While the adult movie industry is the most gosh darn money-makin-est industry out there, adult themes have had some rocky transitions to other mediums, namely video games. It seems that anytime an adult game is unleashed on the PC or a console, the experience is never, eeeeeeeever good. Things will either end up in one of two ways: the game is shallow as hell and gets boring within the first thirty minutes, or worse, you’re faced with digging through hours of juvenile humor just to catch a glimpse of some blurry 3D polygonal boob. In the end, it becomes pretty damn clear that while these games are rated “Adults Only”, it’s apparent that you’d have to be either twelve years old or some sort of virgin Renaissance Fair worker to get any kind of enjoyment out of them. This week’s game manages somehow to do both without the huge payoff in return. Allow me introduce you, fair reader, to “7 Sins”.
“7 Sins” can be described as a subpar, crappy clone of the Sims but not anywhere as entertaining as other crappy clones of the Sims like Singles, Singles 2, or god forbid the cocksucking Urbz. The game revolves around the – gasp – seven deadly sins including, but not limited to sloth, gluttony, lust, wrath, anger, greed, envy, and pride. So just how are these sins put to use? By committing evil deeds of course, this entails getting yourself put into the shoes of the biggest cockhole this side of Russell Crowe. Thus, the totally irrelevant premise of the game comes to play.
So let’s just get this out of the way completely. You’re a nameless guy who aspires to lie, cheat, steal, and sleep his way to the top of the social elite. Taking place in a town called Apple City (man, you just can’t make this stuff up) you start off by working for the man in a women’s clothing store called Suks. Before long, you’re recruited for a reality TV show to lay celebrities on camera, blackmailing celebrities at a fetish club, and eventually, becoming president of a corporation for some reason or another. There’s really no cohesiveness to the story aside from giving you more chicks – or guys – to have your way with, whichever way you choose to swing. While the game is geared towards straight vanilla sex (sorry, no girl-on-girl action here guys) you’ll often find yourself in some horribly awkward situations where you’ll be pouring raw snails and garlic all over a half-naked fat guy or worse, standing naked in a walk-in cooler with a food critic who enjoys gladiator movies. It seems no matter how hard you try, you’ll always end up having to get it on with a dude – which in a game that is meant to light the fires in your bathing suit area; it really doesn’t do anything to help, unless that’s really what you’re into.
Icabod Crane made the move on the horseman's wife...but there were issues.
At this point, I’m sure your mind is looking past the occasional awkward moment and thinking “who cares? I’ll get to lay chicks!” While it’s true that you’ll have a veritable revolving door of women at your disposal, let me spoil things for you here and now. First, there is zero full frontal nudity. In the supposedly raunchy and adults only world of “7 Sins”, everyone showers and gets their jollies wearing bikini briefs, leotards, lingerie, or (shudder) granny panties. The lesson learned here is that you’re more likely to get aroused watching late night Skinimax than playing this game. Second, as if the thought of two people dry humping each other in underwear isn’t laughable enough; the actual act of sex is played out through one of two lame mini games where the act is blurred in the background. Don’t throw away that old copy of GTA: San Andreas too fast, Hot Coffee promised you a lot more action.
If you’re daring, dumb, or clueless enough to play this game, you’ll come to realize the gameplay is as shallow as the small talk or pick-up lines that spew from your character’s oral orifice. Each of the game’s six missions requires you to score 100 points by sleazing, sweet-talking, and sleeping your way into manipulating people into doing things that will benefit you in the long run. Sure, it sounds like oodles of fun, but trust me, it all becomes as mind numbing as assembly line work by the second mission.
When you approach your victim, you’re provided with a handful of lines to give her. Each line has an icon next to it that represents a category, for instance, a smiley face would be one of the many hilarious “jokes” you can tell, a briefcase would represent serious business talk, and so on. Each woman you talk to has hidden sensitivities that reveal themselves as you throw line after line at them. Successful phrases will increase your relationship level while subjects that turn them off or premature groping before asking how their day was will predictably make you fall from grace. When you think about it, after spreading all of this over six chapters you’ll learn to totally screw the system. After using the trial-and-error tactic of finding a chick’s sensitivities, you can drop the same lines over and over until she’s about to cream her blurry polygonal granny panties at the thought of taking you on in the bedroom Olympics.
Juvenile humor = comedy gold.
Of course, after the lines get too old, you’ll still be able to have a laugh at the frequent misspellings and broken English the game provides you for dialog, not to mention the comedy gold your character spews like “have you heard the one about the one-legged duck?” or the totally dated references to Sylvester Stallone and the Macarena – both of which are things that absolutely nobody cares about these days, let alone in 2005.
