Who knows why Curry, the first winner of America's Next Top Model, chose to share this, but she did over Twitter last night. Lots of people game in the buff, but not many of them look like her, so I'm stamping news on this one. Oh, shut up, not everything has to be Investor's Business Daily around here.

Is she really playing though? In that pose, she must be using her feet on the mouse and the keyboard.

Love this comment from her Twitpic page: "You are a nerd's wet dream." One of them, anyway, and I'm sure a goodly number don't even involve girls.

me ... naked ... playing World of Warcraft ; ) [Adrianne Curry on Twitpic, via HBG]

I have played the final PlayStation 3 version of The Saboteur for about 11 hours in preparation for a review (look for it in the coming days), and I had played the game clean.

The game is an Assassin's Creed-esque, GTA-ish adventure of an Irish race-car driver assisting the resistance in Nazi-occupied France.

Wholesome fun.

But the game came with a card, on which was printed a redemption code for The Midnight Show, some free downloadable content. "Enter code for in-game topless dances, a game of chance, and rewards for every risk," the card stated.

I didn't punch in the code.

I started the game and got this heads-up right away:

I resisted. No code. Not yet.

I did that, frankly, for gameplay reasons. The Midnight Show DLC isn't strictly an adult content tease. It suggests that it makes the game easier, by producing more hiding places for the Irish hero, Sean Devlin, to hide in when the Nazis chase him. The game already allows the player to duck Sean into sheds, run to a urinal or kiss a woman to throw the Nazis off. According to EA press materials regarding the Midnight Show, that DLC would allow Devlin to also duck into brothels.

So the content would make the game easier, in theory. It's something I wanted to test only after having played the game for a while.

Today, with EA's restriction on talking about the content lifting, I attempted to download it and see what it was all about. I understood that it would make the ladies in the game's central cabaret club topless, that it would add the ability to get topless dances, add a money-making gambling game, add the brothel hiding spots and who knows what else.

But after putting in my free code, I got this message:

So maybe the content isn't available through the PlayStation store yet. It's not surprising. The game won't be released until next week. The women in my game's nightclub will remain barely dressed, with pasties covering their nipples.

As much as the release of the Midnight Show will become a part of the discussion about adult content in games, it's important to also look at is as a sales device. EA will sell the Midnight Show for $5 for consumers who don't get the code on a card packed-in with the game's disc. But the fact that it is free to those who do purchase the game new and find that card suggests that the Midnight Show may be designed to incentivize consumers of new copies of the game, as opposed to those who buy it used. After all, it is probable that used copies of the game would not include the card for the free download, because it would likely already have been used. If that's the case, it winds up being similar to day-one free DLC for games such as Gears of War 2, which offered free multiplayer maps through a redemption code. It could be another salvo against used game sales at places like GameStop.

I asked about the Saboteur content to EA CEO John Riccitiello yesterday. He laughed about it, saying he was interested in seeing what the reaction was. He wondered aloud if people would nickname it. Not DLC but TLC, perhaps?

The Saboteur, which is rated M, ships for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next week.

As you watch the trailer, you'll notice two things. First, the game is looking pretty damn fine. Second, there's blur all over the place. It's most noticeable when they pull away from the bar as Sean Devlin makes his exit. Not only do they blur out the artistic side-boob, they even give the statue atop the building a little smudge so we don't accidentally glimpse statue crotch.

We found an uncensored screenshot of the bar in the official fansite kit of all places, and as you can see, it really isn't a big deal.

In fact, we probably wouldn't have thought twice about the imagery had they not felt that it needed to be blurred in the first place. It's even more ridiculous when you look at the actual nudity that appears in the game itself, as see in this screen shot from Polish gaming site Gamikaze. Did you see how many fish I had to use in that image? It's like a mini-aquarium.

Come on, EA. We're all adults here, and even those of us who aren't can tune into television most days and see far worse than naked statues.

Oh, and Gamikaze has the uncensored image, if that's your thing, though clicking that link is definitely a work no-no.

