Tomonobu Itagaki

Of all the hideous monsters and hellspawn that haunt Tecmo's third-person action game Ninja Gaiden—mace-weilding zombies, giant fire-breathing worms, faceless samurai—nothing frightened me more than demon hunter Rachel's ridiculously oversized breasts. No kidding. When I first encountered them—they're seriously the size of small Third World countries—I let out a ninja-like cry—something like "Aiieeeee!"—then braced myself (left trigger! left trigger!) for their attack.

Game Description: Ninja Gaiden—the classic 2D action series has returned with bleeding-edge graphics, intense fighting action and thrilling gameplay! You take on the role of Ryu Hayabusa, a young ninja who survives the massacre of his family. The Vigor Empire is responsible for their deaths, and he'll use his ninja skills to make them pay. Experience even more combat action as you go online for multiplayer ninja battles. Also includes the 3 original NES Ninja Gaiden games.

If the game were truly about volleyball, or even about forming relationships, then there would not be random screens of the girls walking up and down beaches or lying down in poses that make them appear, as a friend so aptly put it, "freshly raped."

Sex is something of an enigma for this country. Everyone wants it, everyone thinks about it, but almost nobody wants to deal with it in a meaningful and intelligent way. This is especially true for videogames and their delayed acceptance as culturally valid media.

Game Description: The girls of Dead or Alive are back and better than ever in the first fantasy sports simulation, Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox video game console. It's sure to have your heart racing with beautifully rendered graphics and action-packed gameplay. The extreme action is transported from the fighting ring of Dead or Alive 3 to the beach. But this time around the girls are throwing on their bikinis to go head-to-head in the most outrageous beach volleyball game you have ever seen!

I'll admit that I'm not much of a fan of fighting games on consoles. I usually spent my time playing the Street Fighters and Tekkens in arcades because I believe the experience of a fighting game is much more exciting when you're actually playing against a human opponent. Considering that most of the people I hang around don't really care for video games, it's been hard for me to ever have a good experience with a fighting game at home. I always end up convinced that the computer cheats and is out to get me (which aggravates me to no end).

According to the ESRB, this game contains Mature Sexual Themes, Violence

Tecmo's Dead Or Alive series has, unfortunately, always been the Frank Stallone of fighting games. The original was released to a small Japanese audience on the short-lived Sega Saturn, and its subsequent 1998 release on the Playstation played second fiddle to Namcos blockbuster Tekken 3.

Game Description: Dead or Alive 3 gives gamers the ability to enjoy a richer, more intense, action-packed experience than was previously possible on a video game system. Dead or Alive 3 is a 3D fighting game transplanted from the arcade to home, specifically for the Xbox. Tecmo has done extensive research into the technical capabilities of the Xbox and is convinced it is the ideal platform on which to showcase the latest entry in its extremely popular franchise.

Nearly a decade later and dozens of other entries into the genre, things have changed quite a bit. In Tecmo's newest Dreamcast fighting game, Dead Or Alive 2, the gender of playable characters has shifted dramatically to a near equal five to seven ratio; still in favor of males.