Boob Cards: An Adult Perspective

“Boob Cards: An Adult Perspective” is the title of a new article at The Escapist that contemplates the meaning and implications of the souvenir “sex cards” obtained by Geralt in CD Projekt’s The Witcher.

I’m a firm believer in adult games for adult gamers, so when I learned the American release of the game was going to be censored in such a ridiculous fashion (decapitations and incinerations are fine but breasts are apparently beyond the bounds of good taste) I resolved to order the U.K. edition from overseas. I took some flak for doing so; my argument that it was a principled stand against censorship rather than simple lechery fell largely on deaf ears. Nonetheless, in short order I found myself the proud owner of a BBFC-rated copy of The Witcher.

My first in-game conquest, which took very little time to get to, was suggestive but fully covered and, thus, a bit of a let-down. The second, however, showed the goods in a big way, and with that we were off to the races. Killing monsters, it turns out, is the thing Witchers are second best at, and although I had no way of knowing it at the time, The Witcher would quickly have me raising my eyebrows, shaking my head and rolling my eyes as I wandered through a surreal, medieval sexual Olympiad.

A number of reviewers, our own Corvus Elrod included, had problems with the game’s treatment of women, and while I don’t agree with their assertions that the game is misogynistic, I did find myself wondering why the developers felt it necessary to have Geralt hopping in the sack quite so frequently. Midway through the third chapter it had become tiresome to the point of distraction, and I found myself complaining to a gamer friend that my interest in the game was waning, mostly as a result of the game’s frat-boy mentality toward the hero’s raging libido.