Paradise Heights

This guy is constantly either flipping me off or pointing at a floating cheesburger slightly off screen.

Game Plot: You are Keigo Nakadai, a young stud trying to earn a living. Fortunately your uncle is a rich fat bastard who just happens to need a caretaker for one of his apartment buildings, called "Paradise Heights." You take the job. It should only involve repairing broken light fixtures and unclogging shower drains, right? WRONG. You'll also have sex with many women repeatedly. And the pay is lame. Sucks to be you!

The game starts with Keigo introducing himself and explaining his past. Apparently he used to work at a video game company made up of eight gross and smelly programmers - I shit you not, that's his own description of the place. Apparently the developers of Paradise Heights are a clever bunch, and so they've put a reference about making a video game inside a video game! Moreover it's a self-depreciating reference! Har har! Will those clever folk at Foster Super Erotic Adventure Games ever stop spreading the joy?

Keigo then goes outside the apartment to meet his destiny. Stare long and hard at this screen: it is one of the eight total locations you'll haul your sorry ass to. It's a lot like the second floor, I have no idea why. Oh, wait, LAZY ARTISTS. Keigo next decides to intrude on the tenants and force introducing himself on the poor ladies. Here's a quick rundown of the female tenants, along with a brief description so you can recognize them:

1. Kayo. She lives next door. She's blonde. You'll have sex with her.
2. Keiko. Her name sounds a lot like yours, which might lead to confusion if you try to make sense of the dialogue. My advice is: don't try to, please, just because I threw my sanity away doesn't mean you have to follow suit. Click through the text as fast as possible, and don't worry about hitting the "right" button, there's none. Keiko's hair is black. You'll have sex with her.
3. Miyuki. She lives on the second floor. She gets raped (more on that later). Her hair is kind of auburn. You'll have sex with her.
4. Ayako. Second floor too. Young spunky college girl. She's also a lesbian, and likes to get it on with Yuki, a friend from college and the blondest bimbo I have ever dared lay eyes on. You'll have sex with the both of them, and again individually. Woopee-dee-doo.
5. Misa. That's your uncle's daughter, which makes her your cousin. She doesn't look anything like you. In fact, Keigo is so horrifying to look at, I'm afraid to put my sentiments in words: Keigo is not possessed of any eyes. When the game shows his face during a sex scene, dark and empty sockets stare right back at you. I know that's a Hentai game standard, but it just demonstrates the level of freakiness the Japanese have attained. Oh, you'll have sex with Misa too.

Then do as I say: fetch me a bucket of high-molar acid and a large amount of steel wool. We have lots of Hentai-related memories to erase.I'd like to announce that there's a "plot" to follow in this game, but I'd be deluding the reader and myself. Game starts, women appear, Keigo has sex, then "incidents" start happening. Someone turns off the water in Kayo's apartment (Keigo turns it back on = wet blouse and sex ensuing); a fire starts out on the balcony… All kinds of wacky hijincks that are supposed to be exciting! But folks, there's a reason why traditional stories don't include panty thieves or women who ask you to move their chest of drawers. It's called "clunky foreshadowing." It's porno-movie-bad in terms of triggers and events, but at least in porno you get people who look like normal human beings.

Moving on… About halfway through the game, you'll meet one of Miyuki's friends, another blonde bimbo who has zero relation to the plot at this point, and will never have any. Speaking of relations, Keigo has sex with her. Immediately. Then Keigo goes up to Miyuki's apartment for a visit, only to discover the lady tied to the floor and with a vibrator inserted in a strategic orifice. Oh no! She's been the victim of a brutal rape! Any self-respecting man with a hint of decency would immediately loosen her bonds and help the poor lass, which is what Keigo does. Miyuki then asks for sex. Because that will take her mind off the rape. Remember the rape? The vicious invasive rape? What thought process goes through this woman's fucking head? This would be exactly akin to saying, "Whew, I just drank a two-liter bottle of spring water, and my bladder is about to burst. But instead of going to the bathroom, let me turn on the tap and suck on the thing until water pours out of my fucking ears."

The "game" then takes a turn for the worse and heads with all haste towards Shit City. Some half-assed attempt at S&M creeps in (complete with, err, enema - times four), Keigo takes a piss on Ayako's face, some more random stuff happens, and then comes the kicker - Paradise Heights is not just an apartment building, it's the harem of Keigo's uncle! All the female tenants are sex slaves to your naughty relation, hence their voracious sexual appetite. Which begs the question: since Keigo's cousin moved in… What hints does this give about the character of her relationship with her own father?

Wait, it's not over. The women then reveal it was Misa all along! She was playing all those devilish tricks to get Keigo's attention, because she's in love with him. Of course, as soon as Keigo learns of this, he rushes to Misa's room and has hot intra-familial sex with her. Follows the lamest epilogue ever: Misa understands she'll have ownership of your heart, but your body is free game. If this isn't a dream come true for most men I don't know what is! Oh wait, that's your cousin talking. Ha. Ha ha.

Have you entertained the possibility that your underwear realized it was in the dumbest game ever?Difficulty: There is no way to lose. Then again, there's no real way to win - unless you are aware of that Close Program shortcut, Alt + F4. I went through the game three times (very thoroughly the second and third) and could find NO branching paths, no alternatives, no choices. Everything is fated to happen. Hence, replay value hovers close to absolute zero.

Defining Moment: It's a toss-up between HAVING SEX WITH YOUR COUSIN and the post-rape sex. Since sex with a cousin somehow pales in comparison with acts encountered in other Hentai games, like sex with your underage sister, the rape thingie probably takes the cake. Anyway, people in Alabama have sex with their cousins all the time. (If you're from Alabama and are offended, I say to you: shouldn't you be somewhere shooting empty beer cans or feeding pigs?) But only in Japan must women erase the painful memories of horrible perversions done to them by having, uh, more sex. Hentai logic at its best! Honorable mention does go to the title screen, where the neon-bright game title stares at you, along with a pink dick pointing to it. We really needed that touch of user-friendliness.

Final Thoughts:: Foster Super Erotic Adventure Games tried its darnedest, I'm sure, but the result is still craptabulous. Games should be about entertaining people and giving them a world of fantasy where they can grow and learn as individuals. Since Paradise Heights is basically a click-fest, and you have approximately 0.00 real choices in the whole hour it takes you to finish this pile of dogshit, they shouldn't even call this a game. Call it a barely interactive cartoon porn movie or something, anything but a game. Paradise Heights is devoid of soul and the sorriest excuse for a game I've played in a loooooong time. Then again, I'm minutes away from downloading another one of those Hentai games to see if they're all as horrific. Stay tuned. (Update: THEY ARE)