Playboy: The Mansion

Written by Chris Reiter  on July 18, 2005

Review: I stuck my "head" in the "rabbit hole" and am now "sifting" through Alice's "wonderland."

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Being enriched in this factotum lifestyle of his, Hugh must attempt to keep others happy. Managing his business as well as the aspirations of others is the key to receiving greater accolades in Playboy's inner workings. Everyone Hugh gets in contact with displays variations of bars that detect their relationship with Hef and their mood associated with different measurements in general (i.e., their feelings toward the furniture or love). Hugh must satisfy the charts of others by building up a working relationship with those who are important where applicable. Through casual, business, and romantic selections of dialogue, the connection between Hugh and others will grow with one another for better or worse. Ultimately, these talkative segments can attract characters into his closely knitted friendship club (which Hugh can call on these people at any point in the game to provide article material, most times), contracts or deals (randomly raising money for Hef), or procure a girlfriend for him or to get him laid (girlfriends boost Hugh's popularity, whereas sex unrealistically has Hef and the topless chick wriggling on top of him still in their undergarments). Playboy: The Mansion will clue you in that it's generally more fitting to establish a functional relationship with people so that the rankings of their articles turn out better. This procedure to please Hef's crowd works not only toward his house guests but also his staff. They'll supposedly perform exceedingly at their job if they're satisfied with themselves. Superior articles and pictures essentially means greater sales for the magazine. The more Hugh greases the wheels with the stars and the servants, the better off they're going to roll along with him.

Just be warned: chalking up dialogue sessions with any individual in Hef's mansion is going to lead to massive repeats. The bulk of Playboy being centered on discussions with famous celebrities or the workers supporting the magazine is a big reason as to why the game isn't everything you'd want it to be. Driving the productivity of one aspect in a relationship means you'll end up swimming up the same stream as before again and again no matter what. Because...there isn't actually an unlimited or even an extensive amount of options to dabble in. When Hef is to casually infer his motives for instance, the smorgasbord of motives presented to him range from "Casual Talk," or "Joke Around," or "Ask About Ex," or "Inquire About Past," or the inevitable "Invite to Inner Circle" selection. These possibilities of conversation pieces rack up the longer Hugh gauges the NPC's interest. However, this means you don't want to keep punching in the same command twice as not to peeve off the AI. To avoid ruining the moment, what seems to work best in any conversation is to imitate the emotion NPCs express to Hef. If say they're whispering in his ear during a business-oriented exchange of words, that would obviously signify the "Share a Stock Tip" choice. Doing what they do usually works to the advantage of pleasuring company. But then, the AI is so unmistakably rehearsed, you'll find yourself shifting to duplicate patterns too many times for this ride to be anything more than average.

High-voltage entertainment values don't exactly sprout from steering Hef through his home either. Being the basic simulation game that this is, Hef and the AI together aren't given much leeway for getting around one another. As Hugh Hefner, running doesn't exist in his world. Plodding along the mansion floors slowly and having to stop and select a staircase to go upwards isn't exactly the belle of the ball when it comes to optimally functional speed in any game type. Speaking of slowness, it's ridiculously bad programming how characters will get trapped frequently in an enclosed space. No character is able to walk around another if they're literally standing in between a couch and a table. Let's say Hef asks a female companion to make like the wind and blow her clothes off for him for a horsey ride on the chaise. If some idiot is perched there already, deciding to get up as Hef and his lady friend approach the inner division between the table and the furniture, they'll pause for a few moments and be forced to walk around to the other side with your feedback disabled from taking on further instruction. At least the menu system is fairly easy to adapt to, considering all four relevant selections (missions, magazine arrangement, people picks, and the shop) is all mapped to the four directional buttons. At the very least, it'll take about an hour or so just to get used to the playing style of Playboy and become one yourself.

Sharp. Really, really sharp. Brand-new paper or knife sharp. This must be how Hugh Hefner's famous estate really looks, as if you could cut yourself on its razor-blade visual qualities of these colorfully stark, simple, and yet interactive pages of the Playboy universe. Then again, that's firmly doubtful. When you think of a mansion, you'd probably picture there's a lot more to it than just two tiny floors in the entire estate, a pool and a grotto combo that don't hold true to an unflattering presentation, and a clubhouse that's much more luxurious than the near empty lot that houses but a couple of generic arcade games including Smac-Man, the Pac-Man rip-off everybody loves. This is what Playboy: The Mansion pretty much is, though. Inheriting the typical and simplistic PC-style graphics used in the king of simulation games The Sims and every one of its overabundant expansions (and now its sequel too), Playboy certainly isn't going for the grade A graphics you'd expect from any flagship title. But for Playboy, it works on its own accord. From the very start of the game, you're introduced to the mansion itself, which at the time is cut off to that one building where you can explore the palm tree-littered grounds stuck into a non-textured flat green board of grass, while inside is the plain wood floor and drab default decor (i.e., house plants, a futuristic-looking stereo system, a backgammon table with chairs) that'll give anyone an idea on how or where to make the mansion light up elsewhere in its commonality of bare spots. Upstairs is an office that is even emptier than the downstairs, with but a couch and some floor lamps to start out with. With progression, the pool area opens up and adds a patio with a food table next to the rectangular pale body of water that makes no splash or waves whatsoever when Hef or others dive on in.

