WARNING: There are screenshots of the games featured in this article that could be considered not safe for work. This doesn’t seem like a disclaimer I should have to add for screenshots for games that PEGI has rated as 3+, but it really is.
For some reason, someone at 505 Games decided that a series of Japanese PlayStation 2 games known as “Simple 2000”, all starring a Japanese company’s mascot girl named Riho Futaba, would be a good choice to bring over to Europe in 2005.
The most infamous/well-known example is probably Demolition Girl. If we compare the covers, we see that the game received a CERO 12 rating and yet a 3+ rating from PEGI. The cover art seems to be going directly against the PEGI rating, which I’m sure hurt sales some both for bewildered parents and perverts.
The actual game itself revolves around a bikini-clad woman on the beach who is bitten by some kind of creature and is turned into a giantess. The opening sequence isn’t all that bad; just still images of this bikini-clad gal, which are probably fine for a 3+ PEGI rating.
However, for some reason, after she becomes giant, the National Guard has decided that she is an evil humanoid creature (despite clearly still looking giant and being really confused as to what the hell is going on) and they need to take her down.
As such, your first mission is to…examine her breasts and buttocks. Wait, what?
Yes, the game’s first mission (and also for some reason the first thing the National Guard feels is appropriate to do in this situation) requires you to “collect research data” on the breasts and buttocks of this bikini-clad giantess. This means you have to have your beam on her breasts/buttocks “scanning” them until the game has decided you’ve gotten enough data on them.
This clearly adds a slightly suggestive angle to the gameplay that would be more appropriate at PEGI’s 12+ category.
Furthermore, the final mission of the game has the girl suddenly turn evil because of the influence of the creature that bit her. You have to fire missiles at her in order to render her unconscious and capture her. This is a “depiction of non-realistic violence towards a human-like character”, something PEGI has said requires a 12+ rating.
Despite all my complaints, this is the mildest example of the Simple 2000 series games that received a 3+ rating. Nothing explicitly suggestive is referred to other than “scanning” the breasts/buttocks of the giantess during the first mission. It’s also quite hard to think of someone being able to jerk off to this game, since you have to put so much effort into controlling the helicopter and dodging Riho with the terrible controls. I doubt parents would be comfortable with letting a child as young as three have this game though.
Let’s take a look at another eyebrow-raising example, the game Paparazzi.
The story of this game is that you’ve fallen in love with the model Riho Futaba (yes, the same girl from Demolition Girl) and the only way you can get closer to her is through sneaking into her photo shoots and impressing her with your amateur photography skills.
These are all pretty much pin-up style photos. Riho’s breasts jiggle almost every time she moves, and the player is repeatedly given the option to tell Riho to “adopt a sexy pose.”
Unlike Demolition Girl, you cannot deny the sexualization here with some kind of excuse about “collecting data.” These photos are meant to be eye candy.
While watching gameplay videos of Paparazzi, I also found that the game has at least two uses of ‘damn’ in its story mode, which alone should have earned it a 12+ rating.
I’ve saved the best of the 3+ Simple 2000 games for last…take a look at “Simple 2000 Series Vol.63: Mogitate Mizugi! Onna Mamire no the Suieitaikai”.
As you can see, the Japanese cover of the game bears a CERO 18 rating, promising naughty minigame fun for Japanese perverts. The European cover, on the other hand…
Well, that looks like shovelware. All the promises of sexy have been removed from the front cover. They’re trying to sell this perverts’ game to little girls!
Party Girls is the most blatantly suggestive, “dear God, PEGI, what the hell were you thinking?” of the Simple 2000 games.
To start with, “Breast Shake” is an option in the Settings, impacting how much the bikini-clad girls’ breasts will shake in-game.
Unlike Demolition Girl and Paparazzi, where there was always the option no one took to not be a complete pervert (“Oh, you can take her breast measurements from the back so you aren’t just staring at her rack.” “Oh, you don’t have to ask Riho to do a sexy pose.”), every single minigame in Party Girls gives you a replay afterwards from different suggestive camera angles.
“Panic Balloon”: Girls pump up a balloon until it explodes on them.
But by far the most inexcusable example is the minigame “Rub! Rub! Rub!”. This game involves the two girls rubbing their hands up and down on a large thermometer, that gets hotter and hotter until a rocket at the top shoots off (complete with a “BOOM!” text bubble).
It’s also worth noting that the song that is playing during the replay is entitled “I want to become your pet”.
“The content of this game is suitable for all persons.”
Thankfully, these games didn’t sell well enough to cause much trouble or uproar. Another game in the Simple 2000 series, Fighting Angels, finally got a 12+ rating, though only on account of its violence with no mention of the sexualized camera angles. Later on, the Zombie Hunters games received 18+ ratings for extreme violence, meaning there was no real need to mention the sexualized imagery in the game according to PEGI (though a competent ratings board would still have a way to make the consumer aware of it).
We may never know what PEGI was thinking with rating so many of these Simple 2000 games as 3+. Perhaps they were so bewildered and bored by the poor gameplay and subtitles they completely blanked out as to the contents of the games after turning them off.
High Impact Classification 