The player

Videogames can be explicit, but can they ever be sexy, asks JOE GRIFFIN

IN RECENT times there has been plenty of discussion about whether or not videogames can be considered art. An even more divisive question is: can games be sexy? After all, if other art forms (cinema, music, literature) can be sexy, then why not games?

One answer lies in “uncanny valley”, a robotics theory that proposes that if something artificial resembles humanity too closely, it prompts revulsion. It probably explains why some mannequins have cartoonish faces or no heads, while others have no face at all.

It was described quite elegantly in the sitcom 30 Rock. When one character suggests combining pornography and video games, a colleague explains that the graphics will never look right: R2D2 and C3PO in Star Warsare cute, but the computer-generated humans in films like The Polar Expressare creepy.

Awareness of this concept among animators might explain why sexpot cartoon characters such as Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit have been hand-drawn instead of digitally rendered.

Uncanny valley is common knowledge to game programmers, but that hasn’t deterred them from trying to make games sexy. Instead of using, say, a teasing silhouette, they lean more towards explicit, anatomically ambitious rendering.

While the female shower scene in Heavy Rainwas certainly talked about, it was unsexy. The graphics were fabulous and the actress playing the character was Jacqui Ainsley, a lingerie model. But the rendering looked too flawless, too sterile, like a computer's impression of femininity. A sex scene in the game (in which the player has to unhook a character's bra) is more tender than sexy. So it might be easier to make video game characters emotive than erotic.

In other games, sex and nudity are played for cheap thrills. Though it's a deservedly acclaimed game, God of War IIIplays like an exploitation movie. The tryst between Kratos and Aphrodite is comedic and goofy. Similarly, the sombre, man's-gotta-do western Red Dead Redemptionslips into juvenile giggling for its sex scene, consisting of bouncing bits and Latina shrieking. And you might want to give a wide berth to the dull-eyed mud-wrestlers in the Dead or Aliveseries.

Game developers don’t seem interested in developing sophisticated, sexy material. It seems we’ll a long time waiting for a game developer who takes their cues from Bernardo Bertolucci or DH Lawrence.