosphere and mysterious story were completely different from anything else I had ever played on the NES, and I completely lost myself in the experience.
When Duke Togo went with his first female informant to a hotel room, you would assume I would have known what was coming, but being eleven years old, I had no idea. I did however experience a feeling I had never had before as the game pulled to a long shot of the hotel with Duke's room illuminated and I watched the woman kiss him, then the lights wink out. I remember feeling kind of stunned as I sat there with the controller in my hands. The game moved forward to the next day, and my health had been completely restored. Wait...what?
I had experienced my first real mature moment in a videogame. While what happened was absolutely tame by today's standards, reflecting back on it I feel like it was more provocative than many of the more graphic things that came years after it (not to mention it's the same formula that God of War famously used much later down the line). Even though as an awkward kid I didn't know exactly what had happened, I could IMAGINE what had happened, and it stuck in my consciousness like a tiny grain of sand, always reminding me that the future could hold a kind of gaming experience that I couldn't even imagine yet. Also, I had gazed into a moment of my own sexual discovery, no matter how brief.
Also, I might not have realized what I had seen, but I did know that Duke Togo was a badass. For instance, look at his emotions in a wide variety of scenerios:
Duke is happy
Duke is furious
Duke is turned on
As you can see, the man has one all-purpose expression for everything. Years later, watching Duke seduce a lovely lady and proceed to ram the hell out of her without once losing his impassive expression (or lack thereof) never failed to make me laugh and remember way back when I saw him do it for the first time. If only I could have grasped at the time what an epic pimp I had made the acquaintance of!
i've never played this series or even read or watched it, but it's nice that we can have these types of articles without Dtoid being so scared of the response from us. Hopefully I'll know more about next week's game.
Aweseome stuff. I went and picked up a Sonny Chiba boxed set that included the live action Golgo 13 film; goddam if Sonny isn't a total badass in that film.
Also, back on topic, it would have been funnier if his energy had steadily gone up in chunks, only to suddenly drop to almost nothing and then steadily return to 100%. In fact, depending on how good he is, this could happen several times in the cut-scene. ;)
@Colette Bennett: Sorry I just think it's pretty sad Destructoid has resorted to using smut in their image headers to get page views. And mostly smut involving women, next to no men. Maybe I wouldn't have a problem if most of the comments here wouldn't say "EWW THAT'S GROSS. SO GHEY." if that were a naked dude.
Maybe next time just post an image of a woman spreading her labia in different timezones and shoving a big black dildo up her ass. That would be really "beautiful", right? Give me a fuckin' break.
@ErigBurget: Boring troll is boring. I thought it was rather fitting that a story of gaming titillation was accompanied by a titillating image. You attempting to escalate that into something it's not shows less class than the example you gave.
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006