New Video Game Features "Babe-Slapping" Mode

What’s better than a good ol’ game of Capture the Flag? According to the makers of the video game Duke Nukem Forever, a misogynistic high tech version called Capture the Babe.

The Duke is no stranger to controversy. The last version of the game, which came out in 1995, featured a button the player could push to force women in the game to bare their breasts. Classy.

But it seems Gearbox Software, the Texas-based company that purchased the rights from 3D Realms to revive the alien war game franchise, are attempting to up the creepster factor this time around. An early review of the game in the Official Xbox Magazine reveals one of the player modes is called Capture the Babe. Objective: capture the enemy’s sex object from their base, throw her over your shoulder, and carry her back to your base to share the spoils with your fellow soldiers. She may start to “freak out” -- because she’s a woman and we’re wont to do that, I guess, especially when gang rape is intimated as the outcome of being kidnapped -- at which point, the player has the option to, according to Official Xbox Magazine, "gently give her a reassuring slap."

Translation: After forcibly kidnapping a living human being like a flag and tossing her over your shoulder Caveman style, you get to hit her to shut her up.

After some publications reported the player gets to slap the captive woman in the face, Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford took to Twitter to set the record straight. “Get it right, folks! In the DNF MP game "Capture the Babe", Duke can give the girl a love smack on the booty - not face!” he tweeted.

I’ll let Rachel at Feminist Fatale, whose post first alerted us to the offending game, take that one: "Here’s a quick note for Mr. Pitchford – slapping a woman who is scared and trying to break free, on the ass, instead of the face doesn’t make it better. It means the word “sexual” should be added to the assault."

Pritchford also thinks it’s “awesome” that feminists like me are going to call him and his company out on being blatant proponents of sexual violence. “If some feminist organisation that is doing a great job advocating women's rights worldwide, which I think is really important, can get some advantage by using Duke... go for it,” he told the site Eurogamer.

If Randy Pritchford wants controversy from angry feminists, let’s give it to him. Whether misogyny is commonplace in games or not, or whether this CEO is digging for attention or not, there’s a line that must not be crossed. A game that promotes violence against women as normal and even fun is absolutely not acceptable.

Yesterday, news broke that Duke Nukem Forever’s release date has been pushed back from early May to June 14th. That’s enough time for developers to rethink the “babe-slapping” sexual violence promoting feature before it hits the shelves. To help that thought process along, tell Wal-Mart -- a primary seller of the game -- to refuse to put it on the shelves unless the “Capture the Babe” mode is removed.