For the first time ever, I am about to review a game and I am at a
loss for words. Yet it is not so much that I cannot think of what to say,
I am wondering how to say it. For, you see, the French adventure company
Index, the company that has imported such wonderful adventure games such as Dracula
Resurrection and Dracula Last Sanctuary, Paris 1313 and Necronomicon,
this same company that we have come to know and love, also released in 1998
an adventure gamed based on and named after the Kama Sutra. In fact, as I have
only recently discovered, both French and German adventure gamers have had adult-themed
games at their disposal for years.

Those of you who are already familiar
with the Kama Sutra are, I am sure, shaking your heads right about now and mumbling,
“Surely Randy must be mistaken, how could you create an adventure game based
on the Kama Sutra?” For those of you not yet enlightened in the ways of the
Kama Sutra, maybe it is time to begin your “birds and bees” education.

Kama
Sutra is Sanskrit for “aphorisms of love,” and the original text was
written in ancient India. Not only is it a technical guide on sexual and sensual
enjoyment, but it has also been used to gain insights into the historical and
anthropological mores of ancient India. Most importantly, though, for hundreds
of years it has been used as a guide to the numerous lovemaking positions (although
I’m at an age where I spend more time trying to figure out how to get out of a
position rather than into one) attained by diligent couples. Strangely, this is
one leisurely pursuit where no one ever seems to complain about too much practice.

Sir Richard Burton, who also translated the Arabian Nights, is responsible
for our modern translation of the Kama Sutra from Sanskrit. The game
we played is fortunately not in Sanskrit, but it is in that other
language of love–French. While I am adept at reading French, I do
have difficulty translating it when spoken, but I tell you from firsthand
experience that when you want to play a game badly enough, there are
no boundaries you will not cross. So now that I probably have your
undivided attention and since you may never have the opportunity to
play this game, give me a moment to find my thesaurus so that I can
learn twenty different ways to say copulate without turning Just Adventure
into an X-rated site.

The heroine
of our story is Parva, a comely young college lass. While riding her motor scooter
home from classes one afternoon. she inadvertently crashes into an Indian gentleman,
causing him to drop his package. In his anger, he forgets the package, so Parva
innocently takes it home. After phoning her friend Lulu (to hear Parva say Lulu’s
name is to die for), Parva invites Lulu and her boyfriend over for some afternoon
delight. As Parv is powdering her butt in anticipation of the visit (I don’t make
this stuff up), the package, which has since been opened and contained a sash,
transforms into a talking, uh, organ, which for some inexplicable reason does
not seem ludicrous to Parva. Lulu and her boyfriend, Laurent, soon arrive, and
before you can say ménage-a-trois, you find yourself leading the threesome
through a complicated series of Twister-like maneuvers. As the scene reaches its
climax, an Indian Thug bursts through the front door, and a panty-less Parva escapes
through her loft skylight

As Parva flees through dark alleys, she soon finds
a gentleman who lends his assistance by pretending to be her boyfriend. Once the
Thug has moved on, Parva thanks her dark alley friend by, uh, well you know. But,
as is the case with most men, this fellow does not know when to quit, so thankfully
Lulu comes to the rescue. Through a series of misadventures, Parva soon finds
herself aboard a tramp steamer headed who knows where.

Parva does escape
from the tramp steamer, but before she does there is a lengthy convoluted puzzle
involving a naked fat man, a seductive naked woman, a deckhand hiding behind a
grate, and a candle. Use your imagination, as I don’t possess the ability to describe
this scene without requiring a cold shower afterwards.

Parva washes up
on the shore of an island, where she is soon captured and imprisoned in a Kali
temple. There is a series of four puzzles she must solve to escape, and these
are not your normal, everyday “combine a stick and a blade to create an axe”
puzzles that have baffled adventure gamers for years. Instead, we must painstakingly
force ourselves upon a series of sexual partners until we find the perfect fit
(you know you have succeeded when your character faces the screen with a huge
grin on her face), match positions from the Kama Sutra, escape a fiery pit by
whipping a swinging nude woman on her behind, and match tiles depicting various
acts of love-making. The pain and misery of solving all of these puzzles soon
allows Parva to escape and, after a brief conversation with a talking “snake,”
our heroine manages to save the world from the evils of Kali armed with only her
wits and naked, seductive, curvaceous body. If only all of earth’s problems could
be solved so easily.

Kama Sutra really, really is an adventure game.
It is just a type of game and subject matter that we have never seen in North
America. There are inventory puzzles, though for the purpose of moving the game
along they are never very difficult, and the plot is simply an excuse to justify
the numerous sexual escapades. The graphics are 2D and for the most part consist
of a series of still scenes that progress forward in a staccato fashion. Also,
my profuse apologies for not providing more screen shots, but when the heroine
of the game is clad only in a tight t-shirt, and often not even that much, well,
I think you understand. There is honestly not a single feature of Kama Sutra
that is outstanding, yet there is something refreshing about a game that is
really nothing more than soft-core porn and proud of it. Some entrepreneur who
is willing to take a chance would be wise to translate this game into English
and get rich quick by selling it in every Spencer gift shop and adult book store
across the United States. Anyone care to lend me fifty grand?

Final Grade:
B

If you liked Kama Sutra:
Read: The original Kama
Sutra
Watch: Those videos your dad hides under the bed
Play: With
your lover

System Requirements:

PC:
Pentium
100
16 MB Ram
Windows 95
4X CD-ROM

Mac:
Power
PC
14 MB RAM
System 7
4X CD-ROM