Playing With Nautica Thorn Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  3/5/2005

The Little Details

Running Time: 52 min.

Production Date: 8 / 10 / 2004

Director: None credited

Cast: Nautica Thorn and “you”, played by Brett Rockman

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: Anarchy’s virtual sex simulators have had some decent sex that’s been ruined by poor technical abilities and tarnished further by an unrelenting streak of false advertising. I’m expecting Nautica to put on a good show here and Anarchy to see what they can do to fuck it up just like they have on every other virtual sex DVD they’ve released.

Initial Reaction: Even without Anarchy’s lies it’s a yawn.

Who Should Watch It : Extreme Nautica Thorn fans

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting a well done virtual sex DVD or what the cover advertises

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The technical aspects vary throughout the movie. The audio is normally pretty good, but some of it has a very noticeable hissing in the background. The video is nicely done. It has a hint of grain, but is normally well lit. There’s a few minor shadows, but they feel natural rather than seeming as incompetent as the mongoloid who did the cover advertising.

Music: None

Bullshit, Boneheaded, and Borderline Advertising: Trusting Anarchy’s cover claims is kinda like trusting Bill Clinton to babysit your teenage daughter. You just don’t do it. That’s right true believers, Anarchy’s continuing its string of bullshit, boneheaded, and borderline advertising that always ends up with them being penalized in the overall score. Here, they’re penalized a half point, which is nothing new. The front cover lists Multi-Angle, Extremely Interactive, Strip Tease, Foot Job, Titty Job, Multiple Toys, Tease Menu, Shot Exclusively for DVD, Point of View (P.O.V.), and Different Sex Positions. Not all of these are bullshit. There’s actually a footjob and a titty job. On the other hand, the multi-angle claim should require you to have hip waders on before you’re given possession of this DVD. There’s not a single place in the DVD that I could find where it allowed the multiple angle feature of the DVD player to be used. Yes, it does appear to be shot with more than one camera, but so does a most studio porn. If this is a multi-angle DVD, then so’s a good three quarter of the other releases by major studios. There also isn’t a strip tease. Yes, Nautica strips down as part of a couple of the sequences, but there’s nowhere in the menus where you can select a strip tease.

For the borderline side of things is the Extremely Interactive option, since there’s fewer interactive choices here than most anywhere else. You don’t get to choose between moods for Nautica, camera angles, or anything else special to tailor the scene to your tastes. There’s also kind of a tease menu, which doesn’t really make sense to advertise on the cover as that’s kind of the point of an interactive DVD is letting you have menus to make your choices. More than anything, it’s a masturbation menu as Nautica never spends any time teasing you with one part of her body or another. Then there’s the multiple toys claim. Yes, Nautica does use more than one toy. No, you don’t have any control over it like you did in Smash’s My Playtoy 3. Finally, there’s the POV claim. Yes, a fair amount of the movie is shot from the POV perspective, but once “you”start fucking Nautica, very little of the footage appears to be shot from the POV perspective. Then again, maybe I’m just behind on things and you’re supposed to see a guy’s asshole or face in a POV shot. The POV claim may be borderline, but it leans awfully heavily towards bullshit.

On the boneheaded side of things are the claims of Different Sex Positions and Shot Exclusively for DVD. I have yet to see anybody release an interactive title with only one position, and the positions used here are no different than anywhere else. I also don’t know of anybody who’s released an interactive VHS tape or how it would work. Do they come with a sheet that tells you where to fast forward to on the tape to see what you want to?

Menus: The menus are extremely basic. The main menu is basically just a shot of the cover that lets you choose between foreplay, sex, and extras. It’s not very impressive.

The Feature

Nautica is a young girl who looks to have a bit of Polynesian or Oriental in her. She’s done a few videos, and like so many of Anarchy’s other virtual starlets, has been snatched up by Anarchy to do her first virtual sex DVD.

