HOUSE PARTY REVIEW

story by Mike Gas

published on September 15, 2022

Radiator 2 is, described by developer Robert Yang on his website, “a gay sex trilogy.” It is a compilation of three games, each game revolving around gay sex in some capacity. One of the games is about giving a handjob to a car titled: STICK SHIFT. Another is an interactive music video set to Waste by Arca about a man enjoying a tasty popsicle. The final entry I really don't know how else to describe other than it's an esoteric art-game about spanking and Grindr. These games are short, very compressed experiences, they almost have a sort of WarioWare microgame sense of playfulness and ingenuity to them. I highly reccomend checking them out on your own time, as they are extremely fun and not even as explicit as you would think.

Screenshot from Hurt Me Plenty by Robert Yang, apart of the Radiator 2 compilation.

While the layman may laugh at the idea of a game about giving a handjob to a car, I think it's pretty fucking cool. Stick Shift actually showcases Robert Yang’s ability to truly think out of the box when depicting sex in a game. The universal mechanic of wiggling the mouse up and down present in all porn games is here, but where Stick Shift sets itself apart from the others is the fact that the more you “pleasure” the car, the faster your car goes, and since you’re driving manual, you gotta shift those gears to avoid either burning out or getting pulled over by the cops. The higher you shift, the closer you are to getting the car to climax. As you change gears the mix of the soundtrack dynamically changes, and the visuals become more and more cerebral as you get the car to climax. As dumb as it sounds, I dare you to play this game and come back and telling me you’re not impressed.

Shot from the final gear of Yang's Stick Shift.

Stick Shift, contrary to House Party, actually has some involved mechanics, it may not be an exact, hyper-realistic simulation of what it's like to have sex or to drive a car, but it's certainly a lot more fun and intimate than any of the sex in House Party and holds a considerable amount of artistic merit in comparison.