Playboy strips down sirens of cyberspace

For all gamers who've taken a gander at a digital dame and thought, "She could be in Playboy!" a pictorial last year in an issue of Hugh Hefner's magazine confirmed just that.

Several game icons, including BloodRayne and Mileena from Mortal Kombat, shed for the spread.

The success of the issue, which also included articles on the industry and picks for the Christmas season's top games, prompted Playboy to go for round two. According to CNN's Chris Morris, eight female game characters will once again re-rate themselves as '18' for October's issue of Playboy.

So which lucky video vixens will be baring all? Jacqui, a cheerleader from Midway's Blitz: The League will be in her god-given under-armour. Carla Valenti from Atari's Indigo Prophecy, who plays a detective solving a rash of murders in New York City, will cleverly deduce that she's nude in the issue. Capcom's Darkwatch will offer two beauties, the arresting Cassidy, a blonde deputy in the Old West, and Tala, a vampiric femme fatale who also appeared in last year's pictorial when Darkwatch was still under the watch of Sammy Studios. Alexa, a reporter from VU Games' 50 Cent: Bulletproof, will, to quote Fiddy, not only "party like it's her birthday", but party in her birthday suit.

Rounding out the octet will be characters from Sony's God of War (who already appeared nude in the game), Namco's Hellgate: London, and, fittingly, Hip Games' Playboy the Mansion: Private Party.

The pictures will appear on eight trading cards, four of which will be printed in two different versions of the magazine. When positioned together correctly, the eight cards form a ninth picture.

Playboy has been tapping into the growing gaming market in recent years. In addition to Playboy: The Mansion, which puts the sin in Sims-style gameplay, the empire has offered downloadable pictorials formatted for Sony's PSP.

Tim Surette reported for GameSpot.