Category: 
The Sex Ed Game. This is another game that came across our desks that isn’t a game. It is programable educational software. The Sex Ed Game includes over 650 questions covering 26 topics. Over 50 questions are illustrated very graphically with clinical looking but explicit diagrams. I was rather startled unexpectedly by the first drawing that I saw in the ‘game’ that was a depiction of an open vagina where you were supposed to identify the parts. It was graphic, but not sexy.Game - play
The game-play is a trivia quiz where questions are randomized from 8 categories. Health Risks and Sex, Abstinence and Pregnancy Risk, Ethics and Sex, Guy’s Health, Girl’s Health, Love and Relationships, Drugs, Alcohol & Emotional Health, and Sex in the Media.
I found an error in a question about Sex in the Media. The ESRB rating of ‘M’ is 17+ not 18+. The ESRB ratings are as follows: C (Early Childhood), E (Everyone), E10+ (Everyone 10+), T (Teen (13+)), M(Mature (17+) Further exploration of this software lead me to believe that the error was intentional.
There are Multiple Choice Questions, True or False Statements, and Advice Problems. The Advice Problems which are supposed to describe an issue a teen is facing offers 4 choices of advice that you might give a friend with the same problem. It is easy to guess which answer the game wants you to pick. The “right” answer merely parrots what teachers would want to hear. It doesn’t offer a challenge or illuminate on the subject.
All this equals no fun. The language used is clinical and patronizing. The questions ask you to guess about statistics. For example “What percentage of teen girls are choosing abstinence?” One half - two thirds - or three quarters? I noticed that the game claimed that 3/4 of teen girls are choosing abstinence, while at the same time in another question about teen pregnancies the number was quite different. If this is to be believed then those girls are getting pregnant while abstinent? There must be an outbreak of immaculate conceptions in the high schools.
As every journalist knows statistics can be found to prove anything. I know that if I wanted to argue that Yeti’s exist I can get statistics that “prove” it. If I wanted to claim that Yeti’s don’t exist, I can find numbers for that too. “Statistics will tell you anything if you torture them enough.”
Authoritative sounding studies from benign sounding institutions can be found easily. However those institutions may be the research arm of a special interest group. If you seek out statistics from a Christian research source, you are going to get different numbers than you would from a non religious institution. You can make your article, or your game, sound professional while spin doctoring for whatever numbers you want to include.
Multiplayer ?
I can’t see how the interface would allow more than one player. They advertise it as something to be used by parents and teachers together with kids. I suppose that it could be LAN networked but I could not find any information on their website about that. The information pages were blank with a message saying that more info would be forthcoming. It does not have online capabilities. I think what they mean by “multiplayer” is that if you put a computer monitor up in front of a classroom the teacher and students could gather around the screen to discuss the questions. That is not what ‘multiplayer’ means in the gaming world and it should be corrected.
As I began to read every word on the website and followed all the links, yes I geeked on this like a bloodhound, I began to discover what the Sex Ed Game was really about. It is programmable sex teaching software. Programable being the operative word here. It is designed so that unwanted content can be disabled. The features in the software were clearly directed to soothe the fundamentalist adults who can’t talk to their kids but want them to be influenced by their moral agenda with as little work on their part as possible. Customization features are all well and good in a game. However the alteration of clinical and medical discussions of the aspects of sex education are questionable. Sex is sex no matter what deity you favor.
This software has many of problems besides being buggy. It is clearly right leaning abstinence propagandism.
“Completely customizable via password-protected Content Controls can easily be customized to fit with existing comprehensive or abstinence-only curriculum materials.
Content Controls allow the purchaser to preview and turn off any category, topic, or question.”
On the Iser Games website they have link to “Play an Online Example” but it does not go to the Sex Ed game. It goes to the Interactive Flash games on the “Teen Wire” Planned Parenthood site which are much better. Those give the answers to the health questions that are objective. There are no statistical questions. It is nothing like the Sex Ed game. There is a buried link to play a demo version of the actual Sex Ed game too. The link to the game demo is off to one the side of the page while the link to Teen Wire is in the middle of the page. It isn’t clear if Iser created the Flash games for Teen Wire, or if the link is there as an example of other ’serious games’.
Graphics and Sound N/A
Conclusions
Honestly I think the Sex Ed game is pretty lame. It isn’t really a game. It’s marginally interactive educational software. I think it insults young people’s intelligence. Spurious statistics are used to mock up peer pressure, which anyone can see through. It is one of those cases where stuffy unenlightened people are attempting to sound “hip” to kids and are not. It isn’t colorful, or interesting. The educational games on the Planned Parenthood site are a bit corny, but they are free, fun and executed 100% better than the $20.00 US Sex Ed game. Don’t waste your money.
When I think of teens and the question of sex I can’t help remembering a quote from South Park. Chef answers the question of when people are ready to have sex. Chef says, “17, that’s when you are ready. 17.” I don’t know if I agree, but that does seem to be a more insightful ascertainment than the bogus statistics in the Sex Ed game.
If it was a regular game being reviewed then it would get the lowest score of a 1. A score of 2 is for a game that stinks but is playable. I can’t give this software a score because it isn’t a game, and in my opinion they have a long way to go before this product is ready to sell to anyone. It doesn’t operate well enough to even be released yet. Next time come to us *before* you release a mess like this.
Pros: Good for fundamentalist based “intelligent design” type folks.
Cons: Good for fundamentalist based “intelligent design” type folks.
System Requirements:
“Better than or equal to a 500MHz processor (a bigger number is better, and “GHz” is faster than “MHz”)
128MB minimum RAM requirement to run our games (a bigger number of “MB” is better, and 1 “GB” is equal to about 1,000 “MB” so any number of “GB” is better than 128MB)”
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