Playboy turns video game characters into centerfolds

Playboy is taking a chance on silicon instead of silicone.

The October issue of the men’s magazine features several video game characters posing in the nude -- images created by the game companies through detailed computer illustration.

“Hopefully the purists won’t get too bent out of shape. This is just the next version of the pinup,” said Playboy senior editor Scott Alexander, who developed the project.

The computerized models are part of the magazine’s video game preview, titled “Gaming Grows Up.” The five-page section starts with a topless image of the half-vampire, half-human title character from “Blood-Rayne,” a leather-clad woman who fights with three-foot blades attached to her arms.

The next image is a full-frontal, two-page foldout of a character named Luba Licious from the upcoming mature-rated comedy game “Leisure Suit Larry,” about a guy who travels a college campus courting impossibly buxom coeds.

In between are short articles about upcoming games like “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” racing games like “Need for Speed: Underground 2,” and battle games like “Men of Valor.”

“Part of the thrust of the piece is that gaming is not just for kids,” Alexander said. “We want to establish the way Playboy’s going to be covering video games. We want to cover them from [the] perspective of an adult.... We’re not writing video game reviews for kids who play five hours a day. We’re writing for the grown-up who may play five hours a week, if that much.”