Saints Row has made its own impact on open-world crime games with a ridiculous type of mayhem. There’s no better proof of that than The Penetrator, a large purple sex toy attached to a baseball bat handle.

That was too much for the game rating gurus in Japan, who asked publisher THQ to remove the veins from the weapon. Japan does not allow the “depiction of genital parts” in games so The Penetrator was in violation.

The latest Saints Row installment got the rating of CERO Z, which is Japan’s version of the ESRB’s AO (Adults Only) rating. Even so, officials deemed the weapon in its original form too graphic for impressionable adults to lay eyes on.

This is the same country that introduced tentacle porn to the world, right? Just checking.

In an unusual turn of events, a woman is being accused of using a videogame to groom a teenage boy into having sex. Angie L. Jenkins from Lowell, MI is said to have traveled to Amherst, NY to meet with a 16-year-old for sex. The two met while playing World of Warcraft.

Vegas is not really a family destination. When we think of Vegas, we imagine music, drugs and sex. Fallout: New Vegas contains all these elements. We’ve already covered what kind of music you can expect, and we’re assuming drugs such as jet and buffout will be making a return. Now we turn our attention to sex in New Vegas. When most of the human population is dead, people tend to take what they can get. If that means having some alone time with a robot, so be it.

Moero Downhill Night Type R offers all the typical elements of a Japanese dating sim – extensive conversation trees and a lot of well executed art – plus attempted interactive 3D video segments and an innovative time-based element that could easily be pilfered and used to help improve many other conversation-based games.

If you were offended by the Hot Coffee sex mini-game in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and submitted the proper documentation to Rockstar Games by the May 16, 2008, deadline, you will soon receive your settlement.

The GTA settlement site says those that submitted paperwork should receive what they are entitled to by April 15, 2010.

Tired of the old dinner and movie every Valentines day? Well perhaps this February 14th you can just stay in with your valentine and play a few video games with your “special” lovebird.

Here are a few “romantic” games that involve dating, getting your date to snuggle, and other things you wish you were doing instead of sitting in front of your TV. If these games don’t get you in that “special” mood…well that’s probably a good thing.

When one considers the negative (and often unnecessary attention) that video games receive for displays of violence and overt sexuality, it should come as a surprise when one hears of any one opening calling for games to maintain and even increase shocking displays, provided that they are handled in a mature manner.

The person who is sounding this alarm of positivity is Winda Benedetti of MSNBC. Benedetti, who pens game columns as MSNBC’s “Citizen Gamer” humorously, begins her piece by giving the impression that she is an individual who saw a male organ for the first time. While gamers would undoubtedly dismiss this childish display, her mock reaction in the article’s intro shares some similarities to the realistic responses expressed by…

Princess Waltz is a very text-intensive visual novel with a dash of eroticism. Most of the text is thankfully accompanied by Japanese voice-overs except for dialogue that originates from the omniscient narrator and Arata himself. Most of the battles that don’t involve you require you actually use your noggin to visualize the frantic pace with the assistance 6th grade level vocabulary descriptions.

The story is charming, the characters are glistening, the card battles are fun but, unfortunately, all of its strong points are marred by the fact that this game progresses at the pace of a stepped on grandpa snail….

In the Los Angeles Times, writer Alex Pham reports that the San Fernando Library encourages youth to play video games and even invites them to be as loud as they like.

“It lets teens be more comfortable with the library and become familiar with librarians,” San Fernando librarian Lydia Harlan told Pham. “And it’s what kids are into these days.”

In the article, Pham reports that more libraries are turning to video games to connect with technologically savvy youth who might be losing interest in books and stories. In New York, the New York Public Library has even added a collection of books, films, music and maps about video games.

Click through for the full article and a list of recommended books…

A new poll conducted at whattheyplay.com (a site oriented towards educating parents about videogame content) shows that people are more offended by sex than violence in games. Keep in mind that this is a thoroughly unscientific study of a very skewed portion of the population (read: parents who care what their kids are playing), but the results are still surprising. According to the poll, the most offensive thing in a videogame is a depiction of a man and a woman having sex (37%) followed by two men kissing (27%), then a graphically severed human head (26%), and lastly, multiple use of the F-word (10%).