Update: Ea dropped us a line to let us know that the ESRB made them blur out the bits, which just goes to show you that our game ratings are in the hands of people who don't appreciate naked statues.

Why limit the list for recent games? Because games only recently started giving us the real goods, that's why. This isn't the film industry, where you can dredge up grainy black and white clips from the beginning of moving pictures, featuring naked women who may have been acting horribly and soundlessly but were definitely women. No, our first gaming nudes were just blocks with extra blocks up top.

Instead, we look back over the last two gaming generations at the good, the bad, and the ugliest in video game nudity.

The Good
God of War - Sony, PlayStation 2
After the opening moments of the very first God of War game, you're treated to the sight of two topless women, laying on a bed. This of course is completely historically accurate. In ancient times, nudity didn't carry with it the taboo it does now, so it is perfectly normal for a game centered around ancient Rome feature its fair share of topless women. Rather than condemn God of War as porn, I took that moment to praise it for its attention to detail.

Then I had a threesome.

Mass Effect - BioWare, Xbox 360 and PC
What? There's no nudity in this pic you say? Well of course not. There was barely any nudity in Mass Effect, but the inclusion of a romantic sex act with a brief flash of naked breast was enough to cause Fox News to denounce the game on national television, making themselves look like complete idiots in the process.

Age of Conan - Funcom, PC
Massively-multiplayer online roleplaying games have long turned to the simple cloth bikini as a way of rendering a female character without equipment, but that didn't work for Funcom's Age of Conan team. With all of the artwork floating around depicting barbarians carrying, rescuing, or just basically loitering around half-naked women, Funcom decided to give topless a chance. Thirteen year-olds around the world salute them, with their boobs.

Afro Samurai Namco Bandai, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
As a big fan of ninja, I'm generally hard pressed to imagine anything even better than a ninja. Ninja are the perfect weapons - silent, deadly, and odorless as well, before anyone decides to take the first two adjectives to their natural conclusion. Yep, nothing beats a ninja in my book. *looks up* Okay, one thing beats a ninja.

The Witcher - CD Projekt, PC
While CD Projekt's acclaimed PC roleplaying game The Witcher kept its sex scenes clean, each conquest increased the player's collection of racy female trading cards, which essentially is what women amount to in most sword and sorcery tales. They were just a bit more honest about it, that's all. Incidentally, I contacted CD Projekt regarding the upcoming console version of The Witcher, Rise of the White Wolf, to see if the nudity would remain intact. Tom Ohle responds: "It's probably a bit early to say. We're certainly hoping that we can retain the content and deliver the game the team originally envisioned." Go team!

The Bad
Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude - Sierra, PlayStation2, Xbox, PC
Magna Cum Laude was a shameless attempt to cash in on one of adventure gaming's most beloved characters, taking the fun, racy, and adorably tasteless gameplay of the original Leisure Suit Larry series and replacing it with what amounted to mini-games for boobs. Note that only the PC version showed actual nudity, with the console versions remaining "tastefully" censored - you know, for the kids.
Image courtesy of Softpedia

Playboy: The Mansion - Ubisoft, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
Playboy: The Mansion was one part The Sims, one part Porn Mogul. The game allowed players to step into the slippers of a young Hugh Hefner, building the business, shaping the famous Playboy Mansion to your desires, photographing naked women, and of course....sleeping with them. Some of the elements of gameplay in the title weren't all that bad, but not good enough to wash the dirty mental picture of an aging Hefner under a hot blonde out of your head.

BMX XXX - Acclaim, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube
To this day, no one is quite sure whose idea it was to merge the entertaining gameplay of Acclaim's Dave Mirra BMX series with naked women. The game was originally intended as a normal BMX title, but poor initial review scores caused something in the company's collective brain to snap, resulting in bikes and breasts, living together, shouting profanity.

The Ugly
The Guy Game - Gathering, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
The Guy Game barely counts as a video game, having more in common with the sort of boxed DVD quiz shows you were likely to find in toy stores in the late 90's than an actual interactive video game experience. Featuring video clips of actual women who get actually naked as you best them at trivia questions, most gamers simply Googled "boobs" with the search filter off instead.

