"They actually managed to make it worse than the show."

You know how games based on TV franchises tend to suck? The usual problem is that what works great on TV doesn't automatically translate to a great game. Efforts are taken to put as many recognizable elements in the game; then for some reason developers believe that the game will become playable by itself. There are pleasant exceptions but for the most part, the lack of attention in the areas where it is needed is painfully obvious. Ubi Soft decided to do things differently. Rather than try to base a game on a successful TV franchise, they picked an obscure budget "hot chicks beating up evil guys" series called VIP and tried to make a game out of that. Apparently they figured that if the franchise they picked was bad enough, the game could only look good by comparison.

Searching Ubi Soft's website won't turn up this game. It has in fact been cancelled in the US and it's like that Ubi Soft would rather forget they ever came up with this. But us lucky Europeans can get our hands on it, and I can happily report it is one of the most atrocious games I have ever played. Like the TV series, the only thing it has going for it is that Pamela Anderson stars in it. Except that in the game it's merely a poorly rendered animation of her, voiced by somebody you've never heard of. Whether that's an improvement or not, I'll leave up to you.

VIP refers to itself as an "action-packed interactive episode of VIP". It boasts about "unique gameplay", in which "quick wits and faster fingers are essential" to win this "combo-rhythmic action adventure". Not one word made up, it's literally on the back of the box. The majority of the game plays in a style vaguely resembling Bemani. Basically, Pamela or one of the other characters of the VIP cast runs around, then an army of clones in somber suits and dark sunglasses shows up. One of them runs up to you, and icons appear in the air telling you which buttons to press. You press the right buttons - out of the cursor keys and the numbers 1-4, and if you did it right, your character proceeds to beat up the enemy with a few punches, kicks, and whacks with the handbag (I kid you not). The thus smitten enemy falls and disappears, then the next in line runs up. Every so often your character advances a few steps after beating up an enemy, then more of them jump you.

And that's exactly how "interactive" the combat gets. Press the right keys and you beat them up, take too long or press a wrong one and you yourself take a hit. You'll likely be so busy looking at the icons telling you what to press that you don't actually get around to seeing the combat take place, but that's fine. Each character only has about 4 moves that they chain together in different orders, and before the first level (out of 12) is over, you'd have seen them all too often already. The game carefully ensures a lack of variety by making sure that EVERY enemy looks exactly the same. I don't know what factory is producing those dark suited guys with sunglasses, but they must be making millions.

The endless and repetitive fighting scenes are broken up by what the game refers to as "interspersed mini games" that "keep the action fresh and intense". If by fresh and intense they mean "just as horrible but at least it's somewhat different", they're right. Most of these mini games consist of shooting: move crosshairs over screen, press key to shoot, press other key to reload. All still with the keyboard, mind you, there is no mouse support. Fortunately the enemies move so slowly and take so much time to fire back that this doesn't matter one bit. Reloading is easy, too. Press the key and the pistol automatically reloads, without the character holding it doing a thing. Or just press the shooting and reloading keys simultaneously whenever you fire, and watch as the ammo never runs out. Whatever works for you. Other, less frequent minigames include the "push door open when guys on the other side are holding it closed" one where you have to mash the 1 key on your keyboard, and one of those lovely sliding tile puzzles that every gamer hates. They always seem to sneak their way into otherwise perfectly fine adventure games, so it's good to see it in a game that can't possible be ruined, for once.

All this exciting action is held together by a story that is probably of the same quality as the TV series, and explains perfectly why there was never more than one season. It couldn't be more obvious that the "story" is just an excuse to have chicks in bikinis beat up evil dudes if there had been a disclaimer saying so. A shame that in the transition from TV to game, even that advantage was gone. Even if I had had this game as a 13 year old and even if I had ever understood what people see in Pamela Anderson, I strongly doubt I'd have had it hidden under my pillow instead of a Playboy. The character models are decent enough, but they're just models, and it shows. And especially Pamela, who was on the show for precisely two reasons (both of which were on her chest), doesn't look the least bit appealing.

As a final feature - though I see it more as a final insult - the game gives you a score at the end of each level based on how many "combos" and "counters" you pulled off. Both of which, incidentally, don't seem to have anything to do with your actual button presses, but have been added just to make it look more like a fighting game. These points can be spent after each level to "buy" pictures and movie files which you can then look at. The pictures are screenshots from the game, often from scenes you haven't even seen yet and which are thus meaningless to you. The movies are just a repetition of each level's closing movie, so at the time you buy it and can watch it, you already saw it for free twenty seconds ago. And none of them were interesting the first time around. The only somewhat interesting part of this whole feature, and I suspect the only selling point of the game, is that the pictures include some real life photos from the cast as well, and obviously mostly of Pamela Anderson. If you were hoping to at least get some cheap celebrity porn out of this, I have to disappoint you. The game is rated 12+ and the pictures are accordingly tame.

I'm pretty sure that if I had developed or published this game, I too would pretend it never existed, like Ubi Soft seems to do. The one thing that made me finish this game is that it's possible to do so in one sitting; it's that easy and short, and that devoid of replay value. For me it is a worthy addition to my proud and growing collection of horrible PC games; for anybody else, if you still consider buying this, you are beyond my help. I did my best.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 12/15/04