It goes to show a game can combine sex and nudity and still be a really good and addictive experience.
Playboy: The Mansion plays just like The Sims. The only difference is that it took all of the Sims weak points and discarded it, worked on it’s strong points and added a few of it’s own. The result is Playboy: The Mansion.Now before someone jumps to conclusions, this game really goes to show the history of playboy and how the playboy industry is run. I for one learned more about Playboy in this game. Playboy isn’t just about sex, playmates and nudity. It’s also about articles, news and interviews…and if you really think about…it’s true. Playboy: The Mansion also has a lot of unlockable playboy history in it.
Let me get into the game play. The game has two modes, Mission play, where you are given various objectives to complete and Free Play, where you build your empire from nothing (or a sample mansion). Whichever you choose, the game play is more or less the same. I spent the majority of my time on Free Play so this review will mostly be a reflection of that mode.
You need to build your mansion and furnish (and other areas once unlocked). You have to hire staff. You need to publish magazines. You need money. You need cover models, centerfolds, articles, interviews, essays and pictorials. The game revolves around the things mentioned above. Now while, it doesn’t sound fun, it IS addictive! I am someone who happens to love this game, but I hate The Sims.
You can move Hef (you) onscreen using the controller. You have to get people to do things for your magazine. On staff you should have a journalist and photographer. You need to throw parties (which cost money) and invite people to them in order to get the required information from them. You can only use one person for one type of information once. You need to develop a relationship with them before they will do anything with you. Relationships include professional, business and romantic. Whichever you choose to develop will affect the relationship you will have with the person. Obviously, you cannot develop a romantic relationship with a male. Once you have all the required information, you can publish your magazine and the money will come rolling in. You only get money from selling magazines. It’s not a matter of when you get the information, but how you get it and from who, because information will have certain ratings on them…how good they are top how bad.
The graphics in the game is simple. Don’t expect anything spectacular. It’s so simple the nudity isn’t so good to look at. If this game had some better visuals, it would have been a much better experience than what is. All the female characters look the same, the only difference is what the wear, their hair style and skin color, the same can be said for males for the males in the game.
The sound consists of grunts, laughter and various other noises when talking to other people in the game. Sound effects are simple and not worth mentioning. There is voice acting when you are notified of certain things by various people. Once you purchase a stereo system, you can switch it one and you hear music in the game while you play it. The choice of music to listen to is wide however it gets old hearing the same songs over and over again.
I spent a long time playing is game and the replay value is almost infinite. You will just sit down and play this game for hours upon hours. It will devor your time and before you know it, you spent over 100 hours on this game and you have built the ultimate playboy empire. While I did not spend that amount of time with the X-Box version, it was just as addictive and fun as the PS2 counterpart.