Gaming’s most horrifying sex scenes

Grand Theft Auto IV

They’re nowhere near as infamous as Hot Coffee, but GTA IV does have its own sex scenes – and while they look a damn sight prettier than CJ’s gaping maw back there, they’re arguably even more depressing.

Above: If a jacket clipping through my face is wrong, then… I guess I don’t really want to be wrong

If you’ve played the game, you probably already know the drill: honk your horn at any of the game’s misshapen prostitutes, and they’ll get in your car and offer you three paid services once you’ve pulled into a dark alley. The motions involved in said services are actually fairly realistic, but they also look like a bizarre pantomime, as the fully clothed hooker pretends to go to town on Niko Bellic’s imaginary dong. The effect is even weirder if you manage to tear off your vehicle’s driver-side door beforehand, as we demonstrate here:

About as sexy as:

BMX XXX

In addition to being just kind of an awful game, one of BMX XXX’s chief failings was that it couldn’t quite decide if it actually wanted to be sexy, or just kind of raunchy and crude. It opted for the latter in most cases, throwing players into depressing, shit-smeared landscapes filled with lame boner jokes, whiny stereotypes and at least one dog whose defining trait was shitting everywhere.

Not pictured: Shit  

This is where we give the game’s designers some credit, because as excruciating as the solution for dealing with the poop-dog was, it was at least imaginative: you had to pick up a pink poodle from a pimp, then get it horny by doing stunts as it clung to the back of your bike (as you do). Then, and only then, could you deposit it by the shitting stray and watch what we hope is the only time a game developer ever had to waste an afternoon animating two dogs humping.

About as sexy as:

Fallout: New Vegas

Shortly after you reach Freeside, the collection of ruins huddled outside of New Vegas’s gates, you’ll run into the Garrets, a pair of somewhat sleazy casino owners who – in the Wang Dang Atomic Tango mission – want you to recruit some new talent for their depressingly gray bordello. On the list of desired candidates is a sexbot, which you can trick out with a contraband lovemaking program.

If at this point you’re thinking the sexbot will look even vaguely human, you’re about to be disappointed.

Above: SEXY SEXY SEXY 

Instead, the only robot you’ll find available for reprogramming is the Fully Integrated Security Technotronic Officer (“Fisto”), a Protectron robot who looks exactly like every other bulky, imposing, 1950s-inspired Protectron in the game. However, there’s no reason you should let that intimidate you away from “trying him out.” Except that if you do, it’ll go down like this:

Yes, it’s intentionally horrifying, because it’s funnier that way. But still: eesh.

About as sexy as:

Manhunt 2

Manhunt 2 has its share of eerily sexualized locales, murders and incidental background stuff, but there’s only one that could be described as a full-on sex scene: the one that’s projected onto a movie screen at a (mostly) empty theater. But it’s got everything we’ve come to expect from in-game depictions of sex – underwear-clad characters, horrible facial expressions and absolutely no titillation value whatsoever.

Even ignoring the head-splattering gunfight that erupts while the loop plays endlessly in the background, the “porn” is calculated to make the viewer uneasy; the colors are washed out, the camera refuses to hold steady, there’s a grain filter over the screen and even the PS2-rendered actors seem disinterested in what they’re doing. And while we understand it’s just meant to be background filler, it’s so objectively dull that it makes Tommy Wiseau’s love scenes seem competent by comparison. Here, watch!

About as sexy as:

Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit

While they were cut from the US version of the game, Indigo Prophecy – again by sex-positive developer Quantic Dream – featured not one but two sex scenes, each near the beginning or end of the game. The first one isn’t tremendously appealing, but because it concerns main character Lucas boning his recent ex-girlfriend, it’s at least organic to the plot and characters (and kind of mundane, even if QD saw fit to make it into an all-nude minigame).

Above: This, on the other hand…

However, there’s nothing at all organic about the latter half of Indigo Prophecy’s plot, which goes off the rails as a zombified Lucas starts engaging in Dragonball Z-style fights with witch doctors and shit. Then, as a second ice age begins, he and a detective (who only recently thought Lucas was a murderer) just sort of arbitrarily decide they’re made for each other, leading to the first-ever instance of a police officer having sex with a corpse in a videogame while reciting terrible dialogue.

About as sexy as:

Next page: Horrible robotic mannequins and fish!