Custer's Revenge is Released

Custer's Revenge (also known as Westward Ho and The White Man Came) is a pornographic video game made for the Atari 2600 by Mystique, a company that produced a number of adult video game titles for the system.

The main character was based on General George Custer.

The game was first released on October 13, 1982, and has received significant criticism because of its crude simulation of an apparent rape of a Native American woman. As a result, it has been credited as being one of the worst games ever made.

In the game, the player controls the character of General George Armstrong Custer, depicted as a man wearing nothing but a cavalry hat, boots, and a bandana, sporting a visible erection. Custer has to overcome arrow attacks to reach the other side of the screen. His goal is to have intercourse with a naked, large-breasted Native American woman, named "Revenge."

Custer's Revenge gained notoriety for its peculiar plot. The game prompted criticism from women's rights groups who stated that the game was a simulation of rape; the back of the packaging states "she's not about to take it lying down, by George! Help is on the way." Other groups such as Women Against Pornography, Native American spokespersons, and critics of the video game industry in general protested the game. Andrea Dworkin claimed the game "generated many gang rapes of Native American women."

Aside from complaints over the game's sexual content, many found the gameplay simplistic. People also found the pornography element of the game inadequate—the two characters' appearances have been compared to Lego bricks or cardboard boxes.

The focused media attention caused the game to sell approximately 80,000 copies, twice as many copies as Mystique's other X-rated games, Bachelor Party and Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em.

Not only was game play unnecessarily difficult and the objective questionable on multiple levels, but the game's crude graphics gave the impression that your Lego collection was getting freaky.

In recent years, some games (most notably, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) have pushed the raciness envelope further than most people could have imagined 24 years ago. That may or may not be a good thing, but at least the graphics and game mechanics have gotten a heck of a lot better.