In Armchair Arcade‘s  ongoing series (first started back in 2012 on the old version of our Website, here, and now continued here), we ask the provocative question, “What makes a particular videogame sexy?” Each feature explores some of the many intriguing approaches game designers have taken over the years to make their games more sensual, not just with increasingly detailed graphics, but also with romantic and seductive gameplay. While some of the games we’ll be looking at are unabashedly low brow, displaying their raw sexuality like a badge of honor, other games in contrast are remarkably subtle, often downplaying their suggestive themes.

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Today’s series entry, which is the sixth, features the extreme sports game, BMX XXX. While the purpose of this series of articles is to bring mature insight and some fun to the subject of how sexy is portrayed in videogames, it’s important to note that our latest subject is a game with few redeeming qualities, which, sadly, appears to have been its raison d’être:

BMX XXX

Developer: Z-Axis
Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment
Initial Release Date: 2002
Platforms: Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2
Game Type: Sports

Critics of the medium often seem under the false impression that videogames are primarily played by horny 13-old-boys, a kind of sociopathic stereotype that’s rife for a cringe inducing comic relief style portrayal in a bad TV show or movie. Of course, the reality is videogame playing spans every age, gender and interest, but with millions of games produced over a span of more than 60 years, it naturally follows that there will be a few prime examples of games that seem designed by and for that very stereotype. In fact, one such game, BMX XXX, was purposely built to be a type of videogame version of the Lord of the Flies conch shell, calling out to all the horny pubescent boys to come buy a copy. Apparently these boys were to have access to one of the three major videogame consoles, but inexplicably lack similar access to either late night cable television or the Internet. Unfortunately for publisher Acclaim Entertainment, who went fittingly “bust” just a few years later, such a wild scenario never played out.

BMX XXX was originally intended as an entry in Acclaim’s critically acclaimed Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX-series, but once Mirra got a whiff of the new game’s direction, he promptly took legal action to successfully remove any and all association with the product. That proved a shrewd move, as BMX XXX hits all the sexual – naked boobies! – and comedic – poop! – low points with about as much skill as a bike riding n00b trying to pull off a Flair. This of course extends to the manual, where words like “shizznits” are used to demonstrate how hip the game is while you’re constantly being warned about how much you’re going to laugh.

To be fair, for those who favor, say, the “get right to it” nature of today’s porn in contrast to the slower seduction of 1970s theatrical porn like a Behind the Green Door or Emmanuelle, BMX XXX‘s lack of subtlety might have some appeal. In fact, in this way, BMX XXX is the model of consistency, with unabashedly in-your-face juvenile humor, foul language, and instantly recognizable character stereotypes, such as a purple-laden, platform shoe wearing, jive talking, pimp, complete with hump-happy pink poodle.

It only follows then that despite its promising origins, the gameplay never quite matches up to the polish of the better titles in the extreme sports category, least of all the original gold standard, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Like with the humor and sexuality, BMX XXX certainly tries its best, offering up more than 2,000 tricks to perform on its virtual bike, but it’s like our stereotypical teenager’s clumsy first time “doing it”–it might be fun for the brief moment the act lasts, but it’s not a particularly positive experience he’d like to revisit in quite the same way again. That analogy is particularly àpropos as the rewards for pulling off tricks and completing goals are to unlock things like new levels or stripper videos, complete with aforementioned naked boobs.

Depending upon taste, some may find the above sexy enough to include the game in our list. However, the real reason why BMX XXX made the cut is its robust character editor, where you can create the Weird Science-like lady rider of your dreams, albeit with criminally few polygons. The “M. Night Shyamalan” style twist to this story though is that this character editor only has naked breasts available as an option by default on the Nintendo GameCube version–you have to unlock the privilege on the Microsoft Xbox, and the best you can do is pasties on Sony’s PlayStation 2. For anyone familiar with Nintendo’s infamous family friendly “blood is sweat” policies and Microsoft’s and Sony’s generally looser regulations, you know something like that never should have happened, yet somehow it’s fitting for a game like BMX XXX.