Playboy: The Mansion

“I got a job,” Stick says proudly. “I’m going to be playtesting for Cyberlore!”

While I’m shrieking “That’s great, honey!” my gamergirl gears take a second to catch on. I almost wish I hadn’t. “Aren’t they doing that Playboy game?”

“Yeah!” he says.

I am a dedicated gamer chick. I have my own dice, my own copies of Neverwinter, The Sims, Civilization, Morrowind and a least a dozen others, and a strict policy of never dating my GM. I’ve been a computer geek since the days of King’s Quest (Thanks to Roberta Williams, I try to steal everything that’s not nailed down). But a Playboy game? My boyfriend spending eight hours a day, looking at polygonal nudes?

In theory, Playboy: The Mansion seems like a gamer boy’s dream. You play as Hugh Hefner, and the object of the game is to get women to take off their clothes for your camera. Oh, and pick some articles.

I realize Stick has a chance at the gamer boys dream, all day playing videogames and getting paid for it. But what boy can look at Playboy bunnies, albeit CGI ones, all day and then come home to a real live girl, without doing at least a little mental comparision? I don’t exactly have Bunny-calibre looks.

“I’m so freaking happy.” he tells me. I tell myself not to get upset. Sure, those Playboys models have long legs and perfect hair, but I’m a flesh-and-blood girl! I can borrow his clothes, take the blankets, consistently arrive twenty minutes late, leave my lipgloss and barrettes around his room… How can I even compete?

A few days after Stick started at Cyberlore, we were in his room playing Caesar and Cleopatra (which is actually a Kosmos card game and not kinky classicist sex, thanks for asking) and he was telling me about the Cyberlore game.

“This is great,” he said. I’m reminding myself not to flip out when he continues. “You actually know what I’m talking about! I have the greatest girlfriend!”

Edit: We also played Hector and Achilles a few nights later. I won, but since I read the Illiad I had a bit of an advantage.