Wetlands (video game)

Lore & Background

The game's backstory is largely told through a graphic novel in the manual. In 1995, a U.S. nuclear test called Project Othello altered weather patterns, causing years of rain that submerged Earth. Scientist Phillip Nahj, who had warned of the danger, was blamed and cryogenically frozen. By 2495, humanity lives in underwater cities, and the Volarins—an extremist group—seek an intergalactic empire. The player controls mercenary John Cole, hired by the Federation via General Corbett to retrieve Nahj after his escape. Cole is aided by Lieutenant Christine Mills, a technician with database access. The plot involves Cole tracking Nahj through various locations, including an energy plant, an oxygen facility, and a cloaked landmass (the ruins of New York City), ultimately discovering Nahj leads the Volarins and plans to destroy the Federation homeworld. Cole destroys Nahj's planet-destroying gunship and returns to Lurian, where he shoots a television reporting General Corbett's commendation.

Reader's Guide

Wetlands is a rail shooter with 20 levels, allowing slight left-right view movement for aiming; level 6 uniquely adds vertical view movement while the player controls a gun turret. Some levels offer branching routes, requiring the player to shoot a minimum number of specified targets before the level ends or face automatic death. Level 9 briefly shifts to a shoot 'em up style as the player controls a small robotic drone to disable an oxygen facility's security system. The game sold over 95,000 units by mid November 1995. A reviewer for Next Generation gave it two out of five stars, criticizing rail shooters as simplistic but acknowledging Wetlands as a better example due to its cel animation, humorous touches, and inventive plot compared to Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire. The game was also reviewed in Australian Realms #27.

Did You Know?

• Level 6 is the only level where the player can move their view up and down.
• The game's backstory is told through a graphic novel in the manual.
• Level 9 briefly becomes a shoot 'em up with the player controlling a robotic drone.

From Censorship to the Art-House Renaissance

For much of the early twentieth century, explicit sexual content in cinema was effectively illegal or heavily censored. The Motion Picture Production Code and similar self-regulatory bodies kept mainstream screens clean, pushing genuinely explicit material into the shadows of privately circulated stag films and what were called "porn loops." That landscape began shifting in the 1960s and 1970s as social attitudes relaxed and several nations decriminalized sexually explicit material. A pivotal moment came in 1969 with Andy Warhol's Blue Movie, widely credited with launching the Golden Age of Pornography while simultaneously encouraging mainstream filmmakers to weave hardcore scenes into narrative features. The Bedside and Zodiac film cycles exemplified this hybrid approach, pairing explicit content with professional casts and theatrical releases. After a gradual decline from the late 1970s onward, the controversy surrounding Lars von Trier's The Idiots in 1998 reignited interest, spawning a wave of art-house titles including Romance, Baise-moi, Intimacy, The Brown Bunny, and 9 Songs.

A Constellation of Distinctive Voices

A handful of directors became closely associated with the practice, each bringing a distinct sensibility. Catherine Breillat, a French writer and director, centered her work on female sexuality and the transition from adolescence to adulthood, favoring long, unbroken takes for her sex scenes. Gaspar Noé, an Argentine-born French filmmaker, became a defining voice of the New French Extremity, presenting sex and violence with deliberate uninhibitedness and relying heavily on extended unsimulated sequences; the sole notable exception was the opening rape scene in Irréversible, which was simulated. Lars von Trier, the Danish co-creator of Dogme 95, used sexuality as an emotional lens in two entries of his "Depression" trilogy, Antichrist and Nymphomaniac. Other notable figures include Joe D'Amato, known for the Black Emanuelle series; Derek Ford, whose British sexploitation films often reserved hardcore footage for foreign "continental" releases; Jess Franco, whose horror-erotic work incorporated surrealist elements; and Radley Metzger, who directed under the pseudonym Henry Paris.

The Practicalities of Filming the Unfiltered

Filming genuine sexual acts presents practical challenges that directors have discussed openly. Gaspar Noé, in a BlackBook interview, acknowledged that an actor may struggle to achieve or maintain an erection in front of even a small crew, and that either participant might have a current romantic partner complicating the scene. His solution was to cast two single individuals who had previously been a couple together. The use of prosthetic devices adds another layer of complexity: because stimulation by an inanimate object can still read as genuine activity to an audience, the boundary between simulated and unsimulated becomes blurred. In a strict production sense, however, any scene employing a prosthesis to prevent genital contact between cast members is classified as simulated. Beyond these technical hurdles, the practice is typically categorized by who performs the acts—body doubles whose footage is inserted into simulated scenes, extras or adult performers who appear without the main cast, or the principal actors themselves.

Power, Aesthetics, and the Question of Why

Why do audiences and filmmakers seek genuine sex on screen? Gaspar Noé, reflecting after the release of his 2015 film Love, framed the question in terms of power. He argued that most societies, Western or otherwise, attempt to control and organize sexual behavior within precise contexts, making sex a "danger zone" where class barriers dissolve and authority feels threatened. He likened the impulse to censor to states controlling their systems or religion policing conduct. James Franco offered a different but complementary rationale for his work on Interior. Leather Bar. (2013), citing aesthetics and personal motivation. Having spent seventeen years in mainstream film while also studying queer theory and queer cinema, he saw his position as a bridge between those two worlds. His goal was to question why certain subject matter is presented one way rather than another, to introduce alternative narratives and perspectives into mainstream and art cinema, and ultimately to make audiences "richer as a people" by expanding the range of stories told.

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