Us guys love breasts. Sometimes we don't want to admit it, but it's true. Ask any heterosexual male what his favourite things are in life and I can pretty much guarantee that he will say breasts (as long as his girlfriend/wife isn't around). It was only a matter of time before someone got the license to make a Playboy game and here it is. The big question is, is it as stimulating as all us breast-loving gamers hope?

ARUSH Entertainment's marketing for this game makes several claims. A 3D environment that is fully zoomable. True, the camera zooms in and out, rotates left and right, all the usual stuff. However this is only possible around Hugh, the single controllable character in the game. The main issue I found is that there is no ability to scroll the screen. This makes it very hard to move around the mansion. The only way I found was to actually walk Hugh himself around, which as you can understand is quite frustrating at times. The other main disappointment is that the mansion is very small and poorly furnished; the highlight of the graphics are the walls turning transparent when the player looks through them - not very impressive for current standards. There are, however, multiple Playboy estate areas in the game, stopping you from getting bored too quickly. All the famous locations are here; the pool, the grotto and many more. However, the load time between them may become very frustrating unless you have a fast machine.

Hundreds of 'celebrities' are included in the game for you to interact with. However, if you are looking for A-list celebrities that we all know, you will be very disappointed. The only celebrities you will find (apart from the odd unlockable character like Snoop Dogg) are people like Uncle Kracker and Boris McEnroe. I can hear you asking who are they? Till I looked them up on the Internet, I didn't know either. The music, which was written and mixed by Felix da Housecat, becomes very tedious and you may find yourself turning it off after a couple of hours. There is a track selection option, which is a good addition, however it would have been good to opt to play your own music in the game. As like most games, there is never enough variety of genres to keep every gamer happy.

Playboy Mansion has two different modes of play - free play and campaign mode. The campaign mode begins with a video montage of the development of Playboy magazine, from its humble beginnings in the 1960s to the international trademark that it is today. It's a really good video, it should be the intro to some Playboy documentary and I got really excited about what was to come [Steady on, being premature never impressed anyone! Ed] I couldn't wait to step into Hugh Hefner's robe and start to build my magazine empire.

And this is what the game is really all about; you have to wander around a massive property trying to cobble together and make a successful magazine. This involves all the usual stuff; manage your staff, arrange for cover shots, centrefolds, pictorials, get articles written, ask for good reviews from the many people you invite to your mansion and much more. All this is carried out with the view of eventually getting your magazine sent out to the publisher, whether it's any good or not.

So by now you should have a firm grasp on what the game is all about. Being a young Hugh and building up the worldwide highly acclaimed Playboy magazine from scratch all sounds really exciting, doesn't it? The Campaign mode is essentially a guided way of playing. It gives you new objectives to complete and goals to reach. It is very good fun for a couple of hours, but then it becomes a bit tedious. A really fun aspect of the game is the photo shoots. The way to do this is to chat up a girl as much as possible, then offer her a small sum to perform some poses for the photo shoot, using the photographer you have hired. If you want topless shoots then the wages are higher, which is the usual way of the world. This is quite entertaining for the first couple of times, as you get to choose the outfit from the selection available, then you pick a location and start the shoot yourself, from the camera lens point of view. After all this is done, hopefully you have chosen the best model for your new centrefold and sell lots of issues.

The Free play mode does exactly what it says on the tin; you choose the goals, which you set out at the beginning, then you play to reach your goal. A good example would be one I chose for myself, to reach a target of selling 80,000 issues of the magazine as quickly as possible. Though this is not that hard a target after playing through the campaign mode and learning all the techniques, it becomes quite simple, as long as you follow the rules. You communicate with people through a simple chat interface, which includes various options for you to select, a bit like The Sims. The options include, Make out, Business talk and Smoke a cigar. These are all fun to watch for the first time, however they become very dull after a while, as the options are pretty limited and become regular occurrences that you just go through to reach your goals, rather than because it's a laugh.

Playboy: The Mansion seems to be another Sims wanabee, trying to copy a popular and successful game but not quite getting it right. The game 'Singles' is coming back into my head, but this time with the Playboy image to back it up. After getting a bit excited about it all when I first heard about it from an E3 video I found on the Internet, the game has ended up being limited in engrossing gameplay and adult content; there is barely anything here to justify that 18 rating and it would have been more interesting if the game had taken more risks, showing more of what really goes on at the Playboy Mansion (and it's more than just photo shoots!) I did enjoy this game for the short while it lasted, but I completed the campaign levels within a few hours but which time the novelty had worn off. Give it a shot if you like, just don't expect a masterpiece in gaming.

Reviewed by Jonathan Sutherland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).