Battle Raper II: The Game (PC) review "Battle Raper 2 is about the far future of Earth, when a new breed of humans called ETERNALS have been created through genetic manipulation. There's some jibber jabber about paranormal phenomena and the symbol of God, which means Battle Raper 2 follows the standard "religion is deep" school of thought. It's a nice (but overdone) attempt by game creative staff Illusion to disguise how shallow the game really is."

I don't really have a good explanation, so I'll blame the devil for this one.

Satan: Hello, this is Satan. Would you like a new computer game?

> YES_

It happened just like that. And so, Battle Raper II: The Game was delivered to my door via super-swift EMS in a large brown box conveniently marked "ONE (1) HENTAI RAPE GAME" on the outside for Customs. I was moderately upset about that.

But it's not what you think. Really, it's not! Yes, it's a horrible horrible Soul Calibur rip-off, but in Battle Raper 2, no one gets raped, so I had to abandon the essay that I'd already written in my head.

Now that we know Battle Raper 2 isn't about rape, I'll tell you what it is about. It's about the far future of Earth, when a new breed of humans called ETERNALS have been created through genetic manipulation. There's some jibber jabber about paranormal phenomena and the symbol of God, which means Battle Raper 2 follows the overdone "religion is deep" school of thought. It's an unimaginative attempt by game creative staff Illusion to disguise how shallow the game really is.

After some excessive loading times, Battle Raper 2 tosses you — rogue element hunter Yuuki Kukami — into The Place of Death to fight a mindless zombie. Yuuki is a dapper young man with fourteen attacks (four of them are useful) and a pet fairy named Poka. In Berserk, Guts and Puck fight tentacled monsters with acidic drool dripping from their open jaws. In Battle Raper 2, an effeminate man fights an orange zombie. The zombie wears green slacks.

In between fights against pants-wearing zombies, you might actually fight a girl. There are only five women, which is totally unacceptable for a modern 3D fighting game (especially one that requires FOUR GIGS OF HARD DRIVE SPACE). Two of the five girls are twins, which shows how outrageously underdeveloped this game really is. There's the blonde girl, the innocent girl, the glasses girl, the bad girl, and the dignified girl. That's enough talk about personalities — now it's time to talk about sex.

Each time you fight a female, you can target parts of her clothing by using repeated high or low blows, since anything else is extremely unpredictable and likely to get you killed due to the horrible controls. When your victim takes too much damage, a dramatic impact event occurs, which is really just a fancy way of saying her skirt or top falls off. Yuuki and the zombies get to keep their clothes because menswear is very sturdy.

Aside from the hilarity of watching a naked woman swing a sixty-pound halberd around, there's no benefit to de-clothing an opponent. In fact, it's actually detrimental to knock her clothing off. Once you win a fight, you enter Mischief Mode, where the woman lies on the ground in front of you. Unconscious. No sex happens (yet); instead, you heal the girl's wounds.

So here you are in the inappropriately-named Mischief Mode, guiding an arrow around Yayoi's clothed (or not) body to heal her wounds. Spotting an unattractive bruise, you bring up the "rub" icon, because rubbing bruises makes them go away. BE CAREFUL! If you rub too quickly, the girl will move a bit and a giant - ! - will appear on the screen! If you keep rubbing while in "warned" mode, the girl wakes up and screams at you.

Once you've healed all of the girl's wounds, Mischief Mode doesn't end . . . so you have to intentionally fondle her breasts for a while to make her wake up and scream at you. Then you fight another zombie.

After defeating all the girls and the last boss (which is a zombie wearing black pants), you have consensual sex with one of the women. For some reason, Yuuki never takes off his gloves. You can either go for the kill right away and enjoy scenes like "the bouncing naked girl", or you can activate the "finger" icon and play with her for a minute. If you please your girl enough, she'll perform oral sex until you click the "ejaculate" icon.

And then it's over.

But Battle Raper 2 has REPLAY VALUE! When you go back into the main menu, you can modify the girls' attire and accessories and replay the Mischief and Hentai modes. Whether it's making out with a pirate chick or satisfying your "wounded girl" fetish (popularized by Bandage Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion), Battle Raper 2 has something for everyone. For fighting game fans, it has slow and broken combat. For survival horror fans, it has zombie clones. And for hentai fans, it has five girls. Two of them are twins.

Hideo Kojima called. He wants his - ! - back.

Staff review by Zigfried (July 09, 2005) Zigfried likes writing about whales and angry seamen, and often does so at the local pub.