Nautica does an okay job with the sexual part of the movie. She’s cute, but much of her performance seemed unconvincing to me. I think much of my problem comes off because she plays the “barely legal” role a bit too much and I prefer women rather than jailbait. Nautica plays a lot to the camera, and doesn’t just play towards the camera but downright mugs it much of the time. There were times during the masturbation sequences that she mugged the camera so badly that half of me wanted to fall asleep and the other half wanted to throw my wallet at her and run the other way. She looks like she gets into the sex at times, but more often then not I didn’t get much of a feeling of chemistry. In addition to this being part of the jailbait style, this is also due to the camera work. Rather than going with a POV style, Nautica was often looking anywhere other than at her partner, which is supposed to be you. She had nice energy, but Nautica never drew me into the sex or did anything to really draw me into the fantasy.

The only thing that really went well for the sex was the pop shot. Unlike the pops by so many other companies, there isn’t an animated or faked pop here. This is a good thing, but unfortunately there’s only one pop here. Brett delivers a nice dose of dick droppings, and it would be impressive if it were a standard scene. Unfortunately this is a virtual release, which means people are limited to only one pop shot for the entire movie. No matter what sex act “you’re performing” on Nautica, you get the same pop. I’m not really sure which is better, having a real pop that’s this limited or having a few decently faked pops.

Then there’s the virtual aspect of the movie. The menu rests nicely in the upper left corner, and is fairly easily read. It tries to be more than what it is by changing with every sex act, and instead comes off as rather sad. There’s only nine different sex acts in the entire DVD (masturbation, playing with toys, blowjobs (with two variations), a tit job, a foot job, fucking in reverse cowgirl, spooning, doggie (with two variations), and finally the pop shot. This could have all been included on one menu and been much cleaner and more presentable. Instead it comes off as smoke and mirrors trying to cover up something that doesn’t really have that much to offer.

The “virtual sex” aspect also falls far short, and barely qualifies it for a virtual sex DVD. Virtual sex DVDs are supposed to be done so that you can fantasize about being with the chosen woman. If you throw aside the camera work, which only went to a POV style for part of the blowjob and doggie during the sexual portion, it still doesn’t even come close because it never feels like you have control of the action. Rather than using loops so that the girl only does what you tell her, the scene just proceeds like a long and badly edited scene with a chapter menu in the corner so you can jump around in the scene easier. To me, that doesn’t come close to being “virtual sex”, and the connotations of “interactive DVD” is even far beyond what you get here. I think you might be able to come up with more technically advanced DVDs if you left the equipment in the monkey cage at the zoo than you have here.

I’ll admit straight out that the main reason I checked out Playing with Nautica Thorn is to see if Anarchy is every going to try being honest with the cover claims on their virtual DVDs or if they’re going to continue lying to the point that they deserve to be castrated with a pair of dull rusty scissors. Once again I’d make money here by betting on the pair of rusty scissors. Even without that, the sex here lacks and the virtual aspect lacks even more. I really can’t see a good reason anybody should waste their time watching Playing with Nautica Thorn.

The Extra Stuff

Trailers are included for Shooters, Narcassist, Blasted, Anal Life, and Johnny’s Vision. The photo gallery contains about a dozen good looking full screen photos that advance about every five seconds. There’s also internet and snail mail information and an interview with Nautica.

The interview with Nautica lasts about eight minutes. After Nautica scoops up her dog she’s followed with a camera as she goes to clean up. She and the cameraman yap away on pretty much everything that comes to mind, such as facial cleanliness as she cleans up and gets dressed. It’s a fun little interview, and you get a decent feel for Nautica as a person. It’s a decent interview, but nothing overly special.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Straight, virtual sex, tease, smoking, masturbation, toys, titty fucking, and footjobs

Raincoat Factor: High

Condom Usage: None

The Bottom Line:

Currently, many of Anarchy’s interactive DVDs can be found online for between about $10 and $25 with stores offering them everywhere in between. Watch this one if somebody else rents it for you. The virtual aspect sucks and the sex lacks. The technical aspects are pretty good, though, and there is a bit of effort put into the extras.

Note to Anarchy: You’re doing a nice job of recruiting talent for your virtual line. Now if only you’d do a job they could be proud of.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

Other reviews by Astroknight