Subverse

Two years ago the 3D porn animation studio StudioFOW launched a Kickstarter for a “kinky new Sci-Fi RPG mashup” that would answer the age old question:

Are we alone in this universe? What is out there? More importantly… can we bone it?

And how much do you think they raised for such a project? 5 grand? 10 grand? £50,000? No. For this porn game they raised a whopping £1,668,626.

Sex really does sell.

So with my faith in humanity utterly shattered it’s time to take a look at what Subverse offers and from the first few minutes, it actually seems like StudioFOW have taken their job seriously. The gameplay moves between shoot-em-up sections as you pilot your stolen military ship through Asteroids-y bullet-helly dogfights; fully voiced visual novel moments; and turn based tactical combat sections where you pit your crew and monsters against enemy units.

So lets break this down and then talk about it as a hole… er… whole.

The Story

The Captain, your character, wears pants on his face… I don’t know why.

The story in Subverse swings wildly between “lol-so-random lookie the tiddies” to an exposition dump that makes the Star Wars title crawl look sensible. It’s like they’re trying to get the Borderlands vibe but don’t understand how to balance it out so you end up with a game that seems to want to have a serious plot but then keeps tossing out sex, drugs, and references to “Nu Vegas” like a twelve year old fan fic writer. Although, in saying that, a twelve year old would still be in diapers when New Vegas released.

I’ll admit, some of the more immature moments, like the Dildo ship thrusting its way towards the alien engineer’s butt shaped space station, made me laugh. Some of the dialogue got a laugh as well. But a lot of it can come across as just trying too hard to be funny.

Remember when Deadpool finally got a film and suddenly everyone was obsessed with the loud mouthed merc? StudioFOW certainly remembers as the Captain, your character, is basically Deadpool with a bit more internet and anime porn references. And while they nail the voice acting and animations, the constant fourth wall breaking completely undermines what little immersion can be had in the story.

Some of the interactions are really funny though.

Taken purely as a comedy game, Subverse has a lot going for it. Some of the characters, strangely, have a Ratchet & Clank feel to them. Like the pirate captain Tibold.

“Everyone onboard will now suffer a slow and painful death. Good job Captain.”

He installed all of the sex hardware on your ship’s AI and you stole her before he even got a chance to try it out. Shame.

Shoot Em Up

This weird robotic horde was my favourite part. They feel like the psychos from Borderlands with an unhealthy dose of BDSM.

Genuinely the best part of the game, including the sex scenes. These flying sections feel tight and challenging without being frustrating. You have an “unlimited ammo generic laser weapon” as your main weapon and your secondary is based on the Waifu you take with you.

With a dash attack, recharging shields, and maps littered with asteroids that can be blasted around, movement is quite important. Especially when the robotic horde shows up with their heavy hitting ships.

Turn Based Combat

I found this way funnier than I should’ve

The turn based combat is… functional. The first few combats feel like a straight forward tutorial fight where your units take enemies out in single hits while they hardly damage you. Then out of nowhere it all flips and you’re having to make sure every move counts before Tibold wipes you out with his ridiculous area of effect attacks.

Each unit has a basic move, attack, and builds up energy for a powerful special move by taking damage. And these, at least for Lily, look and feel good. Having some powerful AoE attacks of your own really gives a satisfying edge to the combat.

And that’s about as much as I can really say about it other than that these sections are few and far between.

Sex Scenes

StudioFOW do a lot of tentacle and monster porn so of course it makes an appearance here.

If you’ve wandered into certain corners of the internet’s basement, you’ve probably seen a StudioFOW video. Decently made 3D models of women getting into a variety of repetitive sexual motions with lumpy and diseased looking monster men. And sadly its just the lumpy and diseased part that I have an issue with. Well, that and the deep seated sexism that perpetrates most pornography but lets try and keep things light.

The sex scenes in Subverse are managed through a scene creator called Pandora which you can spend points in to unlock scenes and build your own tailored selection of carnal delights. At the start of the game you get basically nothing other than a bit of foreplay but as you progress you’ll unlock various sexual positions and xeno scenes like the one above. Which continues StudioFOW’s trend of texturing things in the most repulsive way possible.

It looks like an intestine. Who would want that in their mouth?!

Opinions

Yeah, there’s really not much I can say about Subverse. It lacks the commitment to the sexual content to actually be sexy and can’t commit to the story it’s trying to tell without shoehorning in childish jokes and fourth wall breaking. It’s functionally competent when it has gameplay heavy sections and has some funny moments that get drowned in a neverending sea of cowardice.

Humour is good but as Borderlands 2 has shown, you can have stupid humour and still have impacting moments. You just have to know how to mix them.

Yeah, I think that’s my main criticism here. Subverse got handed more than a million pounds and, in my opinion, squandered it on something daft and cowardly. Subverse could’ve been a great sci-fi erotica with a budget like that but instead we get:

I despise this little imp. His Californian stoner voice acting and constant weed references just annoy me.

Quickfire Criticisms

• Lily is meant to be a “milf” but she looks so young. Have the guts to make a character look older and have some age positivity or stop bandying around the term milf like a bloody schoolkid.
• “Yay Weed 420 Blaze It” is only funny if you partake the Devil’s Cabbage.
• New Vegas was a decent game but the level to which it is idolised by certain people makes me cringe. Subverse’s constant references to Nu Vegas are no exception.
• Some jokes are explained just to make sure you got them and nothing kills a joke faster.
• I don’t like the Captain so why would I want to see him having sex?
• In fact, I don’t particularly like anyone in this game.
• Scratch that, I actively dislike most of them.
• It’s a lot of work to unlock those sex scenes, much easier to just look them up on Pornhub. Though there’s not much point in that either.

Gameplay wise, the shoot-em-up and turn based combat sections net a solid 7/10

Story and arousal wise, a 3/10. If you blur your eyes it’s sorta good.

Why is there no yeet button?!

The main menu music was fantastic though.

tl;dr: Animation studio gets a million+ pounds and instead of putting it to good use and making a decent porn game instead puts out this failed comedy.

You can pick Subverse up on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1034140/Subverse/