This week I have decided to talk about the pretty terrible photography simulator (Yeah, I'm going with that.) Paparazzi, also known as The Camera Kozou (apprentice) in Japan. I'm also pretty impressed that I managed to find a picture of Duran Duran that's incredibly similar to the cover of Paparazzi.

Paparazzi / Simple Series Vol 53: The Camera Kozou.

Hey, it's not creepy if she wants me to take photographs of her right? The game points out at every opportunity that these girls are professional models, not hard up college girls destined for porn. Look, they all have their own fan club, some of them even have incredibly popular websites. It's not like I'm hanging around in the bushes outside of their homes or hacking their phones for nude photos. We both want to be here because we both understand great art. As lovers of art we both understand that in order to create something truly special, I will need my models to dress in school uniforms and bunny costumes.

Paparazzi is a game where you play an amateur photographer that has to stalk follow the career of one of three chosen models and take as many photographs of them posing in front of swimming pools, car showrooms and parks as possible. Don't worry about the daunting task of breaking your way into such a competitive field as one of your friends named Akira is willing to lend you some of his high end equipment to get you started.

Akira takes time out from drooling over AV models for a few minutes to explain to you how to get the best out of your subjects in the allotted five minutes of shooty time. It's all about positioning and asking your model to do tricks for you like an obedient dog. Akira points out the most important thing to remember is that I need to take "FULL-FRONTAL pictures to get the maximum 300 points." Whoa, whoa, whoaaaa, wait a minute!?! This is a 3+ rated game, I didn't sign up for this. Akira goes on to explain that in order to create the most pleasing images, I need to get the model in the middle of the frame, preferably unobstructed and facing forwards. Akira tells me the rest of the basics, which pretty much boil down to "Hit the circle button and hope for the best" and sends me off to my very first professional shoot.

Before I start the shoot I have to pick from a selection of three very different girls. Obviously, this being a Simple game I pick Riho Futaba, previously seen as a giant destroying large parts of Japan with laser beam eyes. Riho has thankfully been able to get back into her modelling work with ease and is eager to have you take photographs of her jumping up and down and tilting her head to the side with her body arched, looking innocently into the camera.

I'm given a few facts about these girls in their bios. Most importantly we get their height and body measurements, but strangely no blood type, unless that's something they removed for the EU release. Akira told me that the best way to find out about a girls personality is to take FULL-FRONTAL photographs of them, but we have some top facts about Riho already written down for us. Who would have known she's an incredible touch typist and gets as many as 4000, count em, 4000! hits a day on her website? The other two girls have their own specialities such as Rena's love of dance and strict fashion magazines ONLY policy and Nano's passion for sport and increasing popularity down to her radiant personality. Hey man, I didn't write that shit.

The actual game part (And I'm being generous calling this a game.) has Riho striding out like some kind of creepy insect into the photoshoot area and telling you how nervous she is. Because she's allowed to wear her everyday clothes for this first shoot she's a little more relaxed than usual. What the hell kind of professional models are these? (Rena really is in no position to be asking for her work to only be used in fashion magazines.) I'm not telling her I'm about to have a panic attack every single time the shutter clicks on my camera. Everything about this whole situation comes off as a little bit weird and unprofessional. Even down to the fact that I seem to be the only person at this public shoot. (This is made stranger by the cheers from an unseen crowd and the fact she keeps posing for what seem to be ghost photographers.)

My photo session with Riho begins and she gets over the hurdle of being a little shy and embarrassed by thrusting her chest in my general direction so I can get as many FULL-FRONTAL shots of her as possible. Riho has a kind of heart meter to tell me how much she is enjoying the shoot. The more she "likes" me, the more interesting poses she will do for me. She does point out that she IS wearing a swimsuit under her clothes so DO NOT take any photographs up her skirt, the irony being that the second shoot she does for me is in a bikini. The way for me to get her to do more interesting poses is by asking her to jump, dance and pose etc. In order for me to make her snap out of her stilted, amusement park robot poses I need to do a series of mini games that involve hitting a button as fast as possible, remembering a sequence of buttons or doing a quick rhythm game. If I do it correctly the game lets me know by flashing up "SUCCESSED!" on the screen.

The session ends when you run out of time or you use up all 24 of your shots. I can now see a list of my photographs, and they're all given a rating of good or bad. Obviously shots with a shadow or a lack of FULL-FRONTAL are going to be bad, and I'm given points I can use to buy new lenses, film and various retouchers to fix ruined photographs as well as some effects to add to my favourite shots of girls bending over and smiling. If I get enough points to progress I get to move onto the next shoot which has it's own set of conditions like taking a picture of the girl under a tree etc. Seeing as the girls move about at random and you're limited to standing in one of three spots this is sometimes harder said than done, and the shots you do manage to get can be out of focus or ruined by unwanted things in the frame. Thankfully there's a magical tool in the shop to perfectly sharpen unfocused images. Oh man, I wish I had that when I was at college doing photography.

I'm asked to choose my best photo to give to Riho as a present. She's obviously impressed by my natural skill. She even went on to tell me that this was the best time she has ever had at the end of the last shoot. Riho also thinks my pictures are "nice" and "cute" and that hopefully next time she can do better poses just for me. Unfortunately Riho only knows how to do the same seven or eight poses over and over again, and despite the change in scenery, a little more skin and a lot more wobble you're just doing the exact same thing over and over for all of the shoots... What few there are anyway.

The dialogue varies a little between girls, but it's all the same semi-broken english for the most part. Paparazzi is possibly one of the most boring games I have ever played. Even for comedy value it has very limited appeal. The one thing of note, and this is a common thing between the Simple games with girls in skimpy clothes is that the breast physics they all share are crazy in a way Dead or Alive can only dream of. They're somewhere between the point a spring stops vibrating to a halt and Parappa the Rapper's odd 2D-3D movement. The motion is so unreal it has to be seen to be believed. There's almost no replay value unless you want to count taking photographs of "sexy" mannequins as Santa or a gothic lolitas. Good thing I can save my best photographs on the PS2 memory card so I can share them with my friends... anyone want to send me their PS2 memory cards for hot, FULL-FRONTAL Riho Futaba as an advertising sales person pics... anyone?

Your loss.

End bit.

That's another one of these games finished, It's a little shorter than most, but that's probably for the best. Also, buying this game from a seller off of Amazon gave some money to charity which means I'm making the world a better place by playing Paparazzi.

The next game on my list is Japan's take on tactical Tom Clancy-esque military shooters... minus a budget. There's also a bunch of games I started playing that I planned to talk about, but didn't really have enough to say about them other than a paragraph or two, I might get around to writing that up sometime within the week. This blog took a little longer due to personal things and stuff, but I do hope to try and write about these weekly despite being unable to do so up to this point. I will also continue to not play Billy Hatcher.

Blog SUCCESSED!

Thanks for reading and be excellent to each other.