By Alec Meer on September 17th, 2010 at 5:59 pm.
That Zombie Cow’s naughty-but-nice sex-ed shooter Privates won’t be making an appearance on Xbox 360 thanks to Microsoft deeming its sexual content too sexy (even though it’s educational and even though there’s no actual sex and even though they’ll happily show any amount of extreme violence) isn’t RPSy news. I know this. I accept this.
However, it does reminds me, as I’m sure was the partial intention of ZC’s statement on the 360 cancellation today, that the free PC version’s had a whole heap of fixes and patches since launch day.
Which means it’s a significantly more stable and compatible game about exploring giant orifices than the crash-happy thing it was at first. Which means you should give it another go. Which means you should go here. Granted we’ve posted about one of the patches before, but showing the chucklesome Time Gentlemen, Please devs some more love on a day when one of their projects just got canned is hardly unreasonable, no? And hey, the PC version’s got better controls than the console one would anyway. And anti-aliasing. And terrain. And intelligence. And integrity. And oiled, muscly torsos.
And here’s ZC’s statement, in case you had a panic attack at the thought of clicking the other link earlier.
Privates, the unique shoot-‘em-up set inside peoples’ rude parts is to remain strictly PC-only following consultation with team Xbox.
“The guys at Xbox have been amazing,” said Dan Marshall of Zombie Cow Studios. “They’ve been really supportive and helpful throughout, but ultimately have advised that the game wouldn’t pass the Indie Games Peer Review process, purely due to its inherently sexual nature. As a result, if you want to play as a tiny little man blasting away inside someone’s innards, the only place to do it is privatesgame.com”
“It’s a shame, but it’s something we’d always pretty much assumed would happen.”
“Since launch, we’ve been working flat-out on the PC version of Privates, improving it and getting it running on as many different systems as possible. As a result, all of the pesky crashes and issues have finally been fixed up, and it’s now running smoother and better than ever before. If you had troubles getting it going at launch, it’s well worth having another quick try.”
Privates is a platform shooter in which you lead a teeny-tiny gang of condom-hatted marines as they delve into peoples’ vaginas and bottoms and blast away at all manner of oozy, shouty monsters. It’s rude, funny, bitingly satirical and technically pretty accurate if you don’t count the tiny people or the germs with teeth.
Privates boasts five whole levels of bug-busting action across a variety of gorgeous 3D locations, with a fully-voiced comedy script and a nutso soundtrack. You never know, you might even learn something handy about your downstairs-department.
17/09/2010 at 18:00 Film11 says:
Fantastic tag selection there.
17/09/2010 at 18:37 Heliosicle says:
Fantastic tag selection – and all true
19/09/2010 at 23:28 TeeJay says:
OK I’m going in!
(Thanks for the heads up RPS)
/blantant reply-to-first-post abuse
17/09/2010 at 18:08 Robin says:
So this ‘news’ is that Microsoft have followed their long-established approvals process?
17/09/2010 at 18:18 Alec Meer says:
Putting ‘things’ arbitrarily in quote ‘marks’ to show ‘contempt’ is fun!
17/09/2010 at 18:22 Dominic White says:
The fact that Microsofts approval process places no limits whatsoever on ultraviolence, but you can’t even crack jokes about peoples naughty bits suggests that MS are being pretty crazy here.
17/09/2010 at 18:32 Xercies says:
Yeah but there not the only ones in America doing it.
17/09/2010 at 18:37 BAReFOOt says:
That does not make it better. It makes it even worse!
17/09/2010 at 23:52 Shih Tzu says:
Yeah, guys, sorry, this is sort of how America works. We love sadistic violence but we’re terrified of sex. No doubt you recall how, amongst the casual robberies, beatings, murders, and appalling mayhem possible in the world of San Andreas, the most shocking, most controversial scene was the one where you politely ask a young woman for consent and then have Barbie sex.
Oh! Also, we have this thing called the Super Bowl, which is sort of like the World Cup except it’s every year, and one year during the halftime show one of the singer ladies showed part of her boob, and it was basically September 11th all over again, except with victims numbering in the millions.
19/09/2010 at 04:46 Robin says:
@Dominic White: That would be a good story, but sadly it’s let down in this case by the fact that neither of these things (there being no limit on “ultraviolence”, and Privates being expected to fail purely for making jokes about sex) are true.
Alec, I put ‘news’ in quote marks because something happening that’s been admitted from the outset to be 100% guaranteed to happen isn’t news.
17/09/2010 at 18:09 Nick says:
more like MicroSUCK. Amirite?
