Feature

Published on May 10th, 2012 | by Ciaran Utting

6

Top 5 Testicular Traumas In Gaming

Since Dan Hobbs first (and a bit too gleefully) pointed out that you can snipe the plums off a Nazi soldier from half a mile away in his Sniper Elite V2 review, I’ve been mulling over the many other ways that men have been made to suffer in video games throughout the years. Alarmingly, it wasn’t as hard as it should have been to compile this torturous list, and all I can deduce having finished it is that men, as a species, hate themselves. People have made huge leaps and bounds in the technology sector; a realm of near limitless possibilities, and yet we’ll still code a game in such a way that one of those possibilities is to lambaste our virtual love spuds. So, sit as comfortably as you can, and see what I mean.

//1 Ballz (Mega Drive/ SNES/ 3DO)

Hurting each others “ballz” was kind of the point of this, frankly terrible, beat-em-up. Aside from the fact that the characters were made out of them, there was still a plentiful supply of betwixt the legs attacking. It wasn’t half as funny as it thought it was, and it didn’t even think it was that funny. It rates relatively low on the pain scale, but is clearly worth a mention.

//2 Tony Hawk Pro Skater/ Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (Playstation)

To be honest, any game featuring “extreme” sports and ragdoll physics is going to end up in some fairly serious truffle damage. The Playstation was the first system with enough power to start using the 3D model/ ragdoll combination, and it used it to teeth clenching excess. Unless you landed the perfect trick, you’d be treated to a dynamic disaster sequence that more often that not culminated in you clutching your groin, both virtually and in reality.

//3 Mortal Kombat (Arcade)

Now, I’m all man. For this reason, and not a single other, I have never been punched in the vagina. I’m OK in assuming that it’s no more fun than the testicles however, and Johnny Cage doesn’t discriminate. It was an interesting decision that he should be able to do this to female combatants, but it was most likely a case that Midway just couldn’t be bothered to code out the move for the women fighters. Later on, the PS2′s Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks edition saw Cage’s move become a fatality, whereby he punched his opponent in the pelvis so hard their legs flew off. It’s hard to come back from that.

//4 Bulletstorm (Xbox360/ Playstation 3/ PC)

Never before has a game actively rewarded you for doing such awful things to yourself or others, until People Can Fly released Bulletstorm. The game threw points at you for killing people as creatively as you could, and maybe it’s a sign of the human condition that the first thing players thought to do was aim squarely for the three amigos. As much as I loved this game, it certainly makes gaming as an ‘non-childish hobby’ hard to defend when witnessing a sniper bullet fly down someone’s Johnson, only to be treated to the informative graphic “nutcracker, 50 points”. Still, they were the bad guys.

//5 Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox360/ Playstation 3/ PC)

What made this so bad was the realism. The multi-million dollar realism that was heaped onto this landmark game. The voice acting, the graphics, the living, breathing New York City. The Euphoria engine. This was Rockstar’s attempt to go one better than having standard ragdolls, and instead made the characters react not just physically accurately, but emotionally accurately. If you were about to crash your car, for example, your character would shield their face. A barely noticeable touch in the heat of the moment, but one that added up to some extraordinarily painful, and believable, periods of agony. Some of the best times in this game were had simply going off on a tangent and seeing who could make their friends wince the most with their appalling disregard for the protagonists coconuts. And FYI, this is the winner…

There’s plenty more for sure, but the research is killing me. Let us know yours in the comments below!

This article was written by Ciarán Utting.
You should follow him on twitter, and send him sympathetic tweets.

Tags: Ballz, Bullet Storm, GTAIV, Mortal Kombat, Testicle Trauma, Tony Hawk, Top 5

About the Author

Ciaran Utting+ loves video games, is literate. The smart thing to do would be to follow him on Twitter @CiaranUtting

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