Nude mods
If a game has mod support, someone has made a nude mod stripping characters of their clothes. If a game does not have mod support, someone has tried to hack it to make them go about in the nip. If nudity can’t be hacked into the game, someone will have tried to dress characters in ways that make them look nude, or tried to find garment-removing glitches, or… I don’t know why but nude mods are ubiquitous in PC gaming. We must recognise their wild popularity and accordingly consider them a potential candidate for best thing. A nude mod lets you see your characters all over, slip deeper into their minds by letting you truly know their form in the same way the characters themselves surely must. A nude mod lets you check your characters for ailments that might be obscured by clothes, such as melanoma, rashes, or perhaps even posture problems, letting you become comforted by the knowledge that they’re healthy and well. A nude mod might let you pick a better lipstick colour in the character creator by matching it to their nipples. A nude mod lets you bully Cara by pretending her dream man is a horrible naked Dark Souls beefcake. And presumably, a nude mod helps you honk your pud.
Going into guts and meat
Nothing is more unknown to us than inside ourselves—bodies, not minds (unless we have a camera, or arrange a complex series of mirrors, or suffer a terrible rending). I am delighted whenever a game shows me life from a new perspective by burrowing deep into flesh, rooting around in guts, or getting swallowed by a vast creature. What could be more mysterious! More awe-inspiring! More terrible! Going into a city-swallowing worm in Gears Of War 2 to chainsaw its hearts? Amazing. And I will never forget the horrible grinding teeth in System Shock 2 after the Body of The Many envelops the spaceships. Speaking of teeth, the opening level of Psychonauts 2 is truly horrible and wonderful. Just the worst. It’s perfect. Huge chunks of the original Prey’s spaceship setting are meat, with so many unpleasant sphincter doors. Dead Space has been awfully fond of meatzones too. The more I think, the more guts I remember. Even a CS:GO surf map goes into guts. Hell, there are entire games set inside bodies! Though I find myself less interested in being shrunk down to go inside a regular-sized body than I am being regular-sized inside a giant body. I realise this sounds like vore but I swear it isn’t (kids, don’t Google that word). Though if you are into weird erotica, the horror shmup series Galshell has you blast booby aliens while flying through miles of giant spaceguts. I’m also willing to count writhing, sprawling tracts of flesh which aren’t quite bodies. You can be delighted with the meatwizard’s fleshy home makeover in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines here. I also count the Mass Effect 2 mission inside a derelict Reaper, though sadly it only had a few lifeform-feeling parts and was mostly just another metal spaceship. Reader dear, if you wish to bend this thing in other directions to fit in more guts, I’m certainly willing to hear you out if you make a convincing case.
But which is better?
Guts for me, not a moment of hesitation. If you answer “both, together” I will do my level best to get you banned from cyberspace. Pick your winner, vote in the poll below, make your case in the comments to convince others, then we’ll reconvene next week to see which thing stands triumphant—and continue the great contest.
