10 Controversial Video Game Levels That Were Completely Misunderstood

9. Mass Effect - The Romance Side-Quests

It's astounding just how much controversy can be created with a few, completely unfounded statements. Mass Effect is renowned for it's long, detailed story with branching paths and immense variety of subplots and quests; in particular, the romance subplots which allow Commander Shepard to form a romance with one of his/her crew members. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this side quest drew all sorts of negative coverage, most of which was simply untrue. For whatever reason, America's Fox News (specifically an anchor named Martha MacCullum) decided to run a story about Mass Effect which claimed that the game allowed players to engage in "full graphic sex". A psychology specialist Cooper Lawrence also appeared on the broadcast to criticise the game for teaching players to value women for their sexuality alone. It's fair to say that EA were not happy in the slightest; they immediately demanded an apology for the reckless and error-strewn coverage. The main error lies in the fact that Mass Effect actually features no nudity at all; the side profile of a breast (also known as "alien sideboob" according to the meme) is the closest the game comes to nudity of any description. There is an implied sexual situation at the end of the romance subplot and that's it. Did Fox News misunderstand some information about the game or did they simply decide to create a story out of nothing and run with it? Instead of being praised for creating intelligent, rewarding relationships between characters (potentially of the same-sex, too), Bioware found their new flagship title being torn apart in the public eye over absolutely nothing; thankfully, the unfounded criticisms didn't hamper the game's popularity in any way.