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Weird Weekend
Weird Weekend is our regular Saturday column where we celebrate PC gaming oddities: peculiar games, strange bits of trivia, forgotten history. Pop back every weekend to find out what Jeremy, Josh, Rick and Ted have become obsessed with this time, whether it's the canon height of Thief's Garrett or that time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager.
Videogames have been banned and censored for all manner of reasons, and at least one game was so notoriously terrible that it was buried in the desert. But I've never heard of a game being so repellent that it was physically destroyed before. I've played some rotten games in my time, but I've never felt a desire to eradicate any of them from existence.
Yet this is exactly what happened to Sex Vixens from Space, a lewd graphic adventure developed by Free Spirit Software and released in 1988. Initially launched in the US, Sex Vixens from Space was meant to arrive in the UK the following year. But it never did—at least, not officially, because the shipment was intercepted and destroyed by UK Customs.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
Everything we know about Sex Vixens' destruction derives from a few brief news stories from a handful of computer magazines in the '80s. In January 1989, the US Commodore magazine .info reported that 75 copies of the game were seized and destroyed by UK customs. Apparently it was part of a larger shipment that included other games—meaning it was singled out for annihilation. Some publications from the time reported the game as being banned, but it's not clear whether it was formally prohibited by the UK government—even if the effect was one and the same.
That's about as much info we have on the actions of the British border force. But the game's director, Joe Hubbard, provided a colourful statement to The Australian Commodore and Amiga Review:
"While Sex Vixens from Space may be a bit racy, it is not pornographic. Apparently, the British authorities are either quite prudish or completely lacking a sense of humour. Regardless, freedom of artistic expression and the freedom to disseminate such are cornerstones of democracy. The act of seizing these game is the act of a fascist government."
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
Strong words. But who's right? Is the British government a bunch of fascists? Or is Sex Vixens from Space sick filth worthy of obliteration? There's only one way for an intrepid journalist to find out. Time to ruin my search history!
It's easy to play Sex Vixens from Space as a Brit now—you can even play in your browser via certain websites that collate abandonware. You play as Brad Stallion, owner and operator of a spaceship named the Big Thruster. Naturally, the Big Thruster is shaped like a cock and balls, and if you die while playing, it cuts to a screen of the big thruster going limp—which is the game's one half-decent joke.
The premise is that, across Federated Government space, there are rumours of a colony of "beautiful, sex starved women" known as the Tribe, who raid "male dominated rural planetary systems with their sex-ray gun, leaving the men sexless eunuchs". You, as Stallion, have been tasked with finding and "neutralising" this fabled band of space Valkyries. Given this is a sex game, I assumed this meant I'd have to win them over with Stallion's raw sexual magnetism. Let's say for now that this turned out to be naive of me.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
The first fifteen minutes or so of Sex Vixens from Space are spent getting familiar with the Big Thruster (as all boys do at some point), until we receive intel that a woman named Lila—who is rumoured to have connections with the Tribe—is working as a maid at the Pink Flamingo Hotel. Stallion makes the jump to the Pink Flamingo, where he is greeted at reception by a profoundly unsexy robot.
I should point out here that Sex Vixens from Space is never sexy. Not once. But what most surprised me about it is how little it tries to be in the first place. Given the stated objective of this game is to titillate, you'd expect scantily clad women to be crawling out of the vents. But many of the rooms you explore are empty, or populated by things that not only aren't sexy, but are also clearly not intended to be. It's also about as rudimentary a graphic adventure as it is possible to get. Stallion essentially has three abilities—walking, talking, and shagging. Unless the plot calls for a more specific action, the world itself does not facilitate much poking and prodding.
Anyway, once Stallion finds his hotel room, Lila enters. "I understand you're the man with the big thruster," she says. This apparently counts as courtship in Sex Vixens from Space, because Stallion can immediately kiss her, to which she responds by stripping off and collapsing on the bed. And when I say collapsing, I mean it looks like she fell on it from several storeys up. See for yourself:
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
It's a position that to me says less Karma Sutra and more The Exorcist. And look, I know this is pixel art from 1988 that was probably knocked out by some starving artist in a day, so I don't want to rag on it too much. But what on Earth is going on with her face?
