May 2005

When you first load up Active Dolls, you might be fooled into thinking that there's not much more to do than watch 3D girls pose while you snap faux pictures. But sometime between adjusting camera angles and telling her how to pose and touch herself you begin to realize just how much there is to do and see. And that's when the rest of the world slips away.

You start out choosing one of five voluptuous girls, and then if you don't like their default outfit, you enter the dressing room and adjust their fashion sense. Here you can change clothes, hair style and color, make up, piercings, eye color, and more. It's like the Sims 2 character creation screen except you can't physically sculpt her face. You won't want to anyways.

Once satisfied with that, you take your personalized babe to a session, and the fun begins. After choosing from a handful of exoticly themed locales, she appears before you seductively. At any time you may remove some or all of those clothes you spent way too much time picking out. There are a set number of postures and poses that are unique to four different areas of the room, like the bed, or chair, and it makes for a lot of variety. Checking the 'auto pose' box gives her the responsibility to randomly walk around the room striking poses. She'll hold each sexy pose just long enough for you to snap a picture.

This is already enticing, as she gazes alluringly towards you, making subtle smiles and slowly swinging her head around to face you when you change your viewing angle. But that's not all there is. If you click on any of her private areas, she'll touch them realistically. Depending on what part of her vagina you click on (although it's almost random), she'll either rub her clit, finger herself, or slowly spread her lips apart. It all looks great and very convincing.

The longer she touches herself, the more aroused she becomes, and this is evident in her gradually changing facial expression. Her eyes close and her mouth opens, revealing the most realistic looking 3D tongue I've ever seen. During this time her face conveys sensual orgasmic pleasure of some kind.

There are plenty of lighting options, including various shades of day or night, and colored lighting. You may also snap black and white photos, which have the ability to make explicit masturbation look classy; or bathe the room and model in a warm sepia tone. No you can't actually bathe the model though. In general the 3D lighting looks fantastic in any of these combinations.

Hitting any key brings you in or out of camera mode and puts a lense target in the middle of the screen, and clicking your mouse button snaps a picture. This is also the only mode you can zoom in or out, so you'll be getting in and out just to do that, which is a little bit of a pain. In fact all the controls are a little different between modes, which makes no sense.

The models look fantastic, with Playboy friendly bodies that sport large, round breasts and perfect yet real looking nipples. They have astonishingly pretty faces that make you feel all squishy inside. Their bodies are more voluptuous than you see on a typical day at the local mall, but I don't fantasize about typical mall girls, so I say bring on the thick, baby! You'll notice that all the model's faces look very similar, but this is easily remedied with make up and hair adjustments.

When you're done with a session you can view any of the "photos" you've snapped in the album section which are categorized by girl.

What's sorely missing in this title is sound. There is sound, but 90% of it is the sound of high heels clicking on a hard floor. There is no ambient sound, no voice, no moaning when her face transforms into orgasmic bliss. The only good thing I can say about that is silence is preferable to repetitive vocal cues and moans. Another disappointment is that you can't save your newly created dreamgirl, dressed and accessorized to taste.

The recent launch of Active Dolls brings a solid newcomer to the 3D erotica arena. They didn't shortchange the options and features to make room for improvements down the road. Instead they created a full featured package first and content updates may be in the works. While it's more on the softcore end of the 3D erotica spectrum -- there are no dildos, penises, or anal play -- Active Dolls delivers on it's promise of a virtual beauty experience and then some. Captivating, erotic, fun.