Teamworking Day: The Gorgeous Guys of Gaming 🌭

Video games have been dominated by the male gaze since their inception. Back in the ’90s, when our pixel technology finally caught up to our ass technology, every female video game character had to have a supermove that pointed a butt at you. Brockway has been playing games since he was a kid and he’s seen so much unsolicited taint that he now suffers from a rare grundle-aversion disorder called Tailor’s Tourette’s. Seanbaby has so deeply associated street fighting with ass cleavage his enemies die knowing nothing but boner. And it’s so great, ladies. Whether we’re raiding tombs or punching someone to death, we men have so many things to look at to get horny. We want everyone to experience this joy, so we’ve assembled the hunkiest covers in gaming history just for the girls. Men, fuck off. Ladies, now is the time to engage your 1-900-HOT-DOG Panty Suspenders because they are about to shoot off hard and slippery.

Brockway: Super Robin Hood might have a dent in his face and a headband growing through his skull, but he has more abs than any man in history. And as we all know, more abs equals more attractiveness. His torso looks like a package of Peeps, and I’ve never met a Peep I didn’t want to fuck.

Seanbaby: Those aren’t abs. That’s how you say, “FUCK MACHINE” in Braille. And Super Robin Hood is like that all the way down– his dong has the rivets of a plump, freshly boiled ear of corn. I’ve never been so sure of anything. If you handed me a bomb set to go off if Super Robin Hood has a smooth penis, I would put it under my pillow and sleep so perfectly sound.

Brockway: This is such a meaningless pledge from you now. I can’t count how many times you’ve sworn to sleep atop a bomb set to explode if somebody has a smooth penis, and it’s never gone off. Maybe that’s because you don’t have the skill to set an explosive device to detect penile texture, or maybe you’re just always right. Either way, you’re not tricking me into betting on Greek Roulette again.

Brockway: It’s rare that a man is secure enough to splay. I’ve seen plenty of video game women do this pose, but for a man to risk ridicule just to expose that double standard shows an inordinate amount of confidence. And confidence is sexy. And demon-skull codpieces are very sexy.

Seanbaby: I know enough about demon skull codpieces to know it’s weird to have a red orb jammed into one. Did Targhan get transported into this dragon fight straight from a ball pit? Was he hiding mostly nude in a Chuck E. Cheese Discovery Zone thinking, “Come on, Targhan, how the shit are you going to get out of this one!? Oh, thank Christ, an unexplainable magic portal!”

Brockway: As hilariously awesome as EXPERIMENTAL SURGEON: THE VIDEO GAME sounds, this was actually an anti-smoking “educational experience.” Watching a child get this game from grandma is like taking a thirty second tour of all the emotions, but we can’t hold his game against him. Rex Ronan cares enough about human health to insert himself into a Tobacco Executive, and that’s a sacrifice we must respect. Care is sexy, and Rex Ronan cares enough to voluntarily penetrate pure evil.

Seanbaby: Ladies, if someone told you, “My name is Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon, and that’s spelled entirely on fire,” you’re lying to yourself if you think you wouldn’t fuck him.

Seanbaby: Rick Dangerous is what a loving mother says to her son when he asks who his father was. Rick Dangerous is what you tell the Def Leppard cover band when they say, “We’re going with the name Fuckcity Ramblers unless anyone has something better?” Rick Dangerous is what your wife accidentally screams in bed when your name is Leonard Dangerous.

Brockway: Rick Dangerous will absolutely give you Chlamydia. Hell, if you call him up to tell him he gave you an STD, he’ll clap when he finds out it’s just one. He knows he’s a herpes gallery, you know he’s a herpes gallery, and you promise yourself it’ll never happen… but six daiquiris deep in an airport bar and you might find it’s nice just to have someone want you. Want you for forty-two seconds, standing up, behind the charging kiosk, and then never again.

