"No sex please, I'm Gaming!"

[Ikasury]

Snip

I kinda liked Kaidan, to be honest, granted that may be because of all that fluffy fanfic I most certainly do NOT read. A lot of fanfic turns him into a sexy badass. Or so I heard. From a friend. A distant one.

sure, sure... whatever you say~ :3

Other than that... meh, I think all the Mass Effect romances were kinda... bad. I feel like MShep's romances were also a lot more shallow, even if MShep had a greater oppurtunity to, uh... sow his oats. And that's saying something - I mean, FemShep's romances aren't exactly Jane Austen. But at least there was a liiiitle more depth than "See this hot chick? You get to bang her. Done."

hrm... i'll give you that... i played F!Shep but got to watch all the romances my friend was play with M!Shep... course it was her goal to get him to sleep with EVERYONE, possibly at once and neither of us knew why she was doing it... *shrugs* the M!Shep romance seems more like Zap Branigan or Kirk, just leader-guy sleeping with exotic chicks... so shallow, yes...

but better options... sigh~

its a funny dichotomy i suppose, F!Shep gets bland/terrible options, M!Shep is shallow... is this supposed to be a snarky examination of the difference in courting via the genders? while being terrible and watered-down it seems quite valid XD

 

[Amaror]

Hmm, I think you're exaggerating. On Roche's path, there's only Ves, but I declined out of loyalty to Triss. I agree that particular "romance" felt a little odd, but then, Roche's path is inferior in general.

I didn't find the sex scene with Ves particular odd. Ves isn't a very romantic person, she views sex as mostly the fun that it is. The reason she wanted to have sex with geralt is basically just that he's a Witcher.
I don't remember if this is explained in the games at all, but the reason Geralt is so successfull with women is that Witchers are infertil.
And in the middle ages were there aren't any ways of not risking getting pregnant from sex, that can be a pretty attractive quality to have. Not for romance, but just for sex.
It's one of the reasons i didn't had such a problem with the sex in The Wicher 1, but i aggree that it was a bit much and the card collection was just childish.

 

[K12]

I think that it's fundamentally a mistake to have multiple options of partners in a romantic side plot. Two could work but more than that and you're forced to make them really shallow add-ons.

I think the RPG "blank character" doesn't work in general when you have to have meaningful interactions with other characters and this is just a particularly glaring example of it.

 

[thefascistpig]

Peter Molyneux: Haven't played the Fable series so I don't know how it works in that game. Can anyone fill me in?

Based on Fable 1? Become suitably famous and start performing emotes (dance, make faces, show off) in front of people (gifts also work if you have a specific NPC you decide to court) until the hearts above their heads change color, at which point they're receptive to receiving a wedding ring. Buy a house and you can marry the NPC. Note: 99.9% of the NPCs you can romance are background characters so don't expect much characterization (and the singular exception only has characterization for the duration of her quest chain). After wedding them, repeat the process (sans wedding ring and house) in the bedroom of your home to bed them. Repeat as desired on both counts (you can have as many spouses as houses, one per town).

I likw fables "romance " becuase its funny as hell to witness hell try making a bi character who's cheating on both the husband and wife, its ridiculous to the point of hilarity

 

[Adventurer2626]

I like to keep my porn separate from from the rest of my entertainment. Gets kind of distracting.

 

[dyre]

Hmm, I think you're exaggerating. On Roche's path, there's only Ves, but I declined out of loyalty to Triss. I agree that particular "romance" felt a little odd, but then, Roche's path is inferior in general.

I didn't find the sex scene with Ves particular odd. Ves isn't a very romantic person, she views sex as mostly the fun that it is. The reason she wanted to have sex with geralt is basically just that he's a Witcher.
I don't remember if this is explained in the games at all, but the reason Geralt is so successfull with women is that Witchers are infertil.
And in the middle ages were there aren't any ways of not risking getting pregnant from sex, that can be a pretty attractive quality to have. Not for romance, but just for sex.
It's one of the reasons i didn't had such a problem with the sex in The Wicher 1, but i aggree that it was a bit much and the card collection was just childish.