Of course there are plenty more where that came from. We're just touching on the most memorable as far as we're concerned. Feel free to share your own uncomfortable nude gaming moments in the comments section.

Microsoft commissioned a pretty serious poll up in the Great White North, asking Canadians all sorts of questions that sound like a Cosmo bedside astrologer survey, if "game" is used as a euphemism for "sex." Do you game at work? (30 percent). Do you game in the bedroom? (27 percent). The bathroom? (7 percent — WTF?!) In public? (19 percent). And yes, they asked who does it completely bare. The answer 17 percent of Canadian men, 9 percent of Canadian women.

What in the hell could possibly be the use of that information (other than giving bloggers a reason to post something about Microsoft?) The survey seems to include any kind of computer game in the nude question, so playing Minesweeper with your torpedo danglin' is the same as playing Mario Kart Wii nekkid as a jaybird.

Racking my brain, I am not sure that I have ever played a video game completely butt-ass naked. I've had phone conversations on the john, downloaded porn while wishing Grandma a Merry Christmas and other depraved shit, but I could always delay my urge to play Team Fortress 2 until I got a pair of droodies on, at least.

So, of course, this begs our own Kotaku poll. Tell us, have you ever played a game — and for purposes here, we're talking console, PC title, or handheld, but not Facebook games, solitaire or minesweeper — in the nude? Feel free to expand on your answer in the comments.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Poll Finds Number of Canadians Playing Video Games Naked [Digital Home Canada, via The Tanooki]

Since majority of the video game players of the world are over 18, putting in some sex or just random nudity shouldn't be a problem. Don't we have a fully robust ESRB system where games are clearly marked as Mature or Adult only? I can see people just coming out of the woodworks to complain that there is nudity...but again isn't that why games are rated? What other purpose do the small letters in the corner of games boxes serve?

How great would it have been if in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, the counter terrorist units storm a strip club? Just picture yourself peeking around a corner and having a huge pair of breasts running your way!

Or walking into the club and putting your thermal goggles on and seeing a guy catching a BJ in the back room while searching for terrorists.

My guess as to why there's not more nudity in games, aside from the negative aspects of a potential controversy, is that rendered nudity still doesn't look all the attractive.

Lack of Nudity in Video Games [Loot Ninja via N4G][image]

"If playing as a male character the scene can take place between him and a human woman or a humanoid female alien. If playing as a female character the scene can take place between her and a male human or a female humanoid alien."

Mass Effect to feature breast nudity [Pro-G - thanks p00pzilla!]

Reader Aaron sends word of a disturbing run-in he and his young nephew had during a game of Xbox 360 Uno.

Aaron says he allowed his nephew to play Uno while visiting, because the child's mother told him specifically to allow him to "play a game that wouldn't make him hyper or want to have bad dreams."

Things were going well, Aaron says, until he joined a room using one of the new Uno card skins. One of the four players had a camera and everyone was asking the guy about it.

The player said he couldn't say how he got the camera and then added "check this out" and proceeds to light up a blunt and smoke it, blowing the smoke into the camera.

And wouldn't you know it, the nephew's mother walked into the room just in time to see that.

Aaron goes on to say he also ran into a woman who was apparently streaking Uno games. While Aaron sent me the name of the weed smoker, he didn't send the name of the woman which I wanted... um... for research purposes.

Aaron emailed a complaint to Microsoft support and to the ESRB, pointing out that a game rated for everyone maybe needs to be looked at again when people can add their own streaming content to it live.

I hit up Microsoft for a response and the best they could do was send me a general statement about the safety of Xbox Live.

Xbox 360 and Xbox Live offer some of the most advanced family setting features in the entertainment industry. Xbox Live Vision was developed to fully leverage those features so that parents and kids can use it and feel safe while interacting with others. For example the personalized gamer picture is only viewable by people on your friends list. As you already know the friends list has some very advanced safety and security features built into it.

I haven't been able to figure out how to turn off the camera view of another Uno player and they still can't tell me if this is possible.