Brockway: Look at these smooth boys with their high, thick pants and pinched faces. I feel like this is a hunky memorial calendar from a small part of Eastern Europe so dominated by war and forgotten by the world that we no longer list their country on any map. In South Muskoslav, they like their boys like they like their potatoes: Peeled, starchy, and gone too soon.

Seanbaby: The boxy, unshirted teen soldiers of Muskoslav are each issued a Kloopifart-16 Assault Sproingdoodle, a multi-purpose tool of conflict that can pit olives, hem pants, and keep 28 ounces of soup hot for a metric hour (37 minutes). God bless these husky fighting boys!

Brockway: Micro Fun was prepared to deliver exactly what their name promises. It’s a pretty bold move to proclaim right up top that your game is a huge step backwards. I respect that kind of honesty, Mr. Dino Eggs. Your face might not belong with your body, but my heart belongs to you.

Seanbaby: There seems to be no function to this man’s outfit. Tights and cowboy boots under french cut panties probably made him a symbol of hope where he’s from, but he’s alone in history, snatching eggs from baffled dinosaurs. He could wear sensible shoes and something with pockets. My point is, no one is going to see him until paleontologists dig his bones out of petrified dino shit hundreds of millions of years from now and he still took the time to get dressed up. I think ladies will appreciate that.

Brockway: I haven’t seen a man pull off the ‘my go-go boots, your panties, mom’s dishwashing gloves’ look since Burt Reynolds’ infamous Cosmopolitan spread. And I still haven’t.

Seanbaby: I worry things are getting a little too hot here, so let’s cool them off with Snake Roy, who is the worst of both of those words. Roy looks like he and the python eating him died at the same time and there was some kind of a ghost mistake. But whatever it is, there’s a good chance we are looking at its anus. On dating profiles, Snake Roy describes himself as, “I look like someone dropped their wedding ring in an outhouse, but I’m also a fat fucking snake from the back of the head down. 2 inches uncut, forked”

Brockway: Snake Roy is an atrocity of human imagination. He’s why LeVar Burton had to start telling children “almost everybody can be creative!” From his squat nose to his mossy patches to his snake scales made out of dry human skin, I have to hate every part of Snake Roy individually because I just don’t have enough hate in me to hate him as a cohesive whole. He’s the second worst thing that’s ever appeared on a video game box. Only behind…

Brockway: Space Rogue is the least attractive man ever to grace a video game cover, specifically because of the unearned arrogance on display. Space Rogue’s dad owns the company and insisted that his son be on the box. Space Rogue simultaneously thinks this gig is beneath him and that he got it on his own merits. Space Rogue has never had a dinner date that didn’t end with a concerned citizen whispering to the bartender.

Seanbaby: This is how Space Rogue walks away from a space bouncer after they point to a sign that says “CASH ONLY NO PUSSIES.”

Seanbaby: At first I thought women wouldn’t be into a man called Ball Raider. After all, a man called Ball Raider definitely wouldn’t be into them. But then I tried gender swapping the situation in my head. I thought, “Would I be interested in a woman named Titty Dominator or Labia Tamer?” I think I would. I think it so hard I almost dented the inside of my skull. I understand certain things like surprise nudity or ghostbusting don’t work as well after a gender swap, but just in case this isn’t one of those times, enjoy Ball Raider, ladies.

Brockway: It’s true, Ball Raider should have been at the top of this list: He’s ripped, he’s got those handsome Muskoslavian features, and he’s not trying to hide who he is. He’s here to do two things: dispense stabs and raid balls, and brother — he’s not out of either. But like Rex Ronan, his game is a lie. It’s a Breakout clone superimposed over shitty sci-fi artwork, one level of which is just a bored space office-drone chatting it up on a CB. Rex Ronan didn’t lose points for a lie he couldn’t help, but Ball Raider, I know Rex Ronan and you, sir, are no Rex Ronan.

Brockway: Cock’in was going to get a much higher rating before I realized it was about chickens. 

