The spoilers also known as the British Board of Film Classification have officially rated Mass Effect, the upcoming sci-fi role-playing game from BioWare. Their verdict? That English 12-year-olds can safely watch "breast nudity" and hot inter-species action.
Already rated M for "mature" by the Entertainment Software Rating Board in the United States and set for a Nov. 20 release, Mass Effect is a space epic featuring a human hero (male or female) thrust into a galactic crisis involving multiple alien races.
We've known for some time that Mass Effect's Cmdr. Shepard, the game's main playable character, will have romantic options in the game. And according to the BBFC Web site, things between Shepard and an NPC stand to get a bit racy as the story unfolds.
Here, in their own words, is what the members of the Brit ratings board had to say about the saucier moments in Mass Effect. In case you had any doubts, consider this a spoiler alert. Also, our U.S. readers should read it aloud in a British accent. It's funnier that way:
"The violence is undetailed and takes place in a futuristic setting. The single sex scene is brief and undetailed, although there is breast nudity in one version of the scene. The sex scene is triggered by the player making a series of choices about becoming more than friends with a colleague. If playing as a male character the scene can take place between him and a human woman or a humanoid female alien. If playing as a female character the scene can take place between her and a male human or a female humanoid alien."
It's important to point out that versions of a game can vary from one region to the next and that what makes it into a European release won't necessarily end up on U.S. consoles.
We note that just one version of the scene mentioned above, albeit "undetailed," contains breast nudity. We're not sure if that means the BBFC only saw one version so can only comment about that version, or if there are indeed multiple endings for the scene, depending on your character's, ahem, performance.
We also noticed that the BBFC describes an intimate possibility between the human female Shepard and a female humanoid alien. The most humanoid alien race in Mass Effect universe are the asari and, as we understand it, they don't think of themselves as having a gender distinction, although they look more female than male to human eyes.
To sum up, it's unclear at this point who or what Cmrd. Shepard may roll in the galactic hay with, and in what international version of the game he/she may or may not do so. Stay tuned to IGN's Mass Effect coverage for more space soap opera drama as the game nears its November launch.