Playboy: The Mansion Preview

The basic concept of the game has you playing the role of Hugh Hefner.  Hef has to run the Playboy Empire and make sure the business that is Playboy succeeds.  Of course a big part of that success depends on pictures of beautiful women printed in Playboy magazine.  If you don’t have the best pictures of the best women then you run the risk of hurting the Playboy enterprise.

In the game you play the role of a younger Hef.  You’ll start the game inside of the mansion where playmates and guests are wandering throughout the mansion.  The basic layout of the game will remind most players of The Sims.  You can interact with the playmates and other guests within the game.  Hef has six different drives that keep Hef going and happy.  Remember if Hef isn’t happy then the Playboy enterprise can suffer.  The six drives are Entertainment, Education, Leisure, Casual Relationships, Professional relationships and Romantic relationships.  So it’s possible for Hef to build a romantic relationship with the playmates in the game.

Obviously the women inside of the magazine are what most people think when discussing Playboy.  There is a virtual photo shoot within the game that allows you to shoot the models.  You can pick the location of the photo shoot, such as pool side or something inside the mansion.  During the photo shoot you can change the attire the models wear and add or remove accessories such as jewelry.  As of now you can take up to 24 pictures during the photo shoot. 

The business simulation in the game allows you to control and view different aspects of the Playboy business.  You can control the cost of the magazine and change the price if you feel necessary.  After changing the price you can then view the impact the price cut had on sales of the magazine.  The sales of the magazine are broken down by demographics from entertainers to educators. 

As of this moment the game will be composed of 12 missions that must be completed to finish the game.  These missions will be for the Xbox and PC versions of the game.  The developer mentioned that the PS2 version will have an additional 3 bonus missions.  But don’t feel jealous Xbox owners because the game will have Xbox Live support.  The developers mentioned downloadable content and additional content to be determined later.  There will be a character creation mode included in the game as well.  You can create a playmate or create other characters for the game.  For playmates, there will be total of 50 actual playmates represented in the game.

So far Playboy: The Mansion appears to be an interesting choice for a Playboy game.  The developer mentioned that the game will have a Mature rating.  They are working closing with the ESRB to see just how far the Mature rating can be pushed.  I will let your imagination decide what that could mean.  But at E3 2004 there actually is a game underneath the Playboy name, it’s not just a bunch of pictures with content that no one really notices.  Look for the game later this year.