Wait a minute, I've seen that expression before…
(Image credit: ZAUM)
During her liaison with Stallion, Lila reveals that the Tribe resides on a planet named Mondo. But she doesn't know where Mondo is, so Stallion heads over to Space Station X to find out. Again, a sex game that takes you to Space Station X has certain connotations, but Space Station X turns out to be the least sexy place in the entire galaxy. Its only inhabitants are yet more robots and The Commander, who speaks to you with his back turned and wears the least alluring trousers in the cosmos.
Through his chat with the Commander, Stallion finally discovers the location to Mondo. Upon travelling to this world of warrior women, Stallion is immediately captured by a woman on horseback who, judging by her terrifying expression, must be some relation of Lila's.
Stallion is thrown into prison with a woman named She-La. It isn't clear what She-La's status is within the Tribe's society—she's referred to as a prisoner here, but later on the game describes her as a guard. But her purpose in the story is to leap on Stallion like a starving xenomorph and then reveal an escape hatch in the prison floor—implying she could have escaped at any point during her incarceration and was just hanging around in the hope of getting laid.
The hatch leads to a secret laboratory where the fabled sex-ray gun is kept. The sex-ray gun is by far my favourite thing in the entire game, as, well, just look at it:
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
There's so much to dissect here. The buttons for two types of herpes. The arrow keys for nipples up and nipples down. DRAIN/INSERT?!? I also like the fact that, despite the sex-ray gun's reputation for turning men into eunuchs, there is no button for castration or, indeed, emasculation of any kind.
Stallion presses the one button on the sex-ray gun that isn't marked, and leaves the laboratory, only to immediately encounter two guards. He's frogmarched to the bedchamber of Queen La-Lust, who either somehow anticipated Stallion's arrival or just hates clothes, because she's lying naked on a bed when he enters.
Stallion ignores her terrifying, skull-like grin and does his government-mandated duty, after which La-Lust cackles at his efforts, boasting that her sex-ray gun can "drain sex from a thousand men" and give her "the most powerful orgasm in the galaxy". I don't know how this works or where those thousand men are, but at least it explains the "drain" part of DRAIN/INSERT.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
The second La-Lust hits the button, however, the palace begins to explode. Again, not sure why this happens, but I assume the un-labelled button Stallion pressed primed the sex-ray gun for self-destruct, somehow. Amid the chaos, Stallion makes a rush for the hangar and escapes. Safely aboard the Big Thruster, Stallion watches from the bridge as Mondo is engulfed by a fireball and "totally destroyed".
Yep, Sex Vixens from Space ends with genocide, famously the sexiest of war crimes.
It's pretty ironic that Hubbard accused the British government of fascism in destroying the shipment, because Sex Vixens from Space itself displays seriously fascist tendencies. The way it lusts after the Tribe while also being terrified of them, shooting straight for the eradication of their race as the solution to their incursions, is fascist mentality 101. This probably isn't deliberate—I don't think Free Spirit Software had much of a clue what it was doing across this entire project—but it is there.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
So, should Sex Vixens from Space have been destroyed? Well, having looked over both sides of the case, I can confidently say everybody involved here was wrong. Destroying a game because it has some boobs in it both wrong and silly, especially when those boobs are as badly drawn as they are in Sex Vixens from Space.
At the same time, Free Spirit Software was wrong to make Sex Vixens from Space in the first place. Not ethically (accidentally advocating for genocide notwithstanding), just in terms of it being a bad idea appallingly executed. Sex Vixens from Space is ugly. It's simplistic. It fails as an adventure game and as a sex game. The actions of UK customs may have been misjudged, but ultimately, nothing of value was lost.
2026 games: All the upcoming games
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together
Continue reading...