Just think what it's going to be like when the camera is actually available for sale. I sense a patch coming. Brian Crecente

Well, it's got everything else—from shoppin' and pie eatin' to picture takin' and shootin'. Reader Ieatrocks sent word that there's also nudity:

Anyways, head into the Entrance Plaza, top floor, north end; and the shop called "In the Closet". Put on the grey tank top outfit and have a good look at the print on the front; it's plainly a topless woman. The image is pretty low res, B&W, and people rarely look at the front of Frank, but it's there.

I unsuccessfully tried to confirm this on the Dead Rising demo (hey, I live in Japan). Any truth to this? Pics would be appreciated, because gawd knows how we love the jubblies. Brian Ashcraft

Update: Ieatrocks was sweet enough to send along a pic and point out that "Capcom's site mentions partial nudity on the M rating, but ESRB's site doesn't. It's also kind of unclear what determines 'partial' nudity, but a lack of nipples seems to be the general gist. In which case, this would be full 'nudity' however stupid that may be."

Nice helmet.

Believe it or not, before the advent of the Internet, the world's resourceful self-pleasurers actually had to use their imaginations to achieve Onanistic bliss. This entire time period, it's safe to say, was the millennia long dark age of pornography.

But in between the invention of computer and the advent of Internet porn, there was sort of a transitional time... a period of 8-bit boners and 4-colorhorizontal mambos. Video games became a prime distributor of virtual pornography, and games.net has an intriguing list of the Top 10 Nude Moments in Gaming, largely garnered from that period.

Everyone's favorite porn titles are there, like Custer's Revenge (bizarrely listed as a PS2 title), Leisure Suit Larry and Bubble Bath Babes... the latter title one I would definitely pay to see remade. Florian Eckhardt

Top 10 Nude Moments in Gaming [games.net]

The ESRB has concluded that the game deserves a rating of Mature because: 1) partial nudity in the PC version of the game can be created by modders; and 2) the game contains excessive blood and gore that go beyond a Teen rating. The facts are as follows:

There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only - this doesn't apply to the Xbox 360 version - some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion. There is no nude female character in a section of the game that can be "unlocked." Bethesda can not control tampering with Oblivion by third parties. Bethesda is taking steps to ensure that modders can not continue to hack into Oblivion's art archives to create partially nude figures.

With regard to violence, Bethesda advised the ESRB during the ratings process that violence and blood effects were "frequent" in the game - checking the box on the form that is the maximum warning. We further advised that the game contained occasional torture, vulgar acts, and gore. We gave accurate answers and descriptions about the type and frequency of violence that appears in the game. We submitted a 60-page document listing the explicit language, acts, and scenes in the game. Oblivion packaging already contains warnings for "Violence" and "Blood and Gore."

Bethesda responds to Oblivion re-rating [Gamespot]

We're linking you to xboxic.com, in which the author of the post immediately begins hyperventilating about America's hypocrisy over the exposure of a bare human breast. Yes, yes — hot coffee, right. Because interactive, rhythmic sex games are the same as a bare breast. Anyway, xboxic.com claims this will delay the release in the US. But Firing Squad actually bothered to call Eidos, who says that the breast is only hackable in the Euro versions of the game, which is already out. It won't delay the US version.

So a visible breast, only available to European hackers, not belonging to Lara Croft, that won't delay the release of the game. Not news, in other words. Except that it allows us to post a jpeg of a disembodied breast, eerily floating upon a muddy texture. There's worse ways to start your weekend.

Nipplegate: new Tomb Raider delayed in US [xboxic.com]

From the creator himself:

In the process of trying to create a nude skin for Oblivion, I found Bethesda had already done all the work for me. They just covered it up with underwear afterwards. (At least in my version — I know sometimes European versions are different, as those cultures accept the human body better.)

Bethesda's skins/models don't really look amazing once they're actually in the game, though... I'm sure someone will make better ones sooner or later. I'll be looking forward to it too.

This is the kind of thing Bethesda should be selling on Live, people.

Oblivion Topless Mod [Oblivion Source]