17/09/2010 at 18:10 Nick says:
besides, the game is clearly misogynistic.
17/09/2010 at 18:35 sexyresults says:
put the beer down
17/09/2010 at 18:48 Taillefer says:
There’s something a bit off about having an Indie Games Peer Review process.
18/09/2010 at 02:56 RobF says:
Peer review is reasonably fine (the rules do err towards the arbitrary at times, admittedly) – sticking your oar in to the peer review process on the other hand, kinda undermines the point of it a tad.
But y’know “Microsoft mishandling indie channel” isn’t exactly new news, they’ve fudged it their end from the off.
17/09/2010 at 19:09 jon_hill987 says:
Americans are seriously ****ed up if they are happy to have horrendous violence on their TV sets but a boob at a Handegg match causes uproar… This is just another extension of their ****ed upness.
17/09/2010 at 20:20 Mashakosha says:
I agree with this. They have the gall to complain that violent games are polluting their children’s minds and making them shoot up their schools, yet scoff when people try to release an eductional, yet (dare I say it) fun game?
17/09/2010 at 21:42 Eggy says:
clearly this is a problem unique to america, and no other country has ever produced loudmouthed illogical pundits.
17/09/2010 at 21:49 Csauli says:
It IS relatively unique to America, and don’t you fucking try to wriggle yourselves out of that.
…Prudish cunts.
17/09/2010 at 19:10 patricij says:
I can’t really force myself to care…. XBOX360 toy? A game about safe sex? Nahhh…
-Frankie The Patrician[PF]
17/09/2010 at 19:43 Rikard Peterson says:
If this is an educational game, well… let’s sing along to Pink Floyd. :)
17/09/2010 at 20:13 Calabi says:
I though we came through the eras of abitrary censorship. Its funny but now we have willing corporate censorship. Which you have no way of railing against or any means of doing anything about it except, to accept what they give us.
17/09/2010 at 21:00 perilisk says:
You could do what I did, and not buy an Xbox.
17/09/2010 at 22:23 Calabi says:
I did that but it didnt work.
17/09/2010 at 20:16 Mathew Jensterle says:
I am confused why Privates would be unacceptable under the Indie Games section of XBLA but Baby Maker Extreme (which decides to hype itself as “the most extreme embryonic event enhanced by your electronic entertainment equipment”) is, especially as it’s essentially a ballistic trajectory based game using newborn babies as projectiles?
17/09/2010 at 21:36 James G says:
And this, is why I’m a PC Gamer. Not Privates specifically, but the fact that there isn’t any monolithic body to decide I can’t play something for their own arbitrary reasons.
17/09/2010 at 22:46 David A Hill Jr says:
Way to be classy, MS. You’ll allow “Dante’s Inferno,” but you won’t allow this?
19/09/2010 at 09:28 Dominic White says:
So long as EA are publishing, Microsoft will wave through anything, even if it does have heaving piles of tenta-cocked tittydemons.
To anyone wondering if I’m exaggerating: No, I am not.
17/09/2010 at 22:57 Matt says:
Three cheers for open gaming platforms! How many popular ones exist I wonder. I can think of two, PC and the Android.
On another note, how about a wot I think for privates?
17/09/2010 at 23:38 Eggy says:
Enjoy your Daily Mail :j
18/09/2010 at 01:22 Ariel says:
I read “Privates Not As Pubic As Hoped”
18/09/2010 at 01:24 Jetsetlemming says:
What a coincidence, I just watched “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” last night. Similar themes: James Bond Shooting a man: PG-13. James Bond ripping a man’s guts out in completely unadulterated microscopic detail? R. The face of an orgasming woman? NC-17.
18/09/2010 at 15:59 JohnnyMaverik says:
I couldn’t deal with the weapon switching and sheer volume of enemies you have to deal with at the same time. Got to level 4 and gave up, still, this is a massive fail on Microsofts part, I really see very little that could be interpreted as outright inappropriate in this game from what I’ve played of it.
W/E, pc does what 360 won’t.
18/09/2010 at 21:41 Csauli says:
Ah, you Americans and your Abstinence-Only “education”, your teen stars with Purity Rings and your horror at a game with sexual content without for a second caring about the games with gruesome violence. You’ll gladly show Kratos carving up a giant demon’s eyeball so that blood and eye-juices spill all over the screen, but you sure make sure the camera pans away during the sex-scenes.
Lovely. Just lovely. You never stop amusing (and horrifying) the rest of us. Sometimes I wonder how you people even manage to reproduce.