ONE OF THE 'must see' games at E3 this year was Playboy: The Mansion, due out in Q4 for Xbox, PS2 and PC. This game, done by Cyberlore, is basically a cross between The Sims, Porn Mag Tycoon, and Virtual Hef. You basically play Hef, in his younger days, starting out Playboy, and making the magazine into an empire. The Cyberlore guys insisted it was a 'LifeSTYLE' sim as opposed to a life sim, they wanted to play up the fantasy side of things.
Whatever you call it, you start out as a young Hef trying to publish the first issue of Playboy. Your customization options on Hef basically include the color of his robe, but hey, you are playing a real person, and his outfit is his trademark. That said, chose red, it is so much more distinguished.
You play the game by running around convincing various people to take off their clothes and let you photograph them. You actually take the pics, and you skill here, and in composting the magazine will determine how much money you make. Make a compelling magazine, and you rake in the bucks, don't do as well, you end up poor.
Once you start making money, you can build up the mansion, throw parties, and hire more expensive talent. The parties are where it is at though. When you throw big parties, you attract hangers on, I mean second rate celebs, I mean the beautiful people. The more celebs you attract, the more women flock to you. The more women you have, the more celebrities you get. It is a vicious cycle.
Once you have happy friends, be they famous or beautiful, you can hit them up for favors. The more favors you get, the more celebs in your magazine, the better it does. The better the magazine does, the more money you get. Rinse repeat.
There are a bunch of celebrities lined up for the game, from the Penny Arcade crew to musicians to sports stars. In a incredibly blatant attempt at bribery, there are video game magazine editors done up as celebs. Now, I know, and you probably do as well, what virile lady killers us geek writers are, but this scheme still has a chance of working. Call me guys. Whatever the case, the list of people in the game is not final, but look for a lot of guests. I vote we start a write in campaign to get a Mike Magee character in it.
Getting back to the game, you can also run 'missions' like getting the local baseball hero hooked up with the bimb^h^h^h^h spokesmodel. The more relationships you build, and the more missions you accomplish, the more people like you, the more they come to the parties, and the more money you make. Sense a trend?
You can customize the women running around also, and do so in many more ways than Hef. You can chose big breasts, bigger breast, and biggest breasts, panty colors, and a host of other things. The mere thought of the online chat rooms that this thing will spawn makes me lose sleep. 'I am a hot 22 year old co-ed, and I made myself in the game. Anyone want to see?'. This from account 'bob_the_accountant'. Shudder, must bathe now.
Overall, this game will get a strong M rating, imagine that. There will be sex, naughtiness and general brouhaha. No censor will be safe, and I am sure the morality squad will be out in force protesting this. In an ironic twist, I was told that both MS and Sony were pushing for more sex in the game. Doesn't that contradict their stated goals of upstanding moral companies only bent on creative de-limbing games? Sex is bad, wire killings are good, especially with modern blood splatter rendering techniques.
Source and see the pics:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15973
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