STORYLINE 1/5

 

As is expected with Hacker International's games, there's usually not a story to follow. You perform some task, and once you do it the right way enough times you get to see a naked woman. What might make Soap Panic unique (and for that matter awkward) is that it's got a two-player option -- that way you and your best friend (likely both males, right?) can play the porn game together. It gets a little weirder when you play the game with your little brother.

 

 

GRAPHICS 3/5

 

 

 

AUDIO 3.5/5

 

The music can get on your nerves if you play too long. Yet, the music, in part, is amazing. The game allows two music options during gameplay: BGM.1 and BGM.2. The developers stole at a couple popular songs (not video game music) and made them 8-bit. The developers just slightly remixed them, maybe for copyright reasons. It's neat to hear music that you've heard elsewhere in life in an unlicensed video game. One of the tunes is "The Entertainer" and the other is "Heart and Soul," made famous in the 80s movie Big starring Tom Hanks. I wonder if that film moved Soap Panic's developers to include the song in the game.

 

Like in Hacker International's other games, when the screen switches from the game to the porn, the music changes to something entirely different and, yes, mood-setting.

 

There are sound effects as well, but they aren't very prominent or memorable. The bubbles kind of pop and the there are other specials sounds to go with the game's other occurrences.

 

 

GAMEPLAY 5/5

 

You've got bubbles -- red, blue, yellow and green -- and, kind of like in Tetris, they begin at the bottom in clusters of four, floating to the top, where you try to match up four or more bubbles of the same color. Four bubbles of the same color are considered a "line," like in Tetris, and those four (or more, if you're lucky enough to connect more of the same color) will pop, giving you points and more space in which to place the next set of bubbles. Any bubbles from pervious sets already placed up top that happen to be below the ones which just popped will rise upward, filling into the empty space -- sounds complex, but that's the best explanation I can give.

 

The bubbles are tricky. They aren't in a straight line or a ninety-degree angle, like in Tetris. They sort of clump together in strange shapes, and you have to work those strange shapes together. Sometime the bubbles that are already at the top of the screen don't fit perfectly with the bubbles that are rising up, so the game creates clear, or empty, bubbles to fill the space between the top and the placement of a bubble set. Those clear bubbles don't actually make the space they fill unusable, meaning you can place colored bubbles in clear bubbles. I assume the clear bubbles are intended to make the game more realistic, as if the developer wanted to show why one bubble in a set wouldn't continue to rise up even if there was nothing but space above it; hence, the empty space above is filled by clear bubbles.

 

There are about four different ways to play the game. There is one player or two players. You can pick between one game mode, Type A, which has bubbles at the bottom that float up, and you connect the bubbles by color, trying to get points -- and the other game mode, Type B, where a letter is placed in some bubbles at the top and you connect bubbles of the same color to pop the bubble with the letter in it. If you play Type A, you have to get so many points before you move to the next level. After two levels, you start to see women. They are clothed at first, but as you progress through the game, they get naked. Type B is similar, only instead of points allowing you to move to the next level, it's popping the bubble with the letter.

 

With the one-player option, the bubbles rise from the bottom of the screen, where a naked woman is lying on her side, breasts facing you. Also in one-player mode, you get an advanced look at which set of bubbles are next, like in Tetris. In two-player mode, the players duel side by side, trying to achieve the needed number of points or get the letter before the other player; you're not really competing, because regardless of whichever one of you achieves the goal first, both players move on to the next round. The purpose of two-player is to help each other out, and the competition is friendly. What's neat about the two-player option is that when one player "dies," or fills up the screen with bubbles, like in Tetris, the other player is allowed to continue playing. In other words, each "life" that the players get is joint. You only lose a "life" when you both "die." The game allows three continues.

 

You won't believe how incredibly addicting this game can be. It's so fun, and the prize, trying to get the girls to strip, is part of what will keep you playing. But in the two-player mode, with the friendly competition between you and your fellow gamer, you'll get to bitch-talk each other down, all while trying to beat the other to the goal.

 

The game also has some "specials," which is quite exciting when compared to Tetris. Sometimes a cluster of bubbles will rise that include a multi-colored, flashing bubble -- kind of looks like the silver side of a CD. This bubble, once set in place at the top, with the rest of the bubbles, will expand and spin through the surrounding bubbles, turning them all the same color, which often will give you a "line." Also, in Type A mode, where the goal is points, not popping the bubble with the letter, letters will float up in some bubbles. You keep popping bubbles with letters -- when they show up -- and you can spell out the word MAGIC. Once you spell MAGIC, a large MAGIC bubble will appear in the background, all the bubbles on the screen will start to flash, and the clear bubbles I mentioned earlier will pop, scrunching all the bubble up to the top and giving you more space to work at the bottom. This is a huge help.

 

Don't expect to see much nudity. This game is tough. Even with a fellow gamer's help in two-player mode, you won't get far enough to see much. It takes lots of skill and luck.

 

 

CONTROL 4/5

 

The controls can be hard to quickly figure out. The bubble clusters can be moved from side to side and can be rushed up to the top. In Tetris, the pieces move faster and faster the further along you get, so with Soap Panic, the bubbles change speed as you move along, but once every four levels or so, the bubble slow down again. The bubbles within a cluster can also be moved using A and B, but that's hard to master.

 

What does suck is that only first player can pause the game when in two-player option. But in a nice touch, the developers make the cluster floating up go invisible when the game is paused so you can't cheat by planning out where to place the rising cluster.

 

FUN FACTOR 5/5

 

This is a highly addictive, fun and amazing game. It's a shame that it's expensive, going for about $50+ loose, and it's equally a shame that it was never released as a clean game, so it could be marketed to a wider audience. There's an argument to be made that this game would have been wildly popular had the nudity been removed.

 

One difference between Soap Panic and Bubble Bath Babes that makes Soap Panic a little less fun that Bubble Bath Babes is, of course, that the nude women's dirty talk is in Japanese.

 

 

FRUSTRATION 4/5

 

 

 

OVERALL 3/5

 

 

 

SCREENSHOTS