The Wild West — as many of us imagine it, anyway — was not a friendly place. You’ve seen Westworld, right? Even if you took out the robots, it’d still be a crazy place. So, who better than Rockstar Games to tell it like it is? The ESRB rating for the game reminds us of this with a summary of the naughty bits:
“Players roam Wild West environments and perform various missions for criminal figures and law enforcement: destroying bridges, helping individuals in distress, delivering packages of drugs (e.g., opium), capturing outlaws, and eliminating rival figures.”
“Players have the ability to shoot pedestrians in the game; however, a ‘Wanted Level’-penalty system discourages these acts by triggering a law enforcement response. The game contains a scene in which two characters have sex on a table; there is a brief instance of female nudity.”
Oh, and “One sequence depicts a man injecting himself with a syringe filled with cocaine.” Joseph Leray and I agree, opium deserves a glorious return to form in entertainment, but that’s just hardcore.
Red Dead Redemption [ESRB via MTV Multiplayer]