They do mention that witchers can't have children a few times in the game. I wasn't going to bring it up but yeah, it seems to be part of the reason along with the fact that people don't run into magical monster hunters every day, so the exotic factor works in his favor. Plus he does have the advantage of being more physically attractive than most of the shit-ugly peasants and guards in the world, lol.

But even then, I don't know if I'm totally willing to buy that random women in Witcher 1 want to have sex with him almost immediately upon meeting him.

I don't fully remember Ves' sex scene; doesn't she ask to have sex right after you beat her (along with the entire squad of Blue Stripes) in a fistfight? I think that's what made it feel odd to me, the whole "you've defeated me, now let's have sex" thing. Otherwise though I felt that sex/romance was handled well in Witcher 2.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Peter Molyneux: Haven't played the Fable series so I don't know how it works in that game. Can anyone fill me in?
edit: I've been suitably informed. Thanks all!

I read the other responses and there was one thing I didn't see about Fable's system (though I probably just missed it).

Unlike Fables 2 and 3, you have to play a male protagonist in Fable 1. Once your notoriety rises to high enough levels, every NPC who wants to enter a relationship with you will grow hearts over their head (a nifty mental image) if you simply stand near them long enough. Some NPCs won't have hearts and you can never woo them. Seems fairly lifelike, eh?

In any case, what was so revolutionary about Fable 1 back in 2004 was that both men AND women would fall in love with your forcibly male hero, and you could choose to marry either sex. You can also have a spouse in every town. The game tracks in your stats whether you're straight, gay, or bi based on who you've married. It also tracks the number of times you've had sex with all of your partners. If you're afraid of commitment, The Lost Chapters version of Fable 1 (which is also the Anniversary edition) contains the Darkwood Bordello, where you can pay for a variety of booty ranging from an elderly woman to a German dominatrix.

You get to choose your hero's sex in Fables 2 and 3, and you could actually see each NPCs interests including what gifts they like, what regions they enjoy (for when you're dating them) and their sexual preference. While you could have carefree sex with your partner(s) of choice in Fable 1, you had to buy condoms to practice safe sex in the other two games or you might wind up with an STD. Even if you choose not to engage in polygamy, that doesn't mean your *ahem* "faithful" spouse won't give you an STD at some point. And obviously, lesbian relationships can never practice safe sex because... well... figure it out.

 

[dyre]

Peter Molyneux: Haven't played the Fable series so I don't know how it works in that game. Can anyone fill me in?
edit: I've been suitably informed. Thanks all!

I read the other responses and there was one thing I didn't see about Fable's system (though I probably just missed it).

Unlike Fables 2 and 3, you have to play a male protagonist in Fable 1. Once your notoriety rises to high enough levels, every NPC who wants to enter a relationship with you will grow hearts over their head (a nifty mental image) if you simply stand near them long enough. Some NPCs won't have hearts and you can never woo them. Seems fairly lifelike, eh?

In any case, what was so revolutionary about Fable 1 back in 2004 was that both men AND women would fall in love with your forcibly male hero, and you could choose to marry either sex. You can also have a spouse in every town. The game tracks in your stats whether you're straight, gay, or bi based on who you've married. It also tracks the number of times you've had sex with all of your partners. If you're afraid of commitment, The Lost Chapters version of Fable 1 (which is also the Anniversary edition) contains the Darkwood Bordello, where you can pay for a variety of booty ranging from an elderly woman to a German dominatrix.

You get to choose your hero's sex in Fables 2 and 3, and you could actually see each NPCs interests including what gifts they like, what regions they enjoy (for when you're dating them) and their sexual preference. While you could have carefree sex with your partner(s) of choice in Fable 1, you had to buy condoms to practice safe sex in the other two games or you might wind up with an STD. Even if you choose not to engage in polygamy, that doesn't mean your *ahem* "faithful" spouse won't give you an STD at some point. And obviously, lesbian relationships can never practice safe sex because... well... figure it out.

