Panty Raider: From Here to Immaturity

Platform: PC
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2000
Developer: Simon & Schuster

Panty Raider's story is not a noble or particularly involved one. The game hit stores in 2000, and it's probably fair to say very few people think about it much anymore. But a few heads turned when it was first surfacing.

Now where's my mint, you freak?

In this puzzle adventure game, which is a cheesy, campy, soft-core sci-fi wonder you might find similarly themed on late-night cable, you play as a guy named Nelson, who is enlisted by "Nasty Teenage Aliens" who need new photos of lingerie models because they exhausted the one catalog they accidentally received. Nelson's job is to take photos of the supermodels in their bras and panties from an exotic locale known as Model Island (is that near Cancun?). Why? The aliens want the photos (you can take it from here). The skills you develop in this game will serve you later in life if you plan to be the guy who slithers up to women at bars and tries to talk them out of their clothes shortly before getting a drink thrown in his face, depending on the bar.

Nelson also has access to X-ray glasses and items like credit cards and candy, which lure the women to him so he can photograph them and, hence, save Earth from the aliens' destruction.

In April 2000, the advocacy group Dads and Daughters, based in Minnesota, published a press release about Panty Raider. The organization had contacted Simon & Schuster Interactive and asked the company to cease publication of the game, claiming, "From making fun of anorexia to objectifying girls to assuming that boys just want titillation from computer games, Panty Raider is a disgrace."

The release also stated that members of the group found the game's message concerning the "stereotype that girls are obsessed with shopping and appearance" offensive. The group's executive director, Joe Kelly, said that game is also offensive to fathers of sons: "We don't see the humor or fun in glorifying what Panty Raider calls 'hormone driven anger' in boys, especially after tragedies like the Columbine shootings."

Many feminist and family-oriented Web sites, such as tufffemme.com, protested Panty Raider and created petitions and form letters to be sent to Simon & Schuster. The Web site womengamers.com featured an editorial on the subject, contributing, "There are groups who are calling for the banning and censorship of games that they find offensive to women, games that include elements of sexual assault, with Panty Raider serving as a prime example." The group went on to cite other examples, such as a rape scene between a "giant bug" and a woman, à la Fear Effect II.

Still, Simon & Schuster shipped the game as planned.

SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain

Platform: PS2
Publisher: THQ, 2003
Developer: Yuke's

Lingerie and wrestling, naturally.

Wrestling and video games have been cohorts pretty much since the early days of electronic entertainment, and THQ has been a serious part of the action for the last decade. This WWE-licensed game scores high for playability even though it doesn't redefine the genre. In the spirit of a brand of censorship more common in the United States, the blood, "three stages of hell," "elimination chamber," and "hell in a cell" bouts had little to do with the controversy that surfaced from this game in the UK. Critics targeted what is known as the "bra and panties" match, wherein female wrestlers tussle down to the bare necessities.

In March 2003, the Birmingham Evening Mail reported that the Rape and Sexual Violence Project and Caroline Spelman, Tory Member of Parliament (MP) for Meriden, denounced Smackdown! because of the bra and panties mode. Spelman called the game "very lacking in taste." Maggie Williams, project manager for the rape-counseling center, called the game "degrading to women" and noted, "It's giving people, particularly children and teenagers, the message that it's okay to attack women, which is very wrong. ... To me this screams pornography. I think it should be banned and a review carried out on computer game content."

Smackdown! shipped as planned.