''Custer's Revenge'' (also known as ''Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica: Custer's Revenge'') is an adult
action game published by
American Multiple Industries
American Multiple Industries was a company that produced a line of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600 called ''Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica'', which included the games ''Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em'', ''Bachelor Party'' and ''Custer's Reveng ...
for the
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
, first released in November 1982.
The game gained notoriety owing to its goal of raping a
Native American woman.
The titular player character is based on Lieutenant Colonel and Brevet Major General
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, b ...
, a famous American cavalry commander who is most well known for his major defeat and death at the
Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Nort ...
.
Following the Christmas season of 1982, the rights to American Multiple Industries' games, including ''Custer's Revenge'', were sold off to the adult video game company
PlayAround
PlayAround was formed by Joel H. Martin, co-founder of American Multiple Industries, the first Atari 2600 adult video game company. PlayAround purchased the rights to American Multiple Industries's titles and released them as "double-enders" - ex ...
.
Under PlayAround's parent company, Castlespring Enterprises, ''Custer's Revenge'' was re-branded as ''Westward Ho'' for the European market and given slight modifications to its original gameplay. These alterations included simple aesthetic changes such as the darkening in color of the Native American woman's skin tone. PlayAround also made a gender-reversed version of ''Custer's Revenge'' named ''General Retreat''. The game was universally panned by critics and has been described as one of the
worst video games ever made.
Gameplay
''Custer's Revenge'' is an action video game in which the player controls
General Custer
George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, b ...
, who must advance through the playing field and avoid arrows in order to rape the Indian maiden Revenge, who is tied to a pole on the other side. The game consists of four numbered modes of play; modes 1 and 3 are single-player campaigns, while modes 2 and 4 are
hotseat multiplayer modes. In modes 1 and 2, the player(s) must only avoid arrows, while in modes 3 and 4,
cacti that appear and disappear at random intervals are added as obstacles. Custer can move left or right if the joystick is moved in those directions, while shifting the joystick up or down will cause Custer to stop.
Custer begins the game with three
lives
Lives may refer to:
* The plural form of a '' life''
* Lives, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran
* The number of lives in a video game
* '' Parallel Lives'', aka ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', a series of biographies of famous ...
, which are represented by small cacti on a black stripe at the bottom of the screen. If an arrow touches Custer's hat or if Custer comes into contact with a cactus, he loses a life to the tune of "
Taps". It is possible for Custer to stand in between two arrows and not get hit. If Custer successfully reaches Revenge, the player must repeatedly press the fire button for Custer to penetrate her, which occurs to the
"Charge" fanfare. Each penetration awards one point, and the player earns an extra life for every 50 points. The player(s) can accumulate no more than six lives at any given time. For every 50 points scored, Custer returns to his original position on the field, and the speed of the arrows increases. The arrow speed can also be increased by flipping the difficulty switch on the Atari console.
Controversy
''Custer's Revenge'' quickly gained notoriety upon its release. Sold in a sealed package labeled "NOT FOR SALE TO MINORS" and selling for $49.95 (),
it acknowledged that children might nonetheless see the game. The game's literature stated "if the kids catch you and should ask, tell them Custer and the maiden are just dancing." The makers elected to preview the game for women's and Native American groups, an act that many thought was a
publicity stunt
In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utilize ...
.
Women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
groups criticized the game,
stating that it was a simulation of rape; the back of the packaging states "she's not about to take it lying down, by George! Help is on the way. By God! He's coming." Other groups such as
Women Against Pornography Women Against Pornography (WAP) was a radical feminist activist group based out of New York City that was influential in the anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and the 1980s.
WAP was the most well known feminist anti-pornography group out ...
, Native American spokespersons, and critics of the adult video game industry in general protested about the content of the game. Activists pressured legislators to outlaw the game, with
Suffolk County voting to ban all "X-rated" games within their jurisdiction, and
Los Angeles County voting 3-1 to ban ''Custer's Revenge'' alongside American Multiple Industries' other adult-only games ''
Bachelor Party
A bachelor party (in the United States and sometimes in Canada), also known as a stag weekend, stag do or stag party (in the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, and Ireland), or a buck's night (in Australia), is a party held/arranged by th ...
