Lady Killer (Arcade) Review

While this falls in the cheesy category of "reveal the nude girl" arcade game, it's not really as perverted, or as bad or mediocre as one would expect it to be. More specifically, the player chooses a girl, and then tries to reveal her picture tile by tile, with her being less dressed in each stage. Yes, it's naughty alright, but in a "harmless," and almost cute way - even that mini-game part where a lady gets an orgasm from an octopus... err, yeah, this is a 'Made in Japan' product, alright.

The player takes control of a small diver who runs around the screen-sized stages, and who can "dive" and flip a part of the floor, effectively going underwater when doing so. The catch is that all sort of baddies are out to get him, and while it's possible to escape their grasp by entering the water, our dear pervy diver has no gills, and thus must soon re-emerge, flipping another tile in the process.

The use of all this diving and flipping, however, is not there just for show... with 'show' being the unveiling of a sexy cutie. This is actually how enemies can get defeated, as those tiles rotate for a few seconds after hitting them, hurting those who touch them. Oh, and, just like any Arcade worth its salt, tiles can sometimes hide a power-up underneath, ranging from those who let you clear a whole line, make you faster, last longer underwater, etc.

This unknown piece of guilty pleasure is fast-paced, challenging, and fun to play. Furthermore, it looks pretty good, with it's simple, yet nicely animated spites, vibrantly colored levels that make you want to hit the beach, and, of course, some pretty ladies behind the aquatic veil, who, sadly, don't move as much as one would want to, unless that fleeting… bounce that happens every now and then counts as movement.

…but it all gets boring too soon. There's a reason why Lady Killer is an unknown game, and that's that, while it's certainly enjoyable it doesn't really have that special something of the Arcade classics. It's one of those videogames that you'll spend a coin or two (or more if you've just hit puberty), and then forget all about it, until a weird, yet handsome reviewer writes a few lines of text about it...