As amusing as that was to read, it all sounds like a bunch of completely useless features that don't add anything substantive to the game at all! But thank you for informing me nonetheless. All knowledge is useful, or so I keep telling myself

STDs?! I want a certain degree of immersion with my fantasy, but that's pushing it >_>

 

[nevarran]

As amusing as that was to read, it all sounds like a bunch of completely useless features that don't add anything substantive to the game at all! But thank you for informing me nonetheless. All knowledge is useful, or so I keep telling myself

STDs?! I want a certain degree of immersion with my fantasy, but that's pushing it >_>

The main point of the whole process, was to have kids actually. That was neat.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

As amusing as that was to read, it all sounds like a bunch of completely useless features that don't add anything substantive to the game at all! But thank you for informing me nonetheless. All knowledge is useful, or so I keep telling myself

STDs?! I want a certain degree of immersion with my fantasy, but that's pushing it >_>

All knowledge is useful! My stepdad has always said my brain is full of MUD: Miscellaneous Useless Data. He can make fun of it all he wants, but I kick his ass at Jeopardy every time.

You're right about Fable: its system doesn't offer much to the gameplay except that sometimes your spouse(s) can give you gifts. Those gifts can be pretty substantial too, but that's hardly a factor when it's so easy to become filthy rich in all three games.

Sex in Fables 2 and 3 can also result in children, except in gay or lesbian relationships (in which case you can adopt). However, marriage sucks in those games when compared to Fable 1, because you have to keep visiting your spouse to make them happy lest they divorce you. If that happens, you take a substantial hit to your good karma. That may be fine for evil characters but troublesome if you're playing good. Marriage simply brings obligation, not reward.

It's much easier to stick with your dog...

--------------------

Edit: I cross-posted with the above reply.

 

[Saint of M]

If I am to give Mass Effect or Dragon Age some credit and play devil's advocate, you have to warm up to them and have your romances warm up to you.

Only going for the games with I played, so here we go (and yes there are spoilers ahead).

Ashly: never romanced her, but if she's anything like Kaiden you have to get to know her. Become her friend, and comrade in arms. Say it takes time between missions and jumps, the shared danger and comradery makes you closer. When you are about to embark on the last mission, emotions and adrenaline take their hold. Granted this ais a game so while it has a good story...Its good for a video game. A film or book probably could have fleshed that out more.

Kaiden: I actually did romance him as fem shep, and you gain his trust to the point where he lets you on to the demons haunting his past. SO for him, you have spent the last few dozzen game play hours growing closer.

Liara: She is young and naive. She probably never has a significant other, so is a bit clumsy and at flirting. She is spoc trying to be romantic. So she this is completely new to her.


Dragon Age:

Alister: He is your knight in shining armor. Not necessarily a Sir Galihan when it comes to purity, but he fits it best out of the cast. You have to earn his trust and be a shoulder to cry on.

Morigan is a survival of the fittest and has little to know understanding of social norms, nor a desire to. While you can quickly earn a lay with her early on, she does not wish to sleep with you once she starts falling in love with you as she has always felt this is a weakness and sees it as one she cannot cope with.

Liliana is basically pure pure purness depending on how her specific quest goes. She's the most religious of the group, and the one who feels the most penitent, but that might be an outward thing to get attention. Depending if you harden her or soften her you can have a three or even four-way with a pirate, and still remains with you.

Zevran is an anything that goes, and the easiest to bed (there is even a award called Easy Lay for it). That said as your relationship grows this is a learned trait as it makes getting closer to a target easier. He has his moments durring this time, but unless you romance him or get his trust enough to learn why he chose to target you (he killed his first love and wants to die, and thinks this is the best way to get that). or hear him talk to Shale, he comes off as a blatent stereotype of flamboyant bi person (A less awesome Captain Jack if you would).

 

[cojo965]

I'm sorry, but I noticed Persona getting mentioned a few times and wanted to chip in there. I, myself, haven't played them, mind, but I have watched videos of 3: FES and 4 Golden. What jumps out at me in particular in Golden, specifically, is that whoever you ultimately go with never factors into the main story. I mean the options in your party for the record, as the ones like Ai are even worse but that's for another time. Take that festival incident with Teddie for example. Say you romanced Chie, for example, wouldn't she opt to go with the mc rather than the pretty boy who spends most of his time in a fucking bear costume? And this stuff just keeps happening. Yes there are those date moments in the main story but they are just filler with zero relevance to the actual plot with the murders and shit and you don't need to do them with anyone. I mean Christ in Golden's True Ending, I would have thought the person you went with would be ecstatic at the player character's return to Inaba, but again, nothing. I'm not asking for much, just some kind of acknowledgement in the main plot that you romanced another character. Keep in mind, this isn't just a problem with Persona as every game I've seen with romance options falls into this trap.

