Duke Nukem

Platforms: PC, Mac, Game.com, Saturn, N64, Game Boy Color, PlayStation, coming to PlayStation 2 and Xbox
Publisher: GT Interactive/Atari/Apogee, 1991
Developer: 3D Realms/n-Space/Eurocom Int./Apogee

When Duke Nukem launched in 1991 as a PC side-scroller whose only controversy might have been in its horrifying graphics, its future as a dominant shooting game was not yet visible. Fans of shooters rarely credit the trigger character's personality as the reason they play the game. In fact, most FPS trigger personalities seem deliberately homogenized so that the player might better envision him or herself as the one behind the gun. Not so with Duke Nukem in its later incarnations. In 1996, Duke's vision of the future came into dimension with a pseudo-3D release on the PC and Mac. Hence, the antihero was (re)born.

Bird watching with Duke - from Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes (PSX)

Duke Nukem is to games what Jim Carrey is to film. You want to take him seriously and possibly even find him repulsive, but you really can't. He's too corny for any degree of scrutiny. A company like Nintendo, known for its historic prudence and antiviolence stance (until that became a topic of controversy, too), would be expected to have an opinion of the game, if not to flat out reject it. Not so. In 1997, Duke made his way to the N64, leaving the strippers and suggestive visuals behind, bringing only the violence and gore to the new world--and there was plenty of it. Duke moved deeper into the console world, one occupied by a younger gaming audience than arcades or PC games, and brought pig cops, pipe bombs, necrobrains, and dynamite with him. Yet Duke Nukem received very little hassle of the serious kind in the States.

Duke Nukem, as a character, is brash and full of machismo. He's abrasive and sexist. He is corny and primal. He's cliché and full of innuendo. Germany and Australia banned Duke Nukem for its violence and degrading attitude toward women. In December 1999, Brazil banned Duke Nukem (as well as Doom, Postal, Quake, Mortal Kombat, Requiem, and Blood) for allegedly inspiring a violent shooting rampage carried out by one man in a cinema in November. Various publications report that the incident was to have been re-created from a scenario in Duke Nukem. According to an article in The Register (UK) on December 23, 1999, the games had been evaluated by a team of psychiatrists in the UK and determined to be "too violent."

GameSpot's Sam Parker said, "There's nothing at the core of Duke Nukem 3D that's any more controversial than Doom. Running around in networked deathmatches produced battles as fast and gory as any game at the time." Parker admits that he was "somewhat surprised to see the dancers. ... They certainly stood out from all the shooting, even though the types of interactions fit with the game's unusually interactive environments. And after all, there was an 'adult mode' switch to turn down the gore and remove the women--but who'd ever tell their parents it was there?"

Night Trap

Platforms: Sega CD, Sega 32X, 3DO
Publisher: Sega, 1992
Developer: Digital Pictures

More than 15 years after Death Race was released, Night Trap appeared, making all the moderately sadistic games that bridge the gap nearly forgettable (though discussed later in this feature). Night Trap was not only controversial, but also a good example of how many games perhaps destined for anonymity gained otherwise unattainable success once heralded as violent or questionable in terms of content. This is especially true of games that were innovative, decent technically, or quirky enough to catch the eye of retailers, the media, and marketers, who in return brought them to a greater number of people--individuals who might not usually hear of a fringe game or those otherwise poorly situated in the market. While it's arguable whether or not Night Trap was actually a good game, it was innovative enough to make people pay attention. Those paying attention found the game threatening and quickly set their sights on what the games industry was capable of distributing.

Night Trap was targeted for featuring young girls in nightgowns with death as the thematic next-door neighbor. This is hardly different from just about any B-movie plot, but the game was attacked nonetheless. Perhaps because of the popsicles made of blood.

Your love is like a Night Trap!

The game wasn't particularly violent. In fact, the premise is innocent enough--players were required to save five college-aged girls who were staying together in a house haunted by vampirelike creatures. The game featured full-motion video, with vignettes starring the deceased former star of Diff'rent Strokes, Dana Plato. Night Trap was a semipremature version of a reality-show game. As a commando for a secret organization called S.C.A.T., you monitored the house through its closed-circuit TV-camera-based surveillance setups in eight of the house's rooms. The rooms were also rigged for traps originally designed for the innocent girls, but you used them in a chivalrous way, to capture the vampires when they appeared. You could also watch the inner workings of the house in its day-to-day facade, minus the vampires. These surveillance sweeps were sure to turn up (A) pillow fights, (B) entertaining little sing-alongs, or (C) absolutely nothing. They did not reveal nudity or excessive violence, rape, or anything of the sort.

Author Steve Kent said, "To this day, the people who are attacking Night Trap really don't, to me, seem like they've played the game. They still talk about this game where you were killing co-eds, but you're not; you're saving co-eds."

Yet, Night Trap joined the ranks of other banned games and was pulled from stores to assuage public concern over its message. To this day, the game is recognized on most lists of controversial or banned games. Fair comparison to more recent controversial games makes one wonder why. Night Trap was used as an example, alongside Mortal Kombat, in the 1993 congressional hearings, addressed next.