Custer's Revenge | |
---|---|
![]() Cover art | |
Developer(s) | JHM Ltd. |
Publisher(s) | American Multiple Industries |
Platform(s) | Atari 2600 |
Release |
|
Genre(s) | Action |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Custer's Revenge (also known as Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica: Custer's Revenge) is an adult action game published by American Multiple Industries for the Atari 2600, first released in November 1982. [1] The game gained notoriety owing to its goal of raping a Native American woman who is tied to a post. [2] [3]
The titular player character is based on Lieutenant Colonel and Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer, a famous American cavalry commander who is most well known for his major defeat and death at the Battle of Little Bighorn. [4]
Following the Christmas season of 1982, the rights to American Multiple Industries' games, including Custer's Revenge, were sold off to the adult video game company PlayAround. [1] Under PlayAround's parent company, Castlespring Enterprises, Custer's Revenge was re-branded as Westward Ho for the European market and given slight modifications to its original gameplay. These alterations included simple aesthetic changes such as the darkening in color of the Native American woman's skin tone. PlayAround also made a gender-reversed version of Custer's Revenge named General Retreat.
The game was universally panned by critics and has been described as one of the worst video games ever made.
Custer's Revenge is an action video game in which the player controls a mostly nude General Custer, who must advance through the playing field and avoid arrows to rape the fully nude Native American woman Revenge, who is tied to a pole on the other side. [5] The game consists of four numbered modes of play; modes 1 and 3 are single-player campaigns, while modes 2 and 4 are hotseat multiplayer modes. [6] In modes 1 and 2, the player(s) must only avoid arrows, while in modes 3 and 4, cacti that appear and disappear at random intervals are added as obstacles. [7] Custer can move left or right if the joystick is moved in those directions, while shifting the joystick up or down will cause Custer to stop. [6]
Custer begins the game with three lives, which are represented by small cacti on a black stripe at the bottom of the screen. [5] If an arrow touches Custer's hat or if Custer comes into contact with a cactus, he loses a life to the tune of "Taps". It is possible for Custer to stand in between two arrows and not get hit. [7] If Custer successfully reaches Revenge, the player must repeatedly press the fire button for Custer to rape her, which occurs to the "Charge" fanfare. Each penetration awards one point, [5] and the player earns an extra life for every 50 points. The player(s) can accumulate no more than six lives at any given time. [8] For every 50 points scored, Custer returns to his original position on the field, and the speed of the arrows increases. The arrow speed can also be increased by flipping the difficulty switch on the Atari console. [9]
Custer's Revenge was developed as part of the "Swedish Erotica" series to capitalize on the lack of pornography available in the medium of video games. The development was deliberately sloppy and rushed because quality did not matter—they only needed a product on store shelves. The overtly racist and sexist themes were chosen to maximize outrage and generate free publicity. [10]
Custer's Revenge quickly gained notoriety upon its release. Sold in a sealed package labeled "NOT FOR SALE TO MINORS" [11] and selling for $49.95 (equivalent to $158in 2023), [12] it acknowledged that children might nonetheless see the game. The game's literature stated "if the kids catch you and should ask, tell them Custer and the maiden are just dancing." [13] The makers elected to preview the game for women's and Native American groups, an act that many thought was a publicity stunt. [14]
Women's rights groups [15] [ dead link ] such as the National Organization for Women criticized the game as "degrading, offensive and a blatant statement of racism and sexism [...] NOW cannot ignore any company which seeks to so blatantly portray acts of violence against women as a form of entertainment." [16] Native Americans also protested the game, with the executive director of the Tulsa Native American Coalition saying "It is very degrading to the Indian woman as well as all women in general," and "There's no other way we can take it other than a racial slur." [17] Other groups that opposed the game included the Native American Political Action Committee, United National Indian Youth Inc., the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission, the American Indian Training and Employment Program, the NAACP, the Urban League, and the YWCA. [18] [19] American Multiple Industries president Stuart Keston responded to criticism of the game by saying "There is a sexual act, but it is not rape. It never has been." [20]
