Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode/The Mafat Conspiracy

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode/The Mafat Conspiracy

Released: 1988 (Top Secret Episode)/1990 (The Mafat Conspiracy)
Developed: Vic Tokai
Published: Vic Tokai
Platform: NES

For many pubescent gamers weaned on the 8-bit NES console in the late eighties, the James Bond wanna be super spy (who was actually a popular manga hitman character in Japan) Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode was probably one of the earliest "they didn't just do what I think they did" shocking moments in console gaming.

Through out his lengthy mission, Golgo 13 encounters many female operatives who not only offer intelligence, but also themselves. The actual depiction of sexual consummation takes the shape of two small and primitive

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode/The Mafat Conspiracy

shaped silhouettes briefly coming together—voyeuristically viewed from a distant wide-angle shot of hotel room window. In a strangely comedic twist, the player's energy is restored in the morning.

It's hard to say what's more surprising. The aggressive amount of times Golgo 13 has sex with multiple willing partners or how a notoriously stringent Nintendo content approval system at the time, which had complete quality control over all games released on the NES, allowed such sleaze to slip through and gain its famed seal of approval.

In the sequel The Mafat Conspiracy, Nintendo's watchdogs seemed asleep at the wheel again as the game ups the bedroom shenanigans up a couple of notches from Top Secret Episode. Golgo 13 only unleashes the beast once early on in the game when he hooks up with a female agent contact, but it's an extremely memorable moment due to the beautiful old school Ninja Gaiden-like storyboard sequences. The images featured dramatic close-ups of the pair vibing each other as well come-hither foreplay dialogue that ends with much more recognizable silhouettes (you can tell which one is the man and which one is the woman) embracing and falling to the ground against a vibrant and romantic nighttime cityscape.

Rise of the Dragon

Rise of the Dragon

Released: 1992
Developer: Dynamix
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Platform: PC

Despite how the title can be taken way out of context for this article, Rise of the Dragon, isn't overtly sexual in subject matter. Rise of the Dragon was high-profile PC adventure/quest homage to the sci-fi cult-classic Blade Runner film from Sierra On-Line second-party developers Dynamix.

Rise of the Dragon

While Sierra's Quest titles were all the rage during this era, Rise of the Dragon managed to employ some unique gameplay conventions to the genre such as basic memories for non-playing characters players interacted with and a real-time clock that simulated a 24-hour day.

Early in the game, the main character Blade is in the doghouse with his long-suffering girlfriend, Karyn. If the player purchases flowers and takes them to her office, the two will reconcile and will go out on a dinner date later that evening. Assuming the player doesn't miss that date, the two consummate by having make-up sex.

The love scene is non-interactive and portrayed with graphic novel like panels consistent with the overall art direction of the game. There's some heavy petting and embracing, but nothing R-rated. The tone of the scene isn't played for laughs, but there's a moment of adult levity when during a deep kiss, Blade contemplates having almost having lost Karyn while she wishes he didn't have onions for dinner.