Four Fat Chicks -- Kama Sutra Review

Kama Sutra

Review by Jen

Games are not always kid stuff, are they? Kama Sutra certainly isn't for kids. Kama Sutra is a French adventure game that is loosely based on the ancient Indian sex manual of the same name. In fact, on the opening screen, one side shows the game, and the other side has what I believe to be portions of the actual Kama Sutra, but of course I can't tell because I don't read French. I don't speak French, either, but that didn't stop me from, um, enjoying the game.

The main character of the game is a woman named Parva. At the beginning, she gets knocked off her motor scooter by a careless driver. She injures her bum, and the driver loses a package. Parva picks it up and takes it home with her. She sits down and wonders what to do about it, then she phones her friend Lulu to talk about it. Parva then opens the box, and (what else) out comes a talking penis sash. Parva plays with the sash a bit and moons over her favorite saxophone player, Shiva, until Lulu arrives with her boyfriend Laurent in tow. Laurent is ultra-unattractive, but the three of them practice some Kama Sutra positions together, man on woman, woman on woman, and woman and woman on man, and then the feller who lost his penis sash bursts in and breaks up the party. Parva puts the penis belt on and escapes through her bedroom window, still sans pants, and the game's afoot, or rather acock. Lulu gets captured by the penis-belt-owning dude, and Parva gets away. I don't want to give away the whole story here because, believe it or not, there is a story, but this is probably about half of it. The whole game only takes about an hour to play, that's if you don't get sidetracked by some of the more interesting pictures. And some of them are Lulus (pardon the pun).

Kama Sutra is an X-rated game even though there's no live action—it's all hand-drawn. In fact, there's not a whole lot of animation, but there is some. Mostly it's a lot of still pictures, sometimes one after the other to give the illusion of animation. In a few areas, you can pan around a bit, and in others, you get straight (or gay) puzzle screens. Gameplay is pure third-person point-and-click (you might want to be careful where you put your cursor, though, you don't know where that thing's been before). There are five chapters, and you can start on any of them from the opening screen regardless of whether you've completed the previous ones. Which is to say, you can skip the boring parts and get right to the meat of the game. And meat there is, lots of it. Man meat, woman meat, white meat, dark meat, hermaphrodite meat ... well, you get the picture. If you choose to play the game linearly, you have to solve various different puzzles, most of them involving sex positions. Your ultimate goal is to rescue Lulu, although apparently coincidentally, and meet and greet your love Shiva, although by the time that happens, you are pretty used up.

Despite the language barrier, Kama Sutra is very playable. And unique. But it's not for the squeamish or prudish among us. Yes, it's pornographic, but at the same time it's tasteful. At least I think so ... I have no idea what the characters or narrator were actually saying.

You can order it here but I have no idea whether this French store will ship to the U.S.

(After I posted this review, I was informed by a reader that the man whose artwork was used in the game Kama Sutra is a world-renowned erotic artist named Milo Manara. You can visit the artist's site for an online gallery and to purchase some of his other works (both books and CDs).)