Porn Manager

Go on, admit it. You've wondered what it would be like to just throw caution to the wind, go down to your local electrical shop, buy a camcorder and become a porn star.

Of course, something usually stops most of us from living out this particular dream, whether it be common sense, a lack of money or the fact that you're too damn scared of uploading it on to the net in case your parents see it.

Could an adult mobile porn game be an outlet for your, erm, frustrations? You start Porn Manager with just a fistfull of bucks, a couple of rooms and plenty of ambition, and set off on the long and not so lonely road to becoming the next Hugh Hefner.

It sounds a good idea, but as we all know (so long as you're old enough) most porn movies are all shirt and no trousers.

Thankfully, Porn Manager isn't really like a porn movie. In fact, it would be better to describe Porn Manager as a management game first, strategy game second and porn game last.

True, you receive commissions to make particular naughty movies. At first they're pretty simple, often involving just the facilities you started off with, but it isn't long before you have to start hiring in extra talent or renting out new rooms as the commissions grow more complex.

Thankfully it's not too hard to keep on top of the game. Hiring new, amusingly named stars and renting extra rooms is simply a case of flicking through a couple of menus to reach the buy or hire option. A couple more clicks and hey presto, your new star or room is ready.

Incidentally, before you randy boys get your hopes (and so on) up, don't expect to see the characters getting it on. Despite the reputation that games dealing with porn may have, Porn Manager shows that it's possible to make a game with porn as its central theme without resorting to scantily clad women to sell the game to red blooded males. Proceedings here take a more comic tone.

Anyway, making movies is straightforward and easy because making movies isn't what Porn Manager is all about.

So just what is it about? Keeping your stars happy so they can perform again and again, and make you more money so that you can repeat the cycle. Make money from a film, receive a new commission, invest money in new stars, invest money in new facilities to keep new stars happy and rested, pay rent and wages for current stars and facilities, shoot movie, sell movie… rinse and repeat.

In fact, it shows how mature HandyGames was when making this game that you'll find yourself returning to it not because of the fact it deals with porn, but because it is a very good strategy game.

That isn't to say there aren't problems with the game: there are. In particular, when playing the game in its later stages we often found that it was hard to keep our stars happy all of the time. It's not impossible, but the limitations of mobile phones as a games platform eventually became more than a little apparent, in terms of trying to zip around your porn palace keeping everything ticking over at once, with only the phone's keypad, small screen and simple menus to aid you.

At the end of the day, Porn Manager boils down to the same type of strategy game you've probably been playing for years on PC. But before you go to our next review, think. If they were that boring, why would they still be so popular?

These games, like porn itself, have a secret, unsexy appeal. And if you love your strategy games and want an entertaining challenge, you'd be hard pressed to find many better than this. But look elsewhere for half-naked girls.