Panty Raider: From Here to Immaturity

"This be an avant garde game here oh yes indeedy that it is"

It sat there and stared at me from the bargain bin several times before I gave in, but that's not because it was meant to be. Everyone else was just smart enough to avoid it.

There are so many more cool ideas for a title like Panty Raider, with a Revenge of the Nerds style strategy game foremost in my mind, than the one they came up with that I cannot believe they wasted such a good name on such drivel. Basically the world is under siege by aliens who will blow it up in twelve minutes unless you can photograph three models in various underwear poses. Yeah, the models will get blown up too, but why should that bother folks smart enough to make spaceships? Anyway, they assign Nelson, a dweeb on par with Larry Laffer but with shades, to stalk the girls and take their pictures. If he can get pictures of three girls in the correct underwear within the time limit, you get the sort of trick ending you could not have forecast in detail, but you probably saw the general idea. It'll take a few times to get through the game; for me the challenge was neutralized once I read the instruction manual. This smoothed over some stupid mistakes I'd been making except for that whole buying-the-game-in-the-first-place deal. (At least I won't do it again.)

At the start of each game, you are given the pictures of the models you need to photograph. Hover the cursor over one of them, and you see what underwear you need to photograph them in. Once you start the game you'll have three places to go; the forest, the ruins and the beach. In any case you stand at the center of a circle of view which takes up about--quelle coincidence--three screens. One of the models is in each location, sealed off after you get her picture, and you have various instruments to use to make sure you get a photo of her wearing the right stuff. Your general weapon, green blobs, will cause her to take off her clothes(partially) when you hit her. You also have an x-ray scanner to see what underwear she's wearing so as not to waste time, a camera to take her picture(keep her in range for a few seconds,) a cell phone for broadcasting pickup lines, like mating calls when hunting ducks or deer(don't use it too often,) and a TREN-DEE(tm) zipping waist pouch which allows you to use bait such as Tic Tacs, a toilet, a mirror, or a credit card. A menu at the bottom shows Nelson's life force as well as buttons to click to use each option. You may run out of any one of these in which case you'll need to take a couple of seconds to go back to the screen where you choose your location and try again.

As Nelson hopefully progresses he will find various obstacles interfering with him. First there is the landscape, as trees or Inca monuments may block his ability to see or throw goop at a model. There are also other non-sexy people(metalhead, cleaning lady) that you can X-ray without penalty, but you can't goop them too much. Although you can goop the models for fun, going all the way(i.e. down to their skivvies) will get the aliens mad and cost you life points. Gooping them is not too tough, either. Once hit they run horizontally(makes it easier to aim) and sometimes change direction. Three hits and they're down, but the more times they've been hit, the faster they run(the doe-eyed airheads walk carefully up to bait,) but you can always move faster than they do for a while, but if you wait too long, they make some bubbleheaded remaark and run off the screen. You just have to aim ahead of where she is and eventually she won't run back. Then for the camera you just have to try to keep her in the center and she'll pose. If you get a girl not pictured in the original or she's wearing the wrong stuff, the picture will come out bad.

Besides skin color there's a striking lack of variety for the girls. Their undergarments, only in red, white and black, and outerwear usually clash which I guess increases the difficulty but is a fashion no-no. They look like mediocre anime and there are only five different girls. For variety they could at least have done something with hair styles(each girl has only one) or the like(different shoe styles maybe.) There also seem to be very few outfits, and how the models turn for a photo after you(concealed) have them in your sights for a few seconds is as phoney-baloney as the game wants you to believe they are. Now I wouldn't want to become a creative consultant on this matter, but it seems that they tried to cover a lack of ideas with an excess of skin. Then the backgrounds although randomized(each location has blockers in different parts each time you visit) only have a few landmarks per area. Nelson's annoying too, looking even more like a grunge rocker in the ''realistic'' cut-scene when you lose(thank goodness for the escape key to cut it short) than normal. There are also predictable yocks when you photograph the non-models. Well, on the other hand, at least the aliens don't look as bad as they sound(in general, more Hispanic than you'd guess, and a bit disturbing when combined with the ''illegal alien'' jokes in the winning scene.)

Ah yes. The sound. Oh, for a speech/text toggle! That would only be the first step, though. There is no way to tune out that annoying alien voice in the upper left telling you what a trap does even after you've played the game a bit, which wastes your time into the bargain. Okay, some of the pick up lines you use as bait are clever as well, but eventually you'll get to learn them and would much rather see them on the screen. There are also the expected comments from Nelson which wear thin(''This is better than looking through a keyhole!'') and the sound is only marginally dispensable as it helps to determine quickly if a girl is wearing the right clothes. The pickup lines clearly get annoying after a bit, which is the intent...sort of...but when a game tries to portray many annoying things as bluntly as Panty Raider, it better have a lot to offset it or it will prove its point all too well. Here you don't even get graphic originality.

The game has a simple premise and a relatively formulated solution. Of course the black/white view of the world with all pretty girls can be raucous, but the plot is absurd, unoriginal, and not in the least entertaining, so it all comes off stale. There is some sort of randomness in the scenery but even that can be overcome by placing bait, etc. low on the screen to avoid any obstacles, and there's no difference between any of the girls. Even their poses are all the same; I'm not sure if it's a point I care about, but it exhibits a lack of creativity all the same. Even for seeing cute ditzy women in skimpy tight clothes, this game is no better than TV. The waits for a woman to appear are like commercial breaks, and the intervention of the aliens shows a similar ludicrous plot brought along to display them. You won't think much while playing it, and you'll walk away disappointed as well. Fry your mind on the wide variety of horrendous channels on the boob tube like E! for an hour. You'll get the same effect as buying this game, and you'll save ten bucks, unless you see somethin' real cool you gotta have in a commercial along the way.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 11/25/01, Updated 11/25/01