Simple 2000 Vol. 53: The Camera Kozou / Paparazzi

Developer: HuneX
Publisher: D3 Publisher / 505 Games
Look from store clerk as he scans the box: Priceless

So, Paparazzi hey? That's weird, I was under the impression that the paparazzi are the goons who chase down famous people doing interesting things like walking down the street or picking their arses so that everyone can talk about it in great detail. This game's about photo shoots of low polygon fashion models! The Japanese box art does a decent enough job of showing what the game is about, boobs. But 505 Games hide this crucial fact, instead trying to confuse consumers with something that resembles a London newspaper simulation game.

It's certainly the creepiest game I've played, the likes of Silent Hill and Resident Evil have nothing on this. Because really, the game is just about taking photos of girls. You sit there and watch these bouncy, robotic, non-blinking girls dance and pose around the screen then furiously slam down the circle button when you think you've got a perverted enough angle. This really isn't helped by the games story mode, which revolves around someone known as 'You' being all upset that he's in love with one of these models, but she doesn't even know he exists. Well no shit, it's quite hard to develop a relationship with someone you saw showing off the latest underwear in a Target catalogue.

One day, You, who'll we'll call Faceless Joe from here on out, decides to go to his good friend Akira's place to complain some more. But what luck! Akira informs Joe that the girl of his dreams is in town tomorrow for a photo shoot, and apparently it'll be totally fine to show up and take pictures. Don't worry about not being a professional or anything, just sneak in and pretend.



See? You just have to take nice pictures. Faceless Joe approves of this idea with something along the lines of "I get to be close to her AND take all the photos I want? This is like a dream come true!" Okay Joe, thumbs up buddy! Akira even gives you a camera he was going to chuck away. I guess everyone in Japan just throws perfectly working equipment in the trash. Ah but now you have to choose which girl you, as in, the player, want Joe to stalk. The game stars three lovely attempts at women, Riho, Rena and Nano. Rena and Riho are basically the exact same character model, but with different coloured eyes and hair. A bit like the old Mortal Kombat games that featured eight hundred and thirty seven fighters that all looked like Sub-Zero.

Big Apple, 3:00 AM. It's time to take photos! The model will walk on in with all the grace of a robot from an early science fiction movie and spew a few words of encouragement such as "I'm a bit shy, but please take many photos of me, have fun!", and you're off. She'll start jumping up and down on the spot, bending over, sitting on the floor and spreading her legs. All sorts of normal things. The general idea is to take DECENT photos. If you just madly swing the camera around and snap shots of her nose hair or elbows, you'll go nowhere. You can choose to put the camera on a tripod to steady things, but this takes up time. You're only given three minutes to get enough photos to cover your basement walls, can't waste it! You may need to move around every now and then; if you put your camera away you can walk around the place, even stand right next to the girl and do some heavy breathing if you want to. Akira would be proud. But WATCH OUT, rival camera guys are everywhere! If you take a photo while someone else is, there's a good chance you'll get too much flash and your shot will be ruined. These other people are represented by blurry black ghosts, quite realistic and fun for the whole family.



But you can get the edge, the exciting edge! If you get the attention from the model, you'll earn 'love points' which eventually lead to special erotic cake shop poses just for you. How do you win love? Act like an idiot of course. There are little mini-games you can play during the photo shoot, for example, singing. Yes, singing. I'd probably be a bit freaked out if someone started singing while taking pictures of me in my bikini, but hey. Simply mash the circle button as fast as you can in five seconds, excellent! There are also dancing and 'hand waving' games. Every one of these are about mashing buttons on your controller as fast as you can. Completing them results in my favorite word ever popping up on screen.



At the end of each shoot, your photos are graded. Good, bad or poor. The poor result is usually rewarded to photos you've taken of their undies or other naughty places. You'd think a game like this would rate those as 'Good'. This leads to points, which can be spent on camera upgrades. Because nobody uses money these days! Why just the other day I bought a pair of socks with some points. There are a few different locations you'll move onto, like the park, a car show and.. another park. The in-depth RPG quality storyline evolves with each new level, but are you a bad enough dude to even bother?

Oh and depending on how you do, you'll unlock all sorts of outfits for the girls. School uniforms, bikinis, to the downright absurd like Santa’s outfit, a bunny suit, and 'corporate mascot', that's basically just a really short skirt, some chains and a boob tube. Graphics are pretty shit house. Unlike Tamsoft, the lesser evil of the Simple 2000 developers who focus all of the three yen budget on making sure the girls look good then give up, HuneX have obviously just gone and bought a hamburger then rubbed it all over a PS2 development kit. The weird, broken animation is made even more awkward with the help of extremely dull scenery. I mean, the first level is set in a room with one table and a curtain. The park has two trees and a pond filled with a lousy attempt at water (it's just a solid blue slab). Busy place for sure.

The music was obviously composed with a state of the art 'My First Keyboard' from Casio. It just merely exists, there's nothing good about it. The Japanese version has voice acting and even creepy cheers from the other photographers, but this was all cut from the PAL release. That's too bad; I bet Akira has the voice of an angel. This game will PROBABLY give you diarrhea.

Final score:
Out of five.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Fufufu~ This seems like one of those games for lonely little boys like Doki Doki Mahou Shinpan or whatever it was called. I like how panty shots are rated "poor" in a weak attempt to mask the game's probable intentions. Can't ever see this slated for NA, that's for sure =P

There's nowhere I can't reach.