Seanbaby: It probably says a lot about us as artists in how quickly we’ll throw away our entire premise to make not so much a cock joke as a cock statement of fact: a chicken game exists called COCK’IN. Ball Raider had some whimsy, but COCK’IN is a confrontationally lewd name. It’s like calling a flu shot “GRANDMA PENETRATION” or a turkey recipe “BIRD FISTIN’ ASSHOLE SALAD.”

Brockway: I was thinking of justifying this game’s inclusion by talking about how Mr. COCK’IN satisfies that hipster hunk angle, but we all know why this is here. I am a simple man, and they italicized the IN.

Seanbaby: If you like rugged men, it doesn’t get much more rugged than most of a wild animal’s face silently screaming from a man’s jacket sleeve. And what he lacks in handsome he makes up for in mystery. He’ll install most of a dreamcatcher in his beard and when it comes to holding pants up, he’s a handgrab man, not a belt man. A real Sturgis Man wears 270 accessories, but never one on the waist. It means one less step when you’re digging for a crotch that’s been showerlessly traveling on a hot bike seat for three days. So hop on, ladies, but be careful back there– this jacket is mostly possum teeth.

Brockway: I appreciate the brutal, unflinching honesty Harley-Davidson went for with this game. The model on the cover looks like he took Mister Congeniality in the Northern Idaho All-Militia Beauty Pageant. While the in-game screenshot is a bored dentist questioning his own sexuality on a tour through Olive Oil country. Truly, the full gamut of Harley riders. Take your pick, ladies — they will both disappoint you in equal amounts but in wildly different ways.

Seanbaby: The knife in the Joe Blade 2 title is not silent. This game is pronounced “Joe Blastabbed E-2.”

Brockway: Joe Blade is the greatest war hero that the hated North Muskoslav ever produced, and while he is certainly the greatest hunk their budget eugenics have given the world, part of any sexual fantasy is the illusion of attainability. And one look at that mustache and you know the only creature who could tame his wild heart is Tom of Finland.

Brockway: This looks like a school photo that a Swedish mother regrets springing for. You couldn’t even loan this poor intern a pair of boots for the cover photoshoot? You had him pose in socks, sweatpants, and a bathmat, and you told him he looked like a Viking. You assured him the hammer and helmet would look great in CGI, and in no way would he come across as “doing softcore porn for meatball money.” But you lied to him. You lied to him on every account and then you named him Vicky. I hope this kid killed every dog you ever had — that’s the only way this revenge seems proportional.

Seanbaby: I admire how they made such a low-rent design look like a struggle. Every inch of this cover art feels like the final destination of hundreds of hours of mistakes and bad decisions. Did they draw Vicky’s hat after a failed quest to find a real Viking helmet? Were they so torn between an action pose and a static one they had to settle on putting a little angry Vicky up in the sky? And there had to have been some kind of an argument about the socks. Also, was that the Vikingest font they had? Because I think it’s the one FastBusinessCards.biz calls “Default.” Vicky looks like an ebook about paleo fish curing techniques. This art is so bad I have fully lost track of what the fuck we were doing here.

Brockway: We’re critiquing proof of concept art for the knock-off Thor costume sold at Haunted Hank’s Halloweemporium, right?

Brockway: Yes, I know it’s Fabio and that’s not great. But you have to concede that Fabio is a beautiful man. The only thing not beautiful about Fabio is Fabio, so if he’s supposed to be somebody else — a wizard, a warrior, a stock boy, a serial killer with a toe fetish — that’s a sexy step up.

Seanbaby: In Ironsword you played a faceless hero in a full set of armor, and you fussed at monsters with a sword a third that long. Which means whoever commissioned this box art was so horny they risked their job just to be near Fabio’s nipples for a half hour. This shirtless photo of Fabio is so aggressively unrelated to Ironsword it’s barely the same genre. This is like advertising a NASCAR event with two men oiling each other’s chests from bicycles. It’s like putting a weird pair of tits on the cover of Donkey Kong and calling it a day.

Brockway: Welp, that’s it for us, folks.