Weird Weekend is our regular Saturday column where we celebrate PC gaming oddities: peculiar games, strange bits of trivia, forgotten history. Pop back every weekend to find out what Jeremy, Josh, Rick and Ted have become obsessed with this time, whether it's the canon height of Thief's Garrett or that time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager.
Videogames have been banned and censored for all manner of reasons, and at least one game was so notoriously terrible that it was buried in the desert. But I've never heard of a game being so repellent that it was physically destroyed before. I've played some rotten games in my time, but I've never felt a desire to eradicate any of them from existence.
Yet this is exactly what happened to Sex Vixens from Space, a lewd graphic adventure developed by Free Spirit Software and released in 1988. Initially launched in the US, Sex Vixens from Space was meant to arrive in the UK the following year. But it never did—at least, not officially, because the shipment was intercepted and destroyed by UK Customs.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
Everything we know about Sex Vixens' destruction derives from a few brief news stories from a handful of computer magazines in the '80s. In January 1989, the US Commodore magazine .info reported that 75 copies of the game were seized and destroyed by UK customs. Apparently it was part of a larger shipment that included other games—meaning it was singled out for annihilation. Some publications from the time reported the game as being banned, but it's not clear whether it was formally prohibited by the UK government—even if the effect was one and the same.
That's about as much info we have on the actions of the British border force. But the game's director, Joe Hubbard, provided a colourful statement to The Australian Commodore and Amiga Review:
"While Sex Vixens from Space may be a bit racy, it is not pornographic. Apparently, the British authorities are either quite prudish or completely lacking a sense of humour. Regardless, freedom of artistic expression and the freedom to disseminate such are cornerstones of democracy. The act of seizing these game
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
Strong words. But who's right? Is the British government a bunch of fascists? Or is Sex Vixens from Space sick filth worthy of obliteration? There's only one way for an intrepid journalist to find out. Time to ruin my search history!
It's easy to play Sex Vixens from Space as a Brit now—you can even play in your browser via certain websites that collate abandonware. You play as Brad Stallion, owner and operator of a spaceship named the Big Thruster. Naturally, the Big Thruster is shaped like a cock and balls, and if you die while playing, it cuts to a screen of the big thruster going limp—which is the game's one half-decent joke.
The premise is that, across Federated Government space, there are rumours of a colony of "beautiful, sex starved women" known as the Tribe, who raid "male dominated rural planetary systems with their sex-ray gun, leaving the men sexless eunuchs". You, as Stallion, have been tasked with finding and "neutralising" this fabled band of space Valkyries. Given this is a sex game, I assumed this meant I'd have to win them over with Stallion's raw sexual magnetism. Let's say for now that this turned out to be naive of me.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
The first fifteen minutes or so of Sex Vixens from Space are spent getting familiar with the Big Thruster (as all boys do at some point), until we receive intel that a woman named Lila—who is rumoured to have connections with the Tribe—is working as a maid at the Pink Flamingo Hotel. Stallion makes the jump to the Pink Flamingo, where he is greeted at reception by a profoundly unsexy robot.
I should point out here that Sex Vixens from Space is never sexy. Not once. But what most surprised me about it is how little it tries to be in the first place. Given the stated objective of this game is to titillate, you'd expect scantily clad women to be crawling out of the vents. But many of the rooms you explore are empty, or populated by things that not only aren't sexy, but are also clearly not intended to be. It's also about as rudimentary a graphic adventure as it is possible to get. Stallion essentially has three abilities—walking, talking, and shagging. Unless the plot calls for a more specific action, the world itself does not facilitate much poking and prodding.
Anyway, once Stallion finds his hotel room, Lila enters. "I understand you're the man with the big thruster," she says. This apparently counts as courtship in Sex Vixens from Space, because Stallion can immediately kiss her, to which she responds by stripping off and collapsing on the bed. And when I say collapsing, I mean it looks like she fell on it from several storeys up. See for yourself:
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
It's a position that to me says less Karma Sutra and more The Exorcist. And look, I know this is pixel art from 1988 that was probably knocked out by some starving artist in a day, so I don't want to rag on it too much. But what on Earth is going on with her face?
