Sex at the Pool

It's odd that hygeine issues are often cast aside as soon as there's a bit of water involved. It's worse with hot tubs than swimming pools of course. The mere fact that the chlorine content in the things needs to be in the double figures to avoid an outbreak of Black Death recurring tells you that the sorts of bacteria floating around in there aren't the sorts of things you want to be swallowing, whether anything untoward has gone on in the hot tub itself or not.

In Sex at the Pool, you play as one of the residents of Pooltown. Being such a hip, and likely hot tub-laden, place there are pool parties going on in each house of the neighbourhood. You need to try and poach the topless female guests from each of the other parties in order to establish yourself as the pool party king.

You do this by playing games of pool-themed battleships. At the start of each level, you place various inflatable lilos in your pool. Then, you and your opponent take it in turns to try and sink each other's inflatable airbeds, now complete with naked ladies. In a rather odd-looking move, you're actually hurling what looks like balls of magma into the pool, but then popularity does come at a price.

Both your pool and that of your neighbour are split into squares. You pick one of these each time, in the hope of sinking one of the ladies. Hit an occupied square and you get to have another go. Hit every square of one of the inflatables and it goes the way of the Titanic.

The logic may not quite make sense, but the idea is that once you do upend a girl into the water, they follow you back to your party. Doing this also unlocks a pornographic image, although it won't always be a new one, forcing you to play onto later levels.

There are six neighbours to take on in total, each one with a differently-shaped pool. Unfortunately, you always have to use your own pool so, towards the end of the game, you'll find yourself at a distinct disadvantage as you have to cram more and more inflatables into a fairly small pool while your opponent's pool will be significantly larger.

You can get a certain advantage back by hitting one of the one-square bonus inflatables your opponent places. These let you play one of two mini-games that see you either hosing-down women or smashing cocktail glasses, and they give you either an offenseive or defensive bonus.

There are some issues surrounding the AI. Perhaps it's just sour grapes due to the partially luck-based gameplay of battleships, but opponents did seem to oscillate oddly between extraordinary feats of good fortune and an almost trying to avoid hitting anything, usually towards the beginning of each game.

Starting to question the fairness of the AI only makes the game more frustrating, as you watch as your last lady tumbles into the water. There's no multiplayer mode either, so you're always at the mercy of your handset.

There are two main game modes, but there's little to separate them. Story Battle pits you against each of the six opponents in order, where Single Battle lets you pick any of the neighbours. The latter undermines the former as there's nothing extra to be gained from playing through in order, unless you really buy into the idea of being the coolest kid in Pooltown.