‘The Witcher 2’ casts sexy magic

Here we have another epic fantasy — dragons, kings, assassins, monsters, elves — set against a backdrop of dusty villages and forest battles.

But “The Witcher 2” also gives us a smidgeon of full frontal female nudity. It’s brief. And it’s only as sexy as a daytime soap opera, minus a few garments.

But if you’re not a gamer, you don’t understand how rare it is to see such fleeting pleasures of faux flesh.

That’s because video games are rated with primness (sexually, at least) by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the industry’s self-regulatory group.

The ESRB follows decency rules reminiscent of the Hays Code, which nixed nudity (but not violence) in American movies for most of the 20^th century.

That’s right: Sensuality in games is on par with films of the 1930s. Retro repressive.

But by answering to the ESRB, game companies avoid censorship from pandering politicians who pretend all games are for kids (an ignorant political stance that angers 1 zillion adult gamers who vote).

Kids aren’t even allowed to buy “Witcher 2” at retail, since the ESRB gave it an “M” rating for “mature,” limiting purchases to players 17 and up.

Thankfully, the ESRB didn’t give it an “A” rating for “adult,” because retailers don’t sell “A”-rated games out of fear of receiving a few crazy letters from puritans who think games are the devil.

Anyway, let’s move on. The full title is “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings,” which is a dumb name, but it’s a quite good action-adventure role-player.

You portray a “witcher” (a warlock) named Geralt. He wears his white hair in an unfortunate ponytail.

The game begins (perhaps) with Geralt’s protecting a king from rival forces and a dragon. Things go askew.

Then you journey across mountains and villages, killing bad guys and monsters via blades and magic.

You also engage in long, interesting conversations with townspeople in order to unravel mysteries, side quests and romantic interludes.

I can’t go into the plot more than that, because there are multiple possible plots and endings, depending on choices you make.

But storylines make sense (you can’t say that about every fantasy adventure). And they are compelling to a degree.

You simply have to be in the mood to hear fantasy dialogue composed of ornate lore, such as:

“I barely escaped in Aedirn. …Your beast nabbed his nekker. Time to go. Do we have a deal, elf?” (Huh?)

The swordfighting and magic are fun. Fistfights are dull. Character and weapon upgrades are plentiful.

Altogether, it’s a long adventure with much replay value.

A few non-fatal flaws stink: 1) Load times are ridiculous; 2) And I frequently don’t know where to go next on a mission, due to a lacking map system.

In the end, though, designers commendably gave us big and thoughtful explorations that never dumb down their deep, mature stories.

Let’s hope puritans who don’t play games keep quiet about the few nude women, since, clearly, puritans should focus instead on their own shortcomings.

(“The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings” by Warner Home Video Games retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PC — Plays fun. Looks good. Challenging. Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, use of drugs. Three and one-half out of four stars.)

Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas. He blogs at http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Doug_Elfman.html. Twitter at VegasAnonymous.