'' and ''
Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em
''Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em'' (aka ''Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica:'' ''Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em'') is a pornographic video game for the Atari 2600 by American Multiple Industries in 1982. Players control two nude women; the goal is to catch semen in ...
''. Multiple Industries subsequently pursued an $11 million lawsuit against Suffolk County and legislator Philip Nolan "because of a resolution authorizing the county executive to take action to halt sales and distribution" of the game.
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
, home to a large Native American population, also unanimously passed a resolution condemning the game as "distasteful" and "not in the best interests of the community".
While both Ward 1 Councilman Bob McCoy and city attorney Walter Powell sought to block distribution within the city, and Multiple Industries did briefly halt distribution there, it was never officially banned by the city
as is sometimes erroneously reported.
Nevertheless, the focused media attention generated publicity for the game and its
Streisand effect caused it to sell approximately 80,000 copies, twice as many copies as ''Bachelor Party'' and ''Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em''. Atari received numerous complaints about the game however and responded by trying to sue the game's makers. Stuart Kesten, President of American Multiple Industries, stated "our object is not to arouse, our object is to entertain
..When people play our games, we want them smiling, we want them laughing." The game's designer, Joel Miller, said Custer was "seducing" the maiden and that she was a "willing participant".
By April 1983, the game was withdrawn from circulation.
Reception
In 1988, computer gaming magazine ''
Ahoy!
''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga.
History
The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 198 ...
'' called ''Custer's Revenge'' "an
ffrontto common decency", in contrast to more modern and 'tasteful' adult games. ''
Electronic Gaming Monthly
''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews.
History
The m ...
''s
Seanbaby
Sean Patrick Reiley (born June 15, 1976), better known as Seanbaby, is an American writer and video-game designer best known for his comedy website and frequent contributions to video game media outlets ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' and 1UP.com, ...
placed it as number 9 in his "20 worst games of all time" feature.
In 2008, the
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
professor Tom Keenan cited "the hideous ''Custer's Revenge'' game", 26 years after its release, in an op-ed piece about current video game violence issues for the ''
Calgary Herald''. That same year, the game was credited by Australian ''
PC Magazine'' as being
one of the worst games ever made, while
Games.net
Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...
ranked Custer's victim as fifth on the list of top ten "disturbingly sexual" game characters. In 2010, Custer placed eighth on
machinima.com
Machinima, Inc. was an American multiplatform online entertainment network owned by WarnerMedia. The company was founded in January 2000 by Hugh Hancock and was headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
It originated as a hub for its namesake, m ...
's list of the top perverts in gaming.
UGO.com
UGO Entertainment, Inc. was a website that provided coverage of online media in entertainment, targeting males aged 18–34. The company was based in New York, New York, United States.
History
The company started in 1997 as Unified Gamers Online ...
ranked it as tenth on the list of the most racist video games in history in 2010, also ranking the game's General Custer as the second most unsexy video game character of all time in 2012.
See also
*
Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) was a United States Army cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. He was defeated and killed by the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Mor ...
* ''
RapeLay
is a 3D eroge video game made by Illusion, released on April 21, 2006, in Japan. Compared to Illusion's previous games, the main story is shorter, it features an improved 3D engine and is mainly played through mouse control. The game centers on ...
''
* ''
X-Man
Nathaniel Grey (X-Man) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. Created by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Steve Skroce, the character first appeared in ''X-Man'' ...
''
*
List of video games notable for negative reception
This is a list of video games that have gained an enduring negative reception, often due to being perceived by reviewers as having low-quality or outdated graphics, glitches, poor controls for gameplay, or irredeemable game design faults. Su ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
External links
''Custer's Revenge''at AtariAge
at Atari Mania
{{Video game controversy, state=expanded
1982 video games
Action video games
Atari 2600 games
Atari 2600-only games
Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer
Erotic Atari 2600 games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Multiplayer hotseat games
Mystique (company) games
Native American-related controversies
North America-exclusive video games
Obscenity controversies in video games
Race-related controversies in video games
Rape in fiction
Video games developed in the United States
Video games set in the United States
Western (genre) video games