Inspecting the areas of examples mentioned, you get the idea that Playboy: The Mansion is nothing special on the eyes. There are no finely rendered creepy corridors with bloodsucking spiders to munch on your head, or alien invaders with green-laser blasting phaser guns to destroy the earth in an array of fascinating explosions here. Then again, there are some interesting aspects to find and see in this particular kind of game. All that vacant space in the mansion and its branching categories leaves open slots for you (or Hugh) to add in the blanks. In the upstairs part of the mansion for instance, you'll be required to purchase a staff desk for journalists to take advantage of. Unless you have a desk ready for a journalist to utilize, they won't accept your invitation to be a part of your magazine staff. You'll be able to add some reclining chairs or even a trampoline at the pool side, or maybe a DJ station or a wide screen TV in the clubhouse. There can be a bed setup for some loving in Hugh's office, or wall and background art for use with prettying up the centerfold shoots. All sorts of items will be available or become available from the collection of purchasable items in Hugh's menu choices (some of which are unlocked by meeting specific aims in the game). What's interesting about game objects is that the character models will walk up to and automatically interact with the environmental materials around them. In the clubhouse the NPC characters will boot up onto an arcade game or even begin to break dance on the floor if you're to arrange to have an expensive DJ station setup to flip on some tunes. The journalists can be spotted approaching their desks, sitting down, and typing at the computer. There's even the chance of Hef alongside the flock of NPCs hovering around him to engage in intercourse with. This is a funny bit when it does happen, but very odd since everyone's just standing around and gossiping while Hef is out in the open sitting on the couch with a girl sprawled on top of him communicating with the same stroking of bosoms or crotch-to-face, and bending backwards motions. Best of all though is the cover and centerfold picturesque moments when you're envisioning the female models up close (rather than overhead) and posing sexily by grabbing their rumps and lumps while wearing a distinctive style of brassieres and bottoms, or just the panties and bouncy mammaries alone (along with a short supply of accessories from your choosing: from shades, to necklaces and earrings). Playboy: The Mansion overall has nowhere near inasmuch electrical visible enthrallment as of life itself or the sexual tendencies that follow, but it's a start.

Recommendation numero uno: replace stilted vocal actors with quality talent. Recommendation numero dos: fill in the unmusical void by automatically rotating through the wide array of song tracks that are made only available for play on command from stereo devices. Recommendation numero tres: similar to recommendation numero dos, don't only aid the audio camp whenever a character commits to an action with an object. These are just some of the suggestions for how to improve on what's wrong with Playboy's almost completely silenced atmosphere. What you hear in Playboy: The Mansion is surprisingly not a lot, as music in the game is made into an option rather than a standard. The choice to pick whatever type of tunes you wish, from rap, to rock, to hip hop, to industrial, techno, country, and more -- you name it, and there are a broad variety of musical genres (all from unknowns) playing to the tip of your ears well. It'd have been better if the game were to just generate the swinging, soul stomping beats on its own power and still give Hef the benefit of switching tracks, so that way one doesn't have to waste precious time always committing to the deed themselves.

Strolling around the mansion's smallish portions, even through the unaffected water of the pool, you'd think there'd be some kind of ambiance to instill life into the heart of the game. But nope. When characters do convene in very direct activities like watching a Playboy bunny pour drinks, a journalist typing on the keyboard, a guest indulging themselves in a board or an arcade game of some kind, or two people loving one another on the sofa, your ears will pick up on the recorded bits of gushes, clicks, beeps, and moans, but otherwise there's squat. Besides a young blonde Playmate named Jenny and some old dude tuning in to inform Hef of his accomplishments or mission plans every now and then (with inefficient, unnatural vocals no less), lip-smacking with the cluster of NPCs in the game rounds out the majority of minuscule dialogue you'll have to bear. As Hef or NPCs initiate contact with one another, redundancy kicks in with the Sims-speak blather that's reminiscent of indiscernible French people making up words. "A balloon me, a ring-ding-ding TURKEY!" That's what Hugh Hefner sounds like when he makes a joke. "Abldb^*(^djffjsjmsf*^jfd$%&sgfkgfmd." And that's what he sounds like when he's divulging business matters. You will hear this crappy-crap-crap spill out of every character's mouth repeatedly throughout the fill of the game, so get ready to suck in the abominable flavor of it all.