Prince of Porn

Most games give you something to work towards. In Mario it's rescuing Princess Peach, in Tom Clancy titles it's defeating the evil terrorists and saving the world, in Sonic The Hedgehog it's saving little furry creatures from a life of relentless torture.

By comparison, this particular game's ultimate reward might not seem quite so noble. But then not everyone wants to save the world. Some of us just want to realise our ambition to be a – err – Prince of Porn. You know, working our way up from a random encounter in a nightclub toilet to an orgy in Hollywood. Surely that's enough of an incentive for any man?

Prince of Porn is best described as a text adventure meets rhythm-based button pusher. Its title, plus the revelation that there's no music to push along to, should give you the necessary clues as to where the rhythm is needed.

But don't imagine anything seedy. In fact, the cartoon visuals and sexual innuendos are reminiscent of an old PC game, remade for PS2, Leisure Suit Larry, which is often remembered fondly for its cheeky and humourous approach to the subject matter. Unfortunately, Prince of Porn has little of the likeability and none of the variation in gameplay of its spiritual predecessor.

The part chancer, part perv lead character begins the game down on his luck – and ladies – in a bar. An enlightening few seconds later, he realises what he must do to bring meaning to his life. This, it emerges, essentially entails sleeping his way to a career in porn. Cue a quick visit to the ladies toilets and the sort of success a man can only dream of.

As any sexual Lothario won't tell you, there's nothing that gets a girl going more than doggedly going at it in rhythm with some sort of internal drum machine beat. As such, every sexual encounter in the game requires you to press the buttons '1', '2' and '3' with perfect timing (and the occasional number '5', which triggers an 'appropriate' animation such as punching the air).

Keeping the rhythm increases a bar at the top of the screen until, when full, you both explode with passion. If you mess up the button pushing, the bar will empty and every man's nightmare comes true – you flop and your insensitive partner charmingly queries, "Did you spank the monkey too often?"

Because the button bashing is merciless, the pretty graphic anime visuals are mostly wasted seeing as all you can afford to concentrate on is the next button prompt. Still, there's sometimes a pause in the pushing for you to appreciate the odd humorous aside – like a cow mooing during a bonk over the bonnet of a car or spraying beer everywhere during a threesome at a festival.

After each encounter, you get a breakdown of your score and unlike real life there's actually a bonus for finishing in under two minutes. But then this is a fantasy game – where else would a girl react in the affirmative to the question, "Hey hot pants! How about a joyride on that hood?"

The sound effects in the game amount to nothing more than a disturbing noise reminiscent of a horse being shot in the rump for when you 'finish off'. It's all fairly tongue-in-cheek, though, and really not that titillating (unless you enjoy watching cartoon buttocks bouncing about) or particularly distasteful.

What really lets Prince of Porn down is the lack of any actual game.

In all, there's just five levels – you play hide the sausage in some toilets, in a girl's house after going round to 'clean the pipes', on a car bonnet, at a festival, and finally in Hollywood in front of the cameras – and it takes little more than ten minutes to complete and see all the different outcomes to the scenarios.

This is actually something of a relief, as the novelty is already wearing off after a couple of levels but, generally, reaching the credits so soon remains a disappointment.

As a bit of harmless fantasy (harmless except perhaps for some of the dialogue, the tone of which oversteps the most liberal of boundaries once or twice), Prince of Porn is fun. And as an experience of living in the sort of utopia where every girl you meet (and her mate) is up for it, it works. But as a game, it's almost non-existent, and we can only recommend alternative sources for a fix of gaming featuring anime girls.

For a more satisfying smutty game, try Porn Manager instead, or browse the best of our adult mobile game reviews.