The developers attempted to break things up by giving your character feelings that you’ll have to keep track of, lest you totally blow up and run away in panic. As you talk to women, meters relating to stress, hormones, and violence will increase. You’ll frequently find yourself having to take care of these problems by playing a handful of mini games that’ll decrease those levels. If you decide to ignore your needs, your character will start slapping around, or even better, dry humping the nearest person before running out of the door and causing you to have to start all over again in your quest for booty.
Each mini game is overly simple and gets tiring after the third or fourth time playing it. Unfortunately, since you’ll be constantly battling with your emotions throughout the game, you’ll have to play each of these games about forty-three times more than you’d really like to. The mini games are where the developers’ awesome sense of humor really shine as you’ll find yourself pissing all over toilet seats and plants trying to hit bugs or putting censor stamps on the goods of chicks that are offering you dances that are far hotter than any woman in the game is willing to give you. This turns out to be pretty sad since these are dances that are only risqué enough to make Indian strippers blush. If you got that attempt at a joke, I tip my hat to you. Other mini games have you killing small animals with baseball bats, dreaming that you’re hiding from women in your underwear, or making sheep jump precariously over a table saw. If your hormones go out of control, you can distract a woman long enough to take a peek at her boobs or look up her skirt. Why you can’t just use the aforementioned bathroom to simply jerk off is a mystery to me.
Ten minutes of 7 Sins is equivalent to this...
In addition to taking care of your own needs, you’ve got money problems to worry about. Even though the game has you working a retail job or making you the CEO of a company, you’ll always have to resort to rummaging through peoples’ jackets or pick pocketing to make some cash – which each offer their own lame and forgettable mini games.
When you finally reach the actual act of sex, you’ll have to play either one of two mini games that has you searching for the girl’s g-spot by running your cursor over a blurred picture of the actual act. For each spot you find, part of the picture will be revealed and you’ll score a glimpse of a shoulder or maybe a back. Hooray for you. The second game merely has you tracing the outline of a woman in order to reach a certain score. Yawn. Interestingly enough, if you’re playing the PC version of the game, the instructions still tell you to use the analog sticks to trace the lines. Awesome.
While “7 Sins” commits the cardinal sin of being the only adult game that offers more eroticism in your character’s underwear bulge than the women you’re having relations with, it only further deflates your erection when all of the chicks you’ll be dorking are just plain butt-ugly. What’s worse is that each chapter, save for the second, traps you within one location. Instead of taking women home, you’ll be seeking out the nearest bathroom, cooler, or copy machine to finally accomplish the deed. Talk about lame.
“7 Sins” has its own share of graphical anomalies aside from its inherent ugliness. The assorted fat chicks you’ll be forced to dork will cause your character’s face to clip into their needlessly large boobies, women’s heads disappear when you take a seat next to them, and all women have uncomfortably arched feet that makes it look like their wearing high heels at all times. Oftentimes, you and your potential mate will strip naked and maybe want to get intimate in the shower – to where they’ll walk to the shower, get dressed, then get undressed again before they step in.
If you think this image is hot, you might just enjoy this game.
What’s worse than fugly women is that every environment you’re thrown into feels like a prison, or its own level of hell. You character feels less like your typical womanizing jerk and more like a rat in a cage. There’s absolutely nothing impressive about this game no matter what video settings you have it at, then again, I doubt anyone’s expectations would be high.
As far as sound goes, you’ll get a bastardized version of the Simlish language that made the original Sims so charming. The game’s music shows it’s obvious Euro-trash roots by featuring a lot of Euro-trashy music and classical numbers. Certain mini games, such as the “slap your face” mini game uses a thinly satirized version of ‘Eye of the Tiger’, which isn’t as funny as the developers had hoped.
So who would dig “7 Sins” after all is said and done? Monks or preachers come to mind, or thirteen year-old kids who enjoy watching scrambled Playboy channel on basic cable. Maybe guys who enjoy smacking it to the underwear section in their weekly K-Mart ad. Seriously, there is no way anyone over the age of eighteen would enjoy this game in the way the developers wished it would. What “7 Sins” turns out to be is just a lackluster asshole simulator with really lame sexual undertones. Look at it this way, you at least got to see boobies in BMX XXX or even better, God of War, which everyone knows is eons better than this game. While “7 Sins” has most likely found its way to the bargain bin by now, you’re better off just going to the strip club for a more memorable experience.
For your enjoyment, here is Blind Date: The 7 Sins Edition!
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