I think I'll cut it here because I've run out of things to say.

 

[Fox12]

This is what I hated about Persona 3. You were basically forced to cheat on your love interest if you wanted to expericane the entire game and unlock everything. Then the game would try to make you feel bad about it. It's like "wait a minute, you mean there are players who may NOT want to cheat on their girlfriend?" It made me mad, since I basically missed out on finishing every female social link except for Yukari.

I'm not against it, but the romance should either be optional or a major scripted part of the story. When I can accidentally romance Jack from Mass Effect 2, there's a problem. It's also bad writing, as human relationships are more complicated then "you can shoot things good, so we should bone." Saints Row 4's parody of this was brilliant.

I actually wouldn't mind seeing a well written romance in a game. There should be work involved, even after the relationship starts, just like in real life. And maybe *gasp* the characters even change and grow over time, either closer together or further apart, like in a real relationship.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

It's also bad writing, as human relationships are more complicated then "you can shoot things good, so we should bone." Saints Row 4's parody of this was brilliant.

100% brilliant!

You: "Hey Kinzie, wanna fuck?"

Kinzie: "Let's do this!"

The sheer ridiculousness of SR4's relationship system couldn't have been more perfect for that game.

 

[Alexei F. Karamazov]

I tend to agree that romance is typically handled pretty poorly in most mediums, and can be especially awful in films. Because there's such a wide variety of games, it can be hard to generalize.

While romance can be bad in video games, I feel that overall, they're pretty well done, at least in the games I've played (yes I know I said they can be hard to generalize, shut up!). Though there are some good examples of romance done wrong, such as the aforementioned the marriage system in Skyrim ("Hey baby, did you notice my necklace? Wanna screw?"), there are better examples of romance done right.

I thought that the Fire Emblem system of bonds and romance was pretty interesting. Granted it was extremely obtuse in the GBA games, and I didn't quite grasp the concept in the console iterations as well, but it was expanded upon greatly in Awakening (mostly due to the time travel/children thing), which I thought added quite a bit to the game. The bonds were added to further due to the finality of death, which added a bit of drama to fights that weren't going to well between romanced characters (with a bit of imagination, anyways).

Others have mentioned Bioware's implementation of romance. I thought that it was handled pretty poorly in Jade Empire, but I loved me some Mass Effect romance (those are the only Bioware games I've played, I'm sorry!). Tali is my Mass Effect waifu, which will be pretty awkward to explain to my girlfriend once we finally get started on our run through together (actually, she's pretty similar to Tali personality-wise, and I'm pretty similar to Garrus personality-wise. It's even more eerie when you remember that the two get together if both alive and unromanced by Shepard by game 3... connection??? But, I digress). I can't really explain what it is, maybe I just get into character too well.

People have also said Persona is a good example, but I haven't played those... yet.

One last game that comes to mind is Half Life 2. I know it was never explicitly stated, but I thought that Half Life 2 is unique in creating a meta-romance, or at least a meta-bond, between "Gordon" (the player) and Alex Vance. That's pretty impressive, considering nothing is ever said between them, which is more than most games can claim. Or maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic and there really was nothing there, who knows.

Overall, I think that romance, when role-playing/ getting into character especially, is a very useful tool for adding to the tension of a situation or the intensity of a scene. Is Jaffar going to bite it and leave Nino all alone?? (Heh, the concept of Jaffar dying in that game is hilarious!) Will Shepard finally get it in?? Is Alex going to get ear-raped by one of those floating pill bugs?? WILL SHE NOTICE THE NECKLACE????!?!! These are all answers one asks themselves when playing these games (or at least I do), and I think it adds a lot to the experience.

 

[AD-Stu]

The quality of Bioware's "romance" writing goes up and down even inside specific franchises in my experience.