Los Angeles County voted 3–1 to ban Custer's Revenge alongside American Multiple Industries' other adult-only games Bachelor Party and Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em . [21] Suffolk County, New York voted to ban all "X-rated" games within their jurisdiction. [22] Multiple Industries subsequently pursued an $11 million lawsuit against Suffolk County and legislator Philip Nolan "because of a resolution authorizing the county executive to take action to halt sales and distribution" of the game. [23] Oklahoma City, home to a large Native American population, also unanimously passed a resolution condemning the game as "distasteful" and "not in the best interests of the community". [24] While both Ward 1 Councilman Bob McCoy and city attorney Walter Powell sought to block distribution within the city, and Multiple Industries did briefly halt distribution there, it was never officially banned by the city [24] [25] as is sometimes erroneously reported. [26] [27]
Nevertheless, the focused media attention generated publicity for the game and it sold approximately 80,000 copies, twice as many as Bachelor Party and Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em.[ citation needed ] Atari received numerous complaints about the game however and responded by trying to sue the game's makers. [28] Stuart Kesten, President of American Multiple Industries, stated "our object is not to arouse, our object is to entertain [...] When people play our games, we want them smiling, we want them laughing." The game's designer, Joel Martin, said Custer was "seducing" the maiden and that she was a "willing participant". [12] By April 1983, the game was withdrawn from circulation. [29]
In 1988, computer gaming magazine Ahoy! called Custer's Revenge "an [affront] to common decency", in contrast to more modern and 'tasteful' adult games. [30] Electronic Gaming Monthly 's Seanbaby placed it as number 9 in his "20 worst games of all time" feature. [31]
In 2008, the University of Calgary professor Tom Keenan cited "the hideous Custer's Revenge game", 26 years after its release, in an op-ed piece about current video game violence issues for the Calgary Herald . [32] That same year, the game was credited by Australian PC Magazine as being one of the worst games ever made, [33] while Games.net ranked Custer's victim as fifth on the list of top ten "disturbingly sexual" game characters. [34] In 2010, Custer placed eighth on machinima.com's list of the top perverts in gaming. [35] UGO.com ranked it as tenth on the list of the most racist video games in history in 2010, [36] also ranking the game's General Custer as the second most unsexy video game character of all time in 2012. [37]
The Atari 2600 is a discontinued home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982 alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
The video game crash of 1983 was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985 in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of video game consoles and available games, many of which were of poor quality. Waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers also played a role. Home video game revenue peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985. The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. To a lesser extent, the arcade video game market also weakened as the golden age of arcade video games came to an end.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 adventure video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600 and based on the film of the same name. The game's objective is to guide the eponymous character through various screens to collect three pieces of an interplanetary telephone that will allow him to contact his home planet.
Combat is a 1977 video game by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System. In the game, two players controlling either a tank, a biplane, or a jet fire missiles at each other for two minutes and sixteen seconds. Points are scored by hitting the opponent, and the player with the most points when the time runs out wins. Variations on the gameplay introduce elements such as invisible vehicles, missiles that ricochet off of walls, and different playing fields.
Revolution X is a shooting gallery video game developed by Midway and released in arcades in 1994. The gameplay is similar to Midway's earlier Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but is themed around the band Aerosmith. The oppressive New Order Nation regime and their leader Helga have abducted Aerosmith, and players use a mounted gun to control onscreen crosshairs and shoot enemies. The members of Aerosmith are hidden throughout the game's international locales and must be found in order to receive the game's true ending.
Video games featuring sexual content have existed since the early days of the industry. They can be found on most platforms and can be of any video game genre.
American Multiple Industries, doing business as Mystique, was a company that produced a line of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600 called Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica, which included the games Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party and Custer's Revenge. It was one of several video game companies that tried to use sex to sell its games. The brand name Swedish Erotica was licensed from a series of pornographic films by Caballero Control Corporation, although they were programmed in the United States, and manufactured in Hong Kong.
Bachelor Party is a pornographic video game for the Atari 2600 by American Multiple Industries in 1982.
