60. wii party games for consenting adults - ubisoft and wii dare with we dare

who DOESN'T accessorize skirts with wiimotes? 

before i continue, i must express my pleasure at today's issue, because this is the first ever of my posts that i was legitimately able to tag with the phrase "sexy party."  moving on.

you have a wii?  you like it?  you ever think that it has some shortcomings?  like not having anything that allows you and your significant other (and/or friends) to facilitate naughty time and sexy parties?  well ubisoft has an answer for you with their upcoming we dare.  think mario party or super smash brothers - a party game meant for multiple players, hit with a pinch of poledancing and a splash of wiimote spanking.

yes, you read that properly.  wiimote spanking.  those that straddle the line between gamer and swinger rejoice.

we dare, which ubisoft claims is aimed for mature audiences, features adorable little mini characters running around doing mostly harmless things, like spinning through hoops, eating apples and flouncing through other mini-games included in the software.  but for the other side of the controller, they've has released a trailer, entitled "have a spicy evening," to give viewers a small taste of what the offscreen gameplay is like.  upon watching it i could see that this type of game fits right in with one of my standard evenings - start with a nice dinner with some friends, pop on the wii for some entertainment, convince my lovely lady friends to pretty much make out with a wiimote, take turns putting the wiimote down our pants and give everyone a round of spanking, and finally strip down to the beat of silhouetted strippers on the screen.  nervous looks all about and not knowing who was going to be ending the night with who.  ahhhh yes.  a standard evening indeed.

i really can't hate on the idea though.  well, not excessively.  i'm with you on the concept ubi, just not execution.  when you have a game console that works through human motion, you're going to get developers that try to tweak the controls to do something different.  or in this case, downright strange.  just a couple of weeks ago i showed you make-out kinect bowling and gave you links to all sorts of other stuff (on that, i wonder if the name mike tyson's make-out is already reserved).  all of that considered, i'm honestly surprised ubisoft (or any other game developers) didn't hit us with this sooner.  the convergence of sex and games has been accelerating over the last 20 years, just not on the control side.

onscreen vs offscreen gameplay

so what's the big deal right?  if adults playing wii want to be pseudo-swingers in the sanctity of their living room, there's really no issue with it.  slap an "M" rating on it from the ESRB and away we go.  at least that's how i would see it happening here in the US.  europe's got a slightly different spin on it though.  the european PEGI (equivalent of our ESRB) gave we dare a 12 rating with a "parental advisory" sticker on it.  12 as in ok for kids 12 and older to play it.  TWELVE.  and they stand by it.  according to a PEGI statement through destructoid,

"PEGI does not take into account the context of a game when rating it, we only look at the contents of the game. [We Dare] has been rated as a PEGI 12 because it contains mild swearing, minor assault on a human-like character and words/activities that amount to obvious sexual innuendo, explicit sexual descriptions or images and sexual posturing."

and ubisoft straight up doesn't care.  what PEGI is saying is that the game ratings only reflect what is on the screen, as opposed to how it's played.  i can play a model or other person who's more appealing to visualize can play smash brothers doing nude jumping jacks if they really wanted to, but that's not going to bump the game rating from T to M so i can't argue on that level.  but this case is different.  in my nude jumping jacks example, there was no intent with design (i.e. context).  this means that the scope of nintendo's control design never extended past a wiimote. in we dare on the other hand, ubisoft is blatantly advertising that this is how the game is played, and the intent of the game is for adults (*cough*) to get together and get a little more friendly with each other.  "provocative control" is even one of the manufacturer's comments on its amazon listing.  no judgement on context, PEGI?  this game has an overflowing barrel of it.  and if context is not taken into account when issuing a rating, what is the point of even giving it one at all?

at any rate, go ahead and enjoy this little diversion, europe.  clearly our stodgy american asses won't be seeing a release on our side of the pond anytime soon.  and if you really want to make some some sort of weird swinger party game, dev for the kinect.

but for the love of god, when you're done put those controllers away somewhere.  we don't want the kids using those same wiimotes to play smash brothers with their friends after school.


direct link:  HD trailer from pressfirevideo's youtube channel