Take Mass Effect, since it's the example that everyone seems to be talking about the most. I thought some of the romances were fantastically well written. Liara's, for example, works fantastically across all three games. She didn't have a huge role in ME2, but they made up for that with Lair of the Shadow Broker where there's some great bickering like an old married couple moments, some progression if you stayed faithful, and a reasonably convincing heartbroken-but-trying-to-put-on-a-brave-face moment if you romanced someone else. And it continues in ME3.

I like the way ME3 forces you to face the consequences of your decisions in ME2 as well, since all the ME1 romances are back in the game and if you weren't faithful in the second game, you've gotta face the person you cheated on. And I know I'm in the minority here, but I loved loved loved what they did with Jacob in ME3. Why should Shepard be the only one that gets to dump people and shack up with someone else?

By the end of ME3 there were so many options that even a tragic fanboy like me hasn't seen all of them - I've never done the Jack option properly, for example (I like that you can skip to the money shot with her and it actually destroys the relationship with her though - bet most people didn't see that coming). I've never followed Ash or Kaidan any further than the end of ME1. Never romanced Jacob to begin with, have only seen the ME2 portion of Thane, never chose Steve or Samantha in ME3.

So I think some of them, particularly the ones that started back in ME1, are done well. Others aren't so great though - the Miranda one is fairly pedestrian, and the actual romance part of the Thane one feels very forced (though I thought the relationship OUTSIDE of romance was very well written with Thane). And the less said about the Kelly Chambers one the better...

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Sex in gaming is stupid. You can never build a proper relationship etc in a game.Its just say whatever is nice and then sleep with character. Its meaningless. Though i like that Bioware tries and i hope they build on to this more. I think games build friendship better than sexual relationships. Friendship is fighting through problems and sharing issues. Falling in love etc is more difficult to make in a game. We have all played games and feel connected to a character and you dont want them to die. You want to protect them, like with the Lara game. But with love, no that just cant happen, its difficult to make a gamer love a character.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Huh, at first I thought this thread would be about how many of us have chosen/would choose video games over intercourse at any given time. Anyway.

Yeah me too. All the while I was thinking - is this an issue now?

 

[Mikejames]

Despite that I really like Tali and she's the one I always went for in ME ... I can't lie. It is immersion breaking.

For example, that line with the kiss sending her to the hospital made me very cautious with Tali. When I said it was to dangerous and she can't engage with me... she got extremely butthurt (though she did handle it maturely). Not understanding why we couldn't continue our relationship, I decided to risk it.

Then came sex. Out of nowhere. What could of been touching with Shepard just hugging Tali without her gloves on or even without the helmet- suddenly she plunges at me and makes out, with the obvious sex-fading out black screen. Only to find out that all she got was a flu, but handled it without worry.

Yeah.. I like Tali's character arc, and the whole idea of building on ME1's friendship, but some more precautionary outcomes wouldn't have gone amiss. The theme of the relationship's supposed to be inner beauty anyway.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I like Romance options - it makes sense to me that traveling together, going through what some of our protagonists go through with their group of friends and companions that something is going to happen there somewhere that would tend toward intimacy. There's the "hey the world might end for us in the next 6 hours - wanna, y'know, go out with a bang" element, sure, but I think of that as secondary to the idea of growing closer and closer to people you're doing big important things with all the time.

Personally I thought Dragon Age did the romances a little more organically than Mass Effect - which really played up that whole "gonna maybe die soon, let's do it before that happens" angle by how they plotted the trajectory of the relationship development going from chatting time, minor flirting, to the date/cabin visit bang bang off to go end the game - where DA:O had the camp consistency of "whenever you get to that point by talking / courting them, go ahead and have a relationship" without any relation to where you were in the game's main plot. DA2 - with all it's problems - pretty much gave you the long term relationship over time developing, but the gaps of years in between really detracted from the value of that overall.

Anyway - I like it as an element in games that have a long campaign with your companions. It isn't being done as well as it could be done right now and I hope there's plenty of improvement in the future of course - I consider now to be some of the early stages of the implementation of this element so there's lots of room to grow.