ESRB Description Histrionics
Along with their usual ratings, ESRB publishes extensive descriptions to warn parents against specific content in a game. When spoken aloud, these lurid details often lead to unintentional hilarity.
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Parents and consumers should know that the game contains a fair amount of "cheesy," and at times, creepy voyeurism—especially when users have complete rotate-pan-zoom control; but the game also contains bizarre, misguided notions of what women really want (if given two weeks, paid vacation, island resort)—Paradise cannot mean straddling felled tree trunks in dental-floss thongs.
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If multiple words are entered in a sequence, different whimsical scenarios can be triggered: a bicycle can be used to jump over a baby; a bulldozer can clear away a shark; and cabbage can be fed to dinosaurs.These types of items can be used to destroy objects or even other summoned items (e.g., a club can be used to hit an animal; steak can be attached to a baby to attract lions; rockets can be lobbed at a man).
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By adding adjectives, players can also modify these nouns to create different word combinations, triggering innumerable whimsical scenarios such as: a "flaming snowman" that can set a Christmas tree on fire; a "homicidal house" that can attack a man; and a "carnivorous bike" that can eat a corpse. Players can also elect to summon "cartoony" versions of bats, bombs, guns, and flamethrowers. These types of items can be used to destroy objects or even other summoned items (e.g., a bat can be used to club a skydiver; guns can be fired at smelly zombies; a knife can be given to a murderous computer to attack a merman). If players wish to, they may type in the word <i>vomit</i>, which causes a beige-colored lump to appear on the screen.
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During the course of the game, players will encounter male and female prostitutes: the screen fades to black as suggestive dialogue is heard in the background (e.g., "Nice charlies, too! Give them a shake for the Ben-man, will ya?"); there is also an extended sequence suggesting (no depiction) sexual activity with a robot (e.g., "Fisto reporting for duty . . . Please assume the position," "I suppose I should test you out . . . Servos active!" and "Something wrong with someone if they got to f**k a machine.").
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A couple of missions within this level require players to recover sex toys and pictures of topless women. A few sequences strongly imply sexual acts: two women appear to perform fellatio on the central character (e.g., raising their heads from his lap)—though there is no actual depiction of the sex act; Duke moans and leans up against the wall of a bathroom stall (furnished with a hole)—it is implied that a sex act (not depicted) occurs. The game also contains several sexual references and innuendo in the dialogue (e.g., 'I have hungry—you have big egg ro' for me, Duke,' 'If you supply the dancing, I'll supply the pole,' and 'I'll need something naughty to play with.'). Duke's comments range from jokes about colon cleansing to several one-liners about sex and female body parts. Bathroom humor includes the ability to urinate in toilets or urinals and/or pick up feces from toilets and throw it against walls. Players can use both steroid pills and beer as power-ups; when beer is consumed, the screen temporarily blurs. The words 'f**k,' 'sh*t,' 'c*ck,' and 'a*shole' appear in dialogue and on-screen text.
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While the litany of somewhat "gruesome" depictions attests to the Mature rating, the over-the-top onslaught is, in some ways, <i>mitigated</i> by the exaggerated menacing evil (camp?) of the drone-like zombie horde; the genre homage (horror, zombies, . . . <i>cricket paddle</i>) is palpable.
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A handful of female demons wear outfits that completely expose their breasts (though these demons have no nipples); other monsters have phallic-shaped heads and torsos; and a couple of monsters (e.g., "Succubus" and "Incubus") have sexual characteristics that are detailed in text (e.g., "They visit sleeping men and have sexual intercourse with them" and "It ravishes women while they sleep, impregnating them.").
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Some of the female fighters' outfits are form-fitting and accentuate their breasts and buttocks; before battle, the camera occasionally zooms-out from close-up views of flexed gluteus.
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The dialogue sometimes references suggestive material (e.g., 'Ya got any naked pictures of your mom? Want some?'). Language such as 'a*s, 'hell,' and 'b*e-yotch' appear in dialogue.
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During one sequence, a distraught demon-like creature seizes Dante's right hand and slowly guides it across her bare chest; during another, "shade minions" in high heels moan lustfully—in the Lust level—as tentacles protrude from their stomachs, their lower regions. As for the nudity: a tapestry-style (hand-drawn) image of a topless woman embracing a man; the same art-style depicting a slave woman—breasts exposed—lying on the floor with the guilt-ridden; a naked woman on a stone slab levitating in the air (only her breasts are fully defined); the aforementioned topless Cleopatra; and a bluish devil/demon in boss-battle mode—its penis visible during the flying and fire-spewing, the standing around (there are equivalent physics applied to female/male body parts).
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Dialogue also contains strong profanity (e.g., "motherf*cker," "sh*t," and "d*cksucker"). In one cutscene, a nurse wipes her mouth as she rises from a kneeling position in front of a man's lap. No sexual activity is depicted, but it can be inferred that she performed fellatio on the man.
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Some male and female characters are depicted in revealing outfits, and dialogue contains numerous suggestive references; for example, "It's full to bursting with man juice," "let me wipe you down. C'mere big boy," "I'm gonna hold my best bro's hand, and we're gonna cuddle up all close, 'til our eyelashes touch," and "Get you're a*s off my neck! Stop rubbing!" In one sequence, players battle a pair of bosses connected in the following manner: the man in front is positioned like a dog while the man in back is cradling the squatting man's knees, his face submerged under the man's crotch.
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The dialogue contains numerous jokes and comments that reference sexual acts, venereal diseases, and having sex with one's mother (e.g., 'Guess I know where the ol' gal got that limp.').
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Throughout the game, sex and sexuality are frequently referenced, sometimes while two characters are in bed together (e.g., “I finally became a man! Got rid of my V-card, BOOM,” “If the one you loved confessed to a sexual habit that you found absolutely unacceptable, what would you do?” and “After all you've done to my body . . . Night after night . . .”). One bedroom sequence pans across a man's legs, then to his curling toes; another scene briefly depicts a woman caressing her body while making suggestive comments (e.g., “I've got such a hunger for these feelings . . . I know you have some hungers as well, don't you?” ).
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Some mini-games depict slapstick violence: players hitting flies to keep them away from a sleeping baby, babies throwing toy trucks, stuffed animals, and milk bottles at players, a dog sneaking behind Mama and nudging her over.
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