While I'm on my opening post, I'd like to ask that you ignore my extremely suspect use of the English language. Please suspend your disbelief and pretend that what you are now reading is considered as the zenith of writing ability on the planet.
Now that I've fully told you my entire life story and every single fact about me, I'd like to bring the tasteful Box Art that's dramatically illustrating this paragraph to your attention... Feel free to look closer, as yes, that is in fact an exposed lady nipple. I remember to this day, the shock I was in as I left the local John Menzies (now called W.H Smith) with my newly purchased magazine, I turned over to the back page and there it was, brazenly demanding my full attention. At close to becoming 15 years old, a strange combination of awe and embarrassment came over me as I began to consider a career in freelance computer game illustration...Anyway, back to the perky Box-Art: It was ran in several magazines as a full page advert during 1988 when the game itself, titled Game Over, was released on most of the major home formats. Many of those magazines were pretty much aimed at children, and the game didn't actually have anything to do with the celeb-style "oops" or indeed the lady adorning it so tastefully. So my reason to have it on this page is actually rooted in a strange kind of nostalgia at my teenage self for having been so fascinated with any vaguely lifelike lady-flesh in my favourite mags and after recently watching MrsMute play through about 12 hours of DOA Xtreme Volleyball 2, I realised that "titillation" in the games industry has definitely changed a lot, although not necessarily "grown up". I have to say that it just isn't capable of grasping a fully grown man by the short and curlies in the same way it can "pique the curiosity" of a 14 year old!
Another reason I can cite for having it brighten up this gloomy page is that I find the concept of using sex to sell products to children more than a little bit weird... I fully understand it for adults and teens that are of the "ejaculation-capable" age, but the real kiddies?
What's the point; you may as well influence their reading habits by offering them some Kafka instead of Bob the Builder!? Although I expect that Jackie Collins' stories have more in common with nipply box art. I was actually a pre-teen once myself, and I remember how awkward I felt when I seen bare flesh in a film or on TV. That awkward feeling could be increased geometrically by adding either parent into the equation. Watching "9 1/2 Weeks" with my dad at some point during '86 was a truly humiliating and bizarre experience... So the question is really, "do kids respond to sex themed advertising?". I personally doubt it, as the primary factor in children wanting anything, is usually other children; peer pressure.
I'm also reminded of quite a few games that were also on the booby bandwagon at around that time, foremost of these is undoubtedly Barbarian by Palace. This "starred" the massively buxom Page 3 girl Maria Whittaker, in a sporty looking bikini (which from my knowledge isn't really warrior styled attire of the Dark Ages; though to my young impressionable mind the battle effectiveness of such clothing was irrelevant and the fact that those tiny triangular slivers of cloth were the only thing preventing me from seeing an actual nipple made it much more than fine). Accompanying that historic bosom, was none other than Wolf from TV's Gladiators, dressed in a furry loin cloth, the absolute height of 'cool'; you even got to play his character in the game. Dear God... Maybe I'll add the cover to this post, as it's actually massively entertaining. Neither of them are wearing wigs!
There were also quite a few Strip Poker games that mostly featured poorly digitised yet "sexy" black & white images of such lovelies as Samantha Fox and Linda Lusardi... I also remember the game Vixen had a Page 3 girl of some flavour, dressing up to play the "real life" version of the 24 pixel high heroine. The many links between Page 3 girls in the past and games are as plentiful as the ladies assets...
It's actually only as I've gone back and creeped through my memories of these games, that I realised there was in fact a link between Page 3 and gaming. There's a couple of uses of Jo Guest for different games as well, 
one being a Football game and the other one being a 2001 style Science Fiction space ship romp (ad to the left); the links between a nearly naked lady and either football or piloting a spaceship are still a bit beyond my grasp. In fact, more recently, towards the end of the 90's, the game version of the Fighting Fantasy RPG-in-a-book Deathtrap Dungeon utilised the rather sizable ass(ets) of Kelly Brook; yet another "boobs out" tabloid girl. The whole Page 3 link took me by surprise, I have to say, and there are undoubtedly many more as I did no actual research for this; it's entirely from my own slowly dissipating memory. Similarities can definitely be seen with EA's use of modern pin-ups in the NFS series...
It does amuse me to see the differences in what's considered sexy from the 1980's in comparison to what's considered sexy today, which in my mind has more points in common with "slutty" as opposed to just "sexy" on it's own...
To step back a little from the whole advertising and sex fiasco, Game Over is actually a fairly good representation of the state that home computer games were in during the late 80's. It was no glory time and for every Turrican that was released, there were at the very least 30 or more "Game Overs". Games may have improved, but the percentage of good games vs. bad games is at best exactly the same as it was, and more likely much worse. Sex however is still being used to sell games to youngsters, but increasingly also to adults now, and the games are still mostly "teh suck". Which was my point all along (I think...). Cunning eh!? Though maybe it's all just an excuse for the most non-erotic "tits n' ass" on the net!
At some point in the not too distant future, I'll vaguely compare how the industry is using sex nowadays to sell games to an older market, and all the subtle (as subtle as Rob Halford) gay icons in video gaming! You have been warned...
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