ic-games Review - Playboy: The Mansion - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Playboy: The Mansion - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Playboy: The Mansion

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Arush
Publisher: Ubisoft
Reviewed: Xbox
Genre: life simulator
UK Release: 04th Mar 2005
Article Date: 23rd Mar 2005
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £29.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 66%

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Pros

You get to publish 'Playboy'

Cons

Limited

Not that raunchy

Screenshots

5 of 5

Wanting to be a Playboy is probably every heterosexual male’s wildest dream. Shacking up with some of the most beautiful women in the world doesn’t seem that demanding. Well for Hugh Hefner it’s just another day at the office. For the rest of us though, the closest we are going to get is with Ubisoft’s Playboy: The Mansion.

Straight off the bat the similarities to Electronic Arts “The Sims” are far to obvious to ignore. In fact anyone who has spent some time playing the No1 life simulator will immediately feel at home with the look and feel of Playboy: The Mansion (PBTM). The menu system, the controls and even the graphics bare more than a certain resemblance to The Sims. In essence this isn’t a bad thing for fans of the genre, as long as Developers Arush Entertainment brought in a few new ideas. Thankfully in most parts they succeeded, especially since they offer you the chance to publish your own version of Playboy each month, albeit a heavily waterered down version.

PBTM also has a decent enough mission structure tied into the main campaign, and this mission structure is the glue that does its best to hold this particular mansion together. Without these missions PBTM really fails to impress which is evident to anyone who plays the sandbox mode. The missions have you fulfilling certain tasks alongside actually producing the Playboy magazine. The reason it works so well is that rarely do you find yourself wondering around with nothing to do. The missions are normally pretty involving and involve tasks like sorting out domestic problems with your staff to producing special editions of the Playboy magazine. None of the extra staff members can be controlled though as your attention will always be on the main character, Hugh.

Success in these missions also rewards you with extra points that can be used to purchase certain unlockables and bonus material/furniture. These extras include revealing the front covers of playboy magazine throughout the years to gameplay cheats. The testosterone levels will also rise with the inclusion of novelty cheats that increase breast sizes for all characters in the game and other cheats that help bring along the sexual desirers of your guests (making bonking them far easier). The actual sexual acts are pretty tame and make us wonder how PBTM managed to get that 18 certificate, if you’re into a “pornographic” experience with your computer games we doubt you’ll find what you’re looking for in this one.

Of course another big draw this title brings is in the ability to create your own Playboy magazine. On paper this might sound pretty involving but it actually turns out to be another let down. As you would expect, each edition needs certain content before it can be submitted to the printers. These include cover shots, featured centrefolds, essays, interviews and photo editorials. The problem with PBTM is that obtaining the material is far too easy, but with no real guide as to what makes each section a decent read. Sure you’ll be told if an article ‘stinks’ or if a centrefold session was ‘good’ but never why, and sadly because of that you’ll be left scratching your head at times. There’s also never any real urgency to rush to the printers either, even though Playboy magazine is a monthly item the month will only ever pass when you finally decide to go to print.

To get the content for the magazine you’ll also need the right contacts, and the same is true with PBTM. Periodically superstars will drop in when they get to hear about your antics in the mansion. When these superstars arrive it becomes your primary job to milk these people for content for Playboy. It can go wrong though, if you hassle them for material straight off the bat you’ll normally be rejected straight away. No, Hugh must pamper, indulge and even coerce the subjects into agreeing to write essays, participate in interviews (and if they are female) dropping their knickers.

Playmates are your only source for the illustrious role of centrefold though and these girls do not need pampering. Immediately on request you can perform a camera session at the location of your choice (inside the mansion or its surrounding areas) and its up to you to snap some decent pictures as the girls gyrate around the screen. Again few clues are offered as to what makes a good shoot but with some trial and error you should get a few decent pictures. Unfortunately Hugh doesn’t know much about cameras as he insists on using a camera that holds only 8 pictures at a time so you really do need to make sure very picture counts. It’s a shame that you can’t pick other girls and promote them to Playmate either as the franchise seems to only cater for official playmates.

PBTM will only really appeal to, well, lets be honest here, the male audience. With Hugh going around trying to mate with anything female this is hardly going to appeal to many females out there. The 18 certificate also seems wildly exaggerated and will only serve to sell even more copies (proof that high age limits never hurt). The only area that PBTM does get interesting is sadly also the most underused portion of the game, the chance to publish the magazine itself. There is something quite satisfying about publishing your own magazine but sadly the game doesn’t go into enough depth and makes the whole process far to easy to accomplish anyway. As it stands PBTM is nothing more than a wannabe 'Sims' type expansion, and there’s already enough of them about thank you very much.

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