Wait a minute, I've seen that expression before…
(Image credit: ZAUM)
During her liaison with Stallion, Lila reveals that the Tribe resides on a planet named Mondo. But she doesn't know where Mondo is, so Stallion heads over to Space Station X to find out. Again, a sex game that takes you to Space Station X has certain connotations, but Space Station X turns out to be the least sexy place in the entire galaxy. Its only inhabitants are yet more robots and The Commander, who speaks to you with his back turned and wears the least alluring trousers in the cosmos.
Through his chat with the Commander, Stallion finally discovers the location to Mondo. Upon travelling to this world of warrior women, Stallion is immediately captured by a woman on horseback who, judging by her terrifying expression, must be some relation of Lila's.
Stallion is thrown into prison with a woman named She-La. It isn't clear what She-La's status is within the Tribe's society—she's referred to as a prisoner here, but later on the game describes her as a guard. But her purpose in the story is to leap on Stallion like a starving xenomorph and then reveal an escape hatch in the prison floor—implying she could have escaped at any point during her incarceration and was just hanging around in the hope of getting laid.
The hatch leads to a secret laboratory where the fabled sex-ray gun is kept. The sex-ray gun is by far my favourite thing in the entire game, as, well, just look at it:
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
There's so much to dissect here. The buttons for two types of herpes. The arrow keys for nipples up and nipples down. DRAIN/INSERT?!? I also like the fact that, despite the sex-ray gun's reputation for turning men into eunuchs, there is no button for castration or, indeed, emasculation of any kind.
Stallion presses the one button on the sex-ray gun that isn't marked, and leaves the laboratory, only to immediately encounter two guards. He's frogmarched to the bedchamber of Queen La-Lust, who either somehow anticipated Stallion's arrival or just hates clothes, because she's lying naked on a bed when he enters.
Stallion ignores her terrifying, skull-like grin and does his government-mandated duty, after which La-Lust cackles at his efforts, boasting that her sex-ray gun can "drain sex from a thousand men" and give her "the most powerful orgasm in the galaxy". I don't know how this works or where those thousand men are, but at least it explains the "drain" part of DRAIN/INSERT.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
The second La-Lust hits the button, however, the palace begins to explode. Again, not sure why this happens, but I assume the un-labelled button Stallion pressed primed the sex-ray gun for self-destruct, somehow. Amid the chaos, Stallion makes a rush for the hangar and escapes. Safely aboard the Big Thruster, Stallion watches from the bridge as Mondo is engulfed by a fireball and "totally destroyed".
Yep, Sex Vixens from Space ends with genocide, famously the sexiest of war crimes.
It's pretty ironic that Hubbard accused the British government of fascism in destroying the shipment, because Sex Vixens from Space itself displays seriously fascist tendencies. The way it lusts after the Tribe while also being terrified of them, shooting straight for the eradication of their race as the solution to their incursions, is fascist mentality 101. This probably isn't deliberate—I don't think Free Spirit Software had much of a clue what it was doing across this entire project—but it is there.
(Image credit: Free Spirit)
So, should Sex Vixens from Space have been destroyed? Well, having looked over both sides of the case, I can confidently say everybody involved here was wrong. Destroying a game because it has some boobs in it both wrong and silly, especially when those boobs are as badly drawn as they are in Sex Vixens from Space.
At the same time, Free Spirit Software was wrong to make Sex Vixens from Space in the first place. Not ethically (accidentally advocating for genocide notwithstanding), just in terms of it being a bad idea appallingly executed. Sex Vixens from Space is ugly. It's simplistic. It fails as an adventure game and as a sex game. The actions of UK customs may have been misjudged, but ultimately, nothing of value was lost.
2026 games: All the upcoming games
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together
Continue reading...
