Review: BoneTown for PC.

D-Dub software has had enough of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board's (ESRB) restrictions and have decided to make their newest game BoneTown available on the internet for distribution. In an article in Spong, the CEO of D-Dub had this to say

“It doesn’t make sense. The ratings boards are not telling us that these games aren’t for kids. We know that already. What they’re telling us is that adult games shouldn’t exist at all. We don’t agree, and neither does our customer base of adults who are interested in games that might include themes like sex, drugs, and language. Since they’ve made it so that games like ours can’t be marketed and distributed through the channels other video games use, we are starting a new industry to get this game out to our customers.”

Personally, as a gamer I usually see Sex in videogames as an added lure to bring people to play what is otherwise a crappy videogame, but in all fairness I took it upon myself to try out the demo of the game, to which I bring to you my first videogame review of an A/O game. So without further ado... I bring to you, the gamers.. Bone Town.


THE STORY SO FAR.....

When I first went on the website to download the demo, I kind of felt like I did when I was a teenager trying to sneak a peek at the magazines in waldenbooks, or kind of how i feel now when I walk through the curtains of the back room at the local video store. A little nervous, A little cheap, but once I finally finished my download and closed out of the site I was fine, but for me the adventure wasn't over it was just beginning.

You're first introduced to a options screen to determine your monitor and game settings, then you can select the race of your character, and off you go to be washed ashore of the sands of Missionary Beach. The first cutscene is your character being urinated on by some drunk frat dawg who mistakes you for a jellyfish. You correct this mistake by beating the crap out of him, and then you meet Candie who tells you that you're suffering from having a minute scrotum which prevents you from bedding the lovely ladies of Bown Town.

How do I remedy this, you may ask? well you have to bed lesser women ( big girls, crack whores, and prostitutes) to work your way up to the "hotties" (the model types, and the unattainables). Now this is where many women (including my wife) would roll their eyes, and I can definitely see why, but I'll save that discussion for later. Candie decides to overlook my shortcomings, and gives me a training room run at the sex gameplay mechanic. or minigame. or whatever it seems to be, and then after it's over she's knocked out by a mysterious man who resembles a secret service agent. You find out that this is one of the many employees of "The Man Inc." a conglomorate that is trying to take over Bone Town and bring decency into this godless, lawless country.

With Candie arrested, you go to your guru, a Jewish redneck who wants you to use your newfound powers of Identity Theft, and do random missions, and acts of violence to take down The Man Inc., and bring anarchy back to Bone Town.

My first and only mission had me help a crack addicted prosititute get back her rock from one of her johns, only to beat up her abusive Pimp in the hopes that she would give me a reward.. the results of this side quest left me both scarred, and disturbed for the remainder of my playthrough. But that ain't all, Friends...

GRAPHICS

The 3D models look somewhat cartoony. you'd think realistic graphics would work for this type of game, but then again sometimes realism in a game can be a bit bland. I would of been hoping for something like the DOA girls, or Ivy and Taki from Soul Caliber. The backgrounds of Missionary Beach were ok as far as indie games go. On first inspection you'd think this was a game out of the late 90s, but it's not enough to detract you from playing the game. The game HUD is pretty simple to follow. The layout reminds me of the early GTA games, but not by that much.

CONTROLS

I'll just get down to saying the fighting seems really shallow and simplistic. You press the left or right mouse buttons to fight and the mouse wheel, or center button to block. With those three actions you spend the majority of your time trying to be the first one to knock down the other guy in a series of three hit combos, and this goes on until his bar is empty. Good luck getting this to happen, because sometimes the camera which is also mapped to the mouse tends to jerk upwards so you can't see what you're doing. Then on occasion you acidentally bump into random passerbys who join in on curb stomping you back to square one.

This is where the game's powerups come in. Your character benefits in different ways from the recreational drugs he takes, which range from super speed to street figher esque fireballs to using Whiskey as an impromtu flamethrower. There are no Healing powerups, though. most if your healing is done through initiating oral gratification. and if you don't have the stats to get random women to do it for free, you're going to have to pay for it. Think that's unfair? well life is unfair, bucko. deal with it.

The Identity stealing option seems I liked because instead of trying to level grind for hours on end, you can just fight a person with higher stats and take his identity and those stats, which speeds up the gameplay, but more often than not you find yourself busting your hump for nothing, and eventually losing all your hard earned stats and balls after being knocked down a couple times, which happens alot.

which brings us to the final issue; The Sex. You set the type of intercourse you want by using the tab button and you walk up to any girl and use your pickup line. If she's down for it, you then match your character's speed and power meters with the female's until her 0 bar fills up and then success!. This continues until your stamina bar depletes. This is where the real level grinding (pun intended) beigns. you have to do this to many girls until your balls meter reaches an adequate level to get with your ideal sexual partners. The mechanics are fairly easy when you're doing the dirty to the lesser women, but the high maintenance women are downright difficult to please, which sounds like real life values being taught through gaming. The sad thing is that you'll be so bored with doing this over and over again that you'll be looking forward to fighting and sidequests to break the monotony.

I really wish there was more to this, like how God of War's minigames were. at least you had more to do than just shifting stats and "waiting for teh magic" which means staring at a cartoon rendered couple doing the business while sound wavs of various moans echoed out of my speakers. I should of had a V8.

MUSIC & SOUND

Actually I rather enjoyed the music. I thought there were some really decent R&B tracks in the game, which works with the overt sexual content. The voice acting however, can be a bit much, even annoying. Celebrity Talent like Ron Jeremy are an instant fit for this game, which features dialogue straight out of any adult film I did find uncle Lenny's dialogue to be funny. something both humorous and clever about redneck guys who sport jewish locks and talk with a trailer park southern accent.


The Spiracy Scale






Graphics:

Cartoony, very PS1 era-ish, but they do their job.

Controls:

The controls could be mapped to a controller (I used a keyboard), maybe the experience would of been better with a controller instead. having the fighting keys mapped to the mouse as well as the camera just made it downright confusing sometimes.


Sound:

Good music, but bad voice acting,
and cycled moans.





Gameplay:

There are a bunch of fun concepts, but the execution could of been way better. especially with the cheap NPC fights and bosses. A secondary health item that heals you during battles would of been nice.



The Verdict: At least Try it.

BoneTown seems ok for those who want their quick AO fix, but not really for much else. I hope this title makes enough money to warrant a sequel for this game so hopefully we can see some depth and polish. I don't hate this game because it's a sexual adventure. Liesure Suit Larry does pretty much the same, but with better visuals, and a more capable plot. As a teenager i would of enjoyed this game alot, but now as an adult I want a bit more substance.