Ah yes... Cunt, by Florian Himsl and Edmund McMillen, the shmup we all feared would exist one day. Either it's a puerile heap of borderline misogynistic pap, if you're a humourless killjoy prude, or, if you are, like me, a cunt, it's a work of brutal, depraved, demented, genius. Take your pick. I know which side of the fence I'd plump for (hint: the one that doesn't have frothers shouting "ban this sick filth" on it).
It works something like this - you control a floating disembodied penis that shoots bullets out its bell end and that is in orbit around a disembodied, planet-like anthropomorphic vagina. Your job is to shoot your bolts into the opening of same, which causes damage to it, and which, if you sling enough spooge up there, causes it to explode, which brings you to the next level. However, beware, for this is no querulous and quiescent quim, but a fierce fanny of forbidding fury which summons increasingly nasty sexually transmitted diseases to thwart your travails!
Yep, I'm certain that Sigmund Freud would have a lot to say about this game.
But I'm not going to get bogged down with psychological theorising and spouting sociopolitical bollox about it all. I'm here to tell you about this game, which is disturbingly compelling, and a work of twisted genius. Not because of its subject matter, but because of how it is presented. The vagina's eyes track you as you move round the screen. Powerups appear that you can grab to increase the efficacy of your pussy pounding. Grabbing a syringe full of roids causes your cock to go stumpy and fat and fire double-wide bullets. Penis enlargement pills give you what the game describes as "The Woodsman!" which removes your ability to spaff bullets but allows you to pretty much, well, demolish anything in your path. The STDs that are summoned to fend you off become increasingly nasty; level five (herpes), has not only double-speed homing bacteria but also sores that act as gun turrets on the lunar surface. And then in level six (AIDS), not only does it fire tough as nails viruses that clump together (and look like miniature vaginas themselves), but also it starts firing foetuses at you. (I wish I was making this us). And then there's the other, more unexpected, twists to the game, like how from time to time on later levels the titular cunt will start urinating and filling up the screen with same, and if you're caught underneath the rising tide then you drown and it's game over. And all along, the screen becomes a mass of squashed crabs and dead viruses and blood and spunk.
Cunt is certainly the only game to have, in its instructions, "shake the mouse to get bugs off your balls."
Oh, but did I mention the music? It's this rather unsettling soul duet called "Care" by a chap called Jon Erik Kaada, whose lyrics go something like, "My darling / You’re my inspiration / That’s why I put you / In almost all my conversation," on the male part, and then the female part comes in with something equally slushy and croony. Sounds all nice and inoffensive, right? Well, think about this. While this is going on, you, the player, are furiously mashing at the mouse in order to fill a giant vagina so full of semen that it explodes in a bloody mess. Do you understand now why this is so unsettling?
I dread to think what level six level seven is like. Probably Al Gore's face, that would fit the bill certainly (although my standards are not low enough to derive enjoyment from spunking in it; I am not that depraved. Yet.)
As always, if you find anything in this writeup offensive, boo fuckity hoo.