Harvester (1996) Ending 1: Kill Stephanie

Описание: Steve becomes a serial killer and returns to the real world.

Harvester is a point-and-click adventure computer game. It was designed by DigiFX Interactive and published by Merit Studios in 1996. Written and directed by Gilbert P. Austin, the game was a commercial failure when released, but has remained a cult favorite due to Austin's quirky sense of humor, and the many unique and interesting characters.

Harvester contains various scenes of violence and gore; implied sexual intercourse, masturbation and S&M; murder; suicide; child abuse; profanity; cannibalism; prostitution; pedophilia; molestation, serial killing; geronticide, vandalism, sexually transmitted diseases; and stereotypes of homosexuals, Native Americans, Italians, and others. This naturally caused controversy when the game was first announced, as early as 1994 at that year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES). At the time, several television news programs like CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News included the (supposedly upcoming) new game in stories focusing on the link between video games and violence, as well as the need for a more established rating system.

The game was banned from stores in Germany. It was considered for release in Australia, but the local distributor for the game backed out, believing it would probably be banned there, as well. The game was released in Great Britain, albeit with numerous scenes removed from the game by the BBFC. [1]

Few titles at that time had managed to match Harvester's volume of gore - a distant contemporary would be Phantasmagoria. However, despite the extremely graphic content, the game only received an M rating in the USA instead of an AO. Much of the violence consisted of crudely animated blood and gore superimposed over rotoscoped live-action actors - as opposed to realistically rendered makeup effects. Gilbert Austin has stated that his ambitions for the game were much higher (including live video during conversation, instead of simple close-up photos), but that he ran out of both time and money.

For whatever reason, the game was not actually released until 1996, and wound up being largely ignored: the victim of lukewarm reviews, having missed its initial window of notoriety, and graphics which appeared already outdated by the time of its release.