Playata, the company that brought you superhero themed Hero Zero and spy themed Operation X, have brought us their newest iteration of the stat based browser RPG MMO: Big Bang Empire. Essentially all three of these free to play games are exactly the same but have their own theme, players create a character and work towards increase their four primary stats, earning cash, acquiring new gear to add to their character sheet and dress up their character, complete quests and unlock a variety of features. With Hero Zero the game focuses on players being wannabe-superheroes, working their way up from suburban vigilante to city crime fighter, Operation X has players becoming the best secret agent in Europe, whereas Big Bang Empire… well. When we first heard the title we thought “Big Bang”, science, space, alien theme? No. Not by a long shot. In Big Bang Empire you are a fledgling porn star looking to break into the adult entertainment industry. Yeh.
Right out of the gate we are prompted to create our new character, male or female, and design them to look anything from street trash sheik with daddy issues to busty, blonde Barbie or Calvin Klein underwear model ripped to weird looking balding stud with hidden talents. The appearance choices are quite extensive, lots of different features to cycle through in a long list of pre-sets, and then of course you get to name your character and giving them their pornstar name. With our usual preference of calling our male characters “Goodfellow” or our lady characters “Goodlady”, we went with a more themed “Hellagoodlady” as we embarked on our first uncertain steps into the game.
Having played the other two games previously it was unfortunate that the content hadn’t really been changed up all that much, it’s the same “4 stat” game where players can either take on missions to gain XP and cash, take on a part time job to bring in more money, fight against other players and then buy items from the shop to equip your multiple clothing slots and boosters. Graphically the game looked great, the illustrations for the characters, clothing and scenes are pretty good and the more cartoony images step the game away from being a complete sleaze fest (it still feels pretty sleazy at times). Equipping your character (in our case a female, because… you know… if you’re staring at partially nude anime then it might as well be female anime, right?) you had numerous accessories and different outfits, anything from ripped jeans, mini-skirts, nurses outfits, naughty french maids, school girls and everything else you can think of. The items you equipped ranged from nipple piercings to “homemade double dildo”… we kid you not; this last one was quite the surprise and we didn’t expect it to get quite so…. intimate.
The missions all follow a story-arc, getting our character out of the suburbs and local motel room homemade movies, into the big city and beyond. The skill challenges require you to have a specific stat at a certain level, though you don’t know what that level is until you try to complete it, which is essentially accepting the quest then waiting X amount of minute before it completes itself and you either pass or fail depending on if your skill was high enough; the context was always story driven such as trying to describe to a producer your best fantasy for his next film and failing if your charisma was too low. In comparison the Timed missions are essentially the same thing but they complete when the time is up. Fighting missions are all about handsy movie execs getting too personal, or creepy slobbering fans getting on set, forcing you to beat their asses down.
Our biggest “Really?” moment was when the PvP was still actually PvP, fist fights between rival porn stars, that whilst combat fit the theme for a Superhero game or Secret Agent game, it just really seemed inappropriate for a porn star game.
One of the more interesting features was the process of making your own film, this typically requires you to perform certain tasks like fight a certain number of duels and exhaust your energy by completing missions a set number of time, then finally collect items such as “White Bed Linen” from completing said missions. When you choose your video it gives you a randomized porn movie title (which you can change by spending the premium Diamonds currency), spawning such amazing titles as: “Desirous Bunnies – Dried But Still Wet”, “Dripping Wet Sluts – The Early Years”, “Yearning Mommy’s – Go All The Way” and “Mommies Little Star – The Lost Files”…. yeh.
Theme aside for a moment, whether BBE or Hero Zero, the game by nature is pretty casual and if it’s something you just logged into every so often to check out then there’s an element of fun there, in many ways it reminds us of the really popular Facebook game Mafia Wars; you increase skills, acquire items, beat people up. The theme offers a number of cheap laughs at times, but for the most part it’s kind of childish and would appear more to a younger audience (as wrong as that is given the content) that no doubt presumably play it given some of the Studio/Guild names we saw. If you’re not easily offended and have some free time… sure, why not give it a shot, though one of their other similar games might make you feel less cringe as you slowly climb the ranks to become a “CamGirl” or “Well Endowed”. The content is very repetitive and we’re not sure it could keep our attention long enough to climb the rankings, but if you’re a competitive person then it might be a nice break from the other games you play; the theme alone at least makes it pretty different.
Amiruliman