Original Release: Accolade, 1989, PC
Other Releases: Amiga (1990)
Accolade combines a bunch of genres of “adult” game with the merest scrap of “adult” content, in a package that doesn’t come off well
Bar Games (PC, Accolade, 1989)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: MS-DOS Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Leisure Suit Larry opened the door for mainstream computer games to be sexy in the late 80s, and Accolade timidly popped their head through several times. This was probably the most “risque” of those ventures, but as evidenced by the fact that it’s here and not at Plumflower, it doesn’t even rise to the level of real nudity.
“Spring Break Games” might have been a better title, though to be fair, a lot of the action takes place at a bar. Basically there’s no story or setup here, you just wander into this good times paradise to play assorted games with lovely ladies (and the occasional Virgin or Chad guy that sneaks in).
Liar’s Dice puts you up against a pretty barmaid whose thoughts you seemingly can read, though it seems like most of the time she’s actually lying to herself in her own mind … that one was a little too deep for me. It’s probably the easiest game to consistently win, though, as the girl always seems to make a few ridiculous bids before she gets around to calling your nonsense. Don’t wait for her to strip off, though, it’s not that kind of game.
The most “titillation” the game achieves is in Wet n’ Wild, a wet t-shirt contest in which a girl parades on stage and you’re on a catwalk above trying to time dumping buckets of water on her. The first girl just walks back and forth, but future girls get more twitchy and fast. Some environmental obstacles are also gradually introduced, like electric shocks that skip across buckets and eventually one of the previous girls comes out and tries to interfere. From a gameplay perspective this is actually probably the most fun game in the package, but the DOS version doesn’t show you much of anything, for some reason the Amiga version has much wetter T-shirts.
Last Call is a sort of Tapper variant that seems impossible to win, as the customers are R-slurs who manage to always fumble away their drinks even when you lob them over perfectly. As far as arcade action goes, there’s also a “meh” air hockey game in the general manner of Shufflepuck Cafe (but not as good).
Finally, there’s a dating game that’s really just a memorization exercise. Three girls are sitting at the bar, and the only thing randomized with each game is which one is interested in you. But between games they all respond positively to the same answers, about which there’s usually no clue and you’re just expected to guess your way through. For bonus “fun” you don’t get to control the cursor in the answer menu, it jumps around randomly and you have to hammer the space bar to stop it at the right time.
So the game teases “adult” content when it barely has even the merest scrap, but its true failing is just that the games range from being “OKish I guess” to “terrible.” The one thing to enjoy here is Accolade’s very good pixel art of the period, which I’m sure they were leaning on heavily to sell this via screenshots … but unfortunately it seems they hadn’t mastered sound cards yet so you’re stuck with honking PC internal speaker music.
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