Custer's Revenge

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Custer's Revenge is a pornographic game for the Atari 2600 involving the historical U.S. general, George Custer, attempting to rape a Native American woman. Custer has to dodge arrows while walking across the screen; once Custer reaches the woman, there's a short bonus segment in which points can be scored by moving the joystick back and forth while on Custer's victim. The game was first released in 1982 by a company named American Multiple Industries (AMI) under the Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica banner, seeking to capitalize on the lack of pornography available in the medium of video games.

It's widely considered one of the worst games ever. On top of the obvious problems of explicit content AND racism, the graphics... are just so bad that Custer looks not much different from a one-eyed pink alien. The woman, frankly, looks like a large, misshapen ant. AMI's raunchy antics have mostly accounted for why Atari tightened up security on their 7800 by requiring all licensed developers to have their games digitally signed by Atari, as they were concerned about pornographers exploiting the 7800's more advanced graphical capabilities to produce more realistic renditions of private parts and other such puerile acts. Other video game hardware manufacturers, especially Nintendo, followed suit; Nintendo cited Atari's inability to control its platform from oversaturation and fears that similarly-explicit content could harm their reputation.

Ironically, its lack of quality and the ensuing press storm surrounding the creator company American Multiple Industries (and Atari as well) caused it to sell about twice as well as Mystique's other adult-only games, according to Wikipedia. The lack of quality in the game was deliberate—AMI merely wanted to get the game to store shelves. Of course, this would not spare them from going out of business during The Great Video Game Crash of 1983. The rights to the games were later sold to a company known as PlayAround who continued the line of pornographic Atari games.

The game was also sold as Westward Ho and The White Man Came.

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Tropes used in Custer's Revenge include:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The real-life George Custer was a serious, well-rounded general who fought hard. This game portrays him as a maniacal rapist who's crazy enough to get killed just as long as he can rape a Native American.
• Black Comedy Rape: The intent, but as it turned out, it really wasn't funny.
• Contemptible Cover: Would you go in public showing a copy of Custer's Revenge? Even if you want to destroy the cartridge, you should probably wrap it in brown paper first.
  • This and other Mystique games came with a special cover to hide the cartridge.
• Explicit Content: Well, as explicit as the Atari 2600 could render. Custer is nude and has a 3-pixel-long erection, while the woman is also nude and tied up to a pole (according to the cover, but not the in-game display).
• Freud Was Right: Yep, even General Custer needs some love, nudge nudge.
• Gag Penis: General Custer.
• Gratuitous Rape: Not only is it the point of the game, but Custer is attempting to do it while arrows are being shot at him!
• Historical Domain Character
  • Historical Hero Upgrade: For a given value of "hero", anyway.
  • Historical Villain Upgrade/Historical Villain Downgrade: Of course, it's hard to think of Custer as a hero if he has that kind of behavior towards an Indigenous woman.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: The instruction manual's tagline:

Will Custer get his sweet revenge? Or will he get it in the end?

• Narm: It's quite hard to take the whole thing seriously with those graphics.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite the "Swedish Erotica" branding, the game (along with AMI's other porn games for the 2600) had nothing to do with Swedish people, or porn stars from that country for that matter; the games were developed in the United States.
• Perspective Flip: The game was later remade with a woman making her way toward a tied-up man under the title General Retreat. This was clearly an attempt to tone down the outcry, but the developers learned quickly that two wrongs do not make a right.
• Refuge in Audacity: If it wasn't for this, the game would have long been forgotten.
• Sex Sells
• So Bad It's Horrible: This game was So Bad It's Horrible, then achieved a sort of memetic status due to how bad it is, became So Bad It's Good until people look at what it is, at which point it loops further back to So Bad It's Horrible, effectively Crossing The Line Thrice. As mentioned above, it is often mentioned when people make lists of the worst video games ever.
• Too Dumb to Live: Custer. Who stops to have any kind of sex while being shot at, seriously?
• Word of God: According to The Other Wiki, the game's designer, Joel Miller, said Custer was "seducing" the maiden and that she was a "willing participant". But the back of the box says, "she's not about to take it lying down, by George! Help is on the way. By God! He's coming." Also according to The Other Wiki, her name is literally Revenge. This does not help.