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em is a pornographic video game for the Atari 2600 made by American Multiple Industries in 1982. Players control two nude women; the goal is to catch semen in their mouths, which is falling from a masturbating man on a rooftop, without missing. Its gameplay has been compared to the Atari game Kaboom!. There is also a gender-reversed version of the game titled Philly Flasher that features identical gameplay. Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em has received negative reviews since its release and is an oft-cited example of pornographic Atari 2600 games.
In the history of video games, the second-generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1976 to 1992. Notable platforms of the second generation include the Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, and ColecoVision. The generation began in November 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F. This was followed by the Atari 2600 in 1977, Magnavox Odyssey² in 1978, Intellivision in 1980 and then the Emerson Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex, all in 1982. By the end of the era, there were over 15 different consoles. It coincided with, and was partly fuelled by, the golden age of arcade video games. This peak era of popularity and innovation for the medium resulted in many games for second generation home consoles being ports of arcade games. Space Invaders, the first "killer app" arcade game to be ported, was released in 1980 for the Atari 2600, though earlier Atari-published arcade games were ported to the 2600 previously. Coleco packaged Nintendo's Donkey Kong with the ColecoVision when it was released in August 1982.
White Men Can't Jump is a 1995 basketball video game developed by High Voltage Software (HVS) and published by Atari for the Atari Jaguar. It is loosely based on the 1992 20th Century Fox film of the same name. The game features a loose version of basketball known as streetball. It can be played against computer-controlled opponents, or up to four human competitors using the Team Tap multitap.
The HyperScan is a home video game console from the toy company Mattel. Marketed towards tweens, the console is unique in that it includes a 13.56 MHz radio-frequency identification (RFID) scanner that reads and writes to special cards called "IntelliCards" which, in turn, activate features in and save data from the game. Players are able to enhance the abilities of their characters by scanning cards.
Rap Jam: Volume One is a basketball video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, developed by American studio 64WD Creation, in which the players are rap and hip-hop artists. The game is played on an urban basketball court, with fisticuffs and no foul calls. There is an exhibition mode and a tournament mode.
The Atari video game burial was a mass burial of unsold video game cartridges, consoles, and computers in a New Mexico landfill site undertaken by the American video game and home computer company Atari, Inc. in 1983. Before 2014, the goods buried were rumored to be unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), one of the largest commercial video game failures and often cited as one of the worst video games ever released, and the 1982 Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man, which was commercially successful but critically maligned.
Club Drive is a 1994 racing simulation video game developed and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar. The premise takes place in 2098 at the Club Drive amusement park, where driving became legalized after being deemed illegal for safety reasons years prior due to the invention of indestructible vehicles which allowed the ban to be lifted. Gameplay consists of three modes for one or two players, each with their own adjustable ruleset.
Surround is a video game programmed by Alan Miller and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System. The game has players navigate a continuously moving block around an enclosed space as a wall trails behind it. Every time the opposite player has their brick hit a wall, the opposing player earns a single point, with the winner being the first to collect ten points.
Yars' Revenge is a video game designed by Howard Scott Warshaw for the Atari Video Computer System . The game involves a fly-like humanoid alien race known as Yars attacking their arch-rivals the Qotile who have destroyed their habitable planets in their solar system. The players control a Yar and fire or devour an energy shield protecting the Qotile to finish off the enemy with their Zorlon cannon.
AirCars is a 1997 shooter video game developed by MidNite Entertainment Group and published by ICD for the Atari Jaguar. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the player pilots a hovercraft to fight the E.B.N.E.R.S. organization and stop their plans for world domination. The player is tasked with destroying key targets while fighting enemies and bosses in multiple missions. Two players can play in a co-operative campaign, or up to eight players can participate in a deathmatch mode via local area network (LAN).
Virtuoso is a third-person shooter video game developed by MotiveTime and originally published by Nova Spring and Elite Systems in North America and Europe, respectively, for DOS in 1994.
Suffolk County, New York was hit with a lawsuit by people demanding it be withdrawn from sale. Oklahoma City banned the game outright.