The premise of 7 Sins is based upon the traditional ‘seven deadly sins’, which are: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. The objective is to acquire wealth, power and influence in the fictional Apple City by sinning as adeptly as possible. There are seven scenarios set throughout the city, and each one has a set task you must accomplish by means of charm, wit, guile, and of course sinning.

Each chapter of the game sees you climbing in social rank and fame as you manage to access and work in much higher caste areas. The first section plants you as a sales attendant in a luxury ladies shop, while the later scenarios involve invite-only private fetish clubs and becoming a manager of a vast corporation. Your interaction with the people inhabiting these areas is key to your progress, as you make powerful allies, and learn deep dark manipulative secrets about influential individuals.

While your objectives differ with each chapter, the style of gameplay rarely does. Since the game plays from the perspective of a bloke, you typically attempt to work up romantic relationships with the females, and friendly relationships (but sometimes more) with the males. Each individual has different needs, desires, and personality traits, so you have to adapt your approach to suit each one. Some involved lasses may respond well to conversation about mythical legends and folklore, others will prefer a sense of humour, and yet other lasses will respond well to compliments, displays of manliness, and the occasional tweak of their breasts.

Common sense should usually help you choose something appropriate to say that will build up the relationship, but sometimes you will only learn the intricacies of a particular woman’s mind through sheer trial and error. You also have to choose when something is appropriate. For example, fondling the breasts of your prey will be entirely unacceptable in the ‘first contact’ stage of a relationship, but will be gratefully welcomed in the later ‘passion’ stages.

Whilst you are involved with these numerous delicate relationships, you have to keep your eye on three meters: sex, fear, and violence. Certain annoying incidents or the acrimonious diatribes of particularly snot-nosed individuals can cause the latter two meters to soar, while passionate exchanges with hot chicks will raise your libido and the first meter considerably. Let one of the meters overload and your character will go crazy, hitting things in a frenzy if in a blind rage, or running around thrusting randomly at everyone if under extreme sexual desperation.

To keep your meters at a healthy low you have to vent your feelings by performing certain actions. To rid yourself of unwanted sexual urges, you will have to grope a girl or accomplish an act of voyeurism (like gawping at someone’s heaving cleavage, or staring up their skirt). To relieve fear or stress you might want to make some upsetting or unfair remark to a lady to make her cry, or tell yourself how great you are by looking in the mirror. Violence can be circumvented in a variety of ways, from ripping up sexy lingerie, peeing on office plants or in the boss’ drinking cup, or just starting a fight with someone.

We were promised a freeform environment within which to play and write our own success story, but sadly, the only freedom you get is a choice of targets within each mission. Yes, you can choose which lady you want to seduce and milk some cash off, but with such similar methods of accomplishment to succeed, the illusion of freedom is in fact negligible. A nice touch though is the ability to revisit previous locations at any time throughout the game. Want some more cash to impress the boss of the Kombat Klub? Simply head back to the ladies shop to wrangle some more lucre out of its doting frequenters.

Although 7 Sins clearly has made a definite attempt to add a certain amount of game behind the sexy façade, it still does not add up to much more than a thinly veiled endeavour to cash in on the seemingly endless appeal of eroticism. There are admittedly other challenges to overcome, such as food-tasting, phone negotiations, and fighting, but every single scenario lays the basis for (and frequently requires) a large amount of amorous tomfoolery with your ubiquitously amply-chested victims. Everything else takes a distinct backseat to this primary focus.

All major actions constituting one of the ‘seven deadly sins’ such as sex, groping, stealing, and violence are represented by small mini-games, much in the style of the obvious point of reference; Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. The whole game is dependent upon these frustratingly frequent and irritatingly irrelevant mini-games that litter the levels, almost to the same extent as Larry. Some are fairly pleasing to play at first, such as the ‘food tetris’, and the ‘counting sheep’ themes, but these soon descend into dire drudgery, as you are forced to play them again and again and again.

We also have to consider the moral implications of a game like this. Without attempting to sound like a frowsty old curmudgeon who frowns disapprovingly upon such juvenile exploits, there is more to consider than the brazen licentiousness on offer. For instance, the game rewards you for stealing money off the lass who has just fallen in love with you. You are actively encouraged to swear at ‘old biddies’ out of the shop window. And basically, the entire concept of falsely playing with the emotions of the opposite sex for selfish gain is not an idea that I am sure any victims of such heartache would be willing to condone. Obviously the game is intended for mature audiences only, but this will inevitably fall into the hands of wide-eyed adolescents, and is not something anyone would like their child to take inspiration from.

You have to approach 7 Sins with the right outlook if you want to play this game. Don’t expect a realistic sex simulator. Instead expect laddish immaturity and whimsical hedonistic indulgence with a patently tongue-in-cheek humour. If Larry was the pre-pubescent, crude black sheep of the family, 7 Sins is the slightly more refined, yet oddly enigmatic older brother. With more realistic graphics, less lewd jokes and crude language, and strangely no complete nudity throughout the entire game, 7 Sins doesn’t fall into the same perverted depths as Larry, but still maintains its fair share of dissolute adolescence.

7 Sins will often surprise, often shock, and sometimes entertain, but will never provide much deeper entertainment than a rushed fumble in the schoolyard with Melanie Norkster. Adequate for mild digital titillation, but sadly lacking enough ‘game’ to entertain for any extended period.

Adam Shirley