"Surfin' Sam", although not to be confused with "Space Sirens" and 
several others from Pixis, was also part of a wave of adult 
interactive CD-ROM games using QuickTime movies that were stopped at 
will or cued to different points as needed, released in 1995 and 
shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, the performance even on a 
"recommended" system was often poor when these were first released. 
Even after several years of technological advancement (these games 
were first released in 1995 or so), there are still some problems with 
current computers. Most of them can be attributed to age; these 
games were written for Windows 3.x or early releases of 95, and a lot 
has happened since then in producing games that don't mess up your 
system or should work more often on strange hardware. Strangely 
enough, the biggest problem is that the current version of QuickTime 
for a PC (I have 4.0.3) will play the movies in the stand-alone movie 
player, but won't show anything while inside the game. So you have to 
wrestle with uninstalling this year's QuickTime to play a 6-year-old 
game which installs QuickTime 2.0.1, then putting it all back to 
normal so you can use this year's software. (In my case, I put it on 
the old laptop that I used for "Space Sirens" and "Space Sirens 2".)

As there's not much help provided in the game documentation, other 
than how to install, here's what I figured out.
1. Can't skip the opening title movie. Well, you can stop it with the 
 Esc key, but that just exits the game. Just sit through it each time 
 you start the game.
2. You can skip the introduction movie with Sam, the genie and the 
 bottle, by double-clicking on the screen.
3. Click on a map location to go there.
4. Now that you're at the main game interface, the "?" button should 
 answer most questions. You can click on the genie to get random 
 responses, or wait about 15-30 seconds to get "hurry up" messages.
5. Each girl (or two) has an introduction video you can't skip the 
 first time. If you make a bad choice and go back, then you can skip 
 these when you re-enter, by double-clicking.
6. The "bottle choices" are either complete by themselves (e.g. 
 "Towel" with Sally) or lead to other sub-choices (e.g. "Ice Cube"
 leads to "Buffy" or "Bambi"). Your choice is resolved in another 
 video clip, but these you can control the volume (right vertical 
 slider control) and playback (click on "<|>" to reveal another 
 vertical slider for position in the clip, and the thing at the top of 
 the surfboard can be toggled between Play and Pause).
7. If you made a bad choice, you can go back in and retry. It's only 
 when you "score" that you can't get back in.
8. "Score" with any 3 girls, and you have a final choice with Kitty. 
 All 3 can be considered "good" endings - another video clip. Then the 
 closing credits. To see all the girls on the island (2 pairs and 4 
 alone), you'll have to play the game several times.

This game actually does have some replay value, but only because it's 
so easy to win without seeing much. Each girl (except for L&L, I 
think), has several "you score" situations, and you'll only get to see 
one of them each time you play.

You can play the movie files off the CD with a Windows Media Player 
that has QuickTime for Windows drivers, or the QuickTime Movie Player. 
I found that while in the game, the sound often had a burst of noise 
several seconds after starting, but that didn't happen outside. And 
the "score"/"no score" messages from the genie often were audio only 
within the game, although they should be video too. Could have been 
the old laptop hardware though.

I couldn't find anything of use on the Net about this game.

Review: Because this title is going for humor rather than hardcore, 
it's more a game than just a vehicle for sex scenes. If you don't know 
the adult video scene, the Spice Channel was an adult cable TV & 
satellite channel that got around some legal restrictions (no 
penetration shown before 8 pm, never any anal sex, etc.) by never 
showing anything more risque than nude girls that never spread their 
legs. At least, several years ago when I visited someone that had 
this channel, that's what they did. So all you ever get to see is nude 
T&A, but no close-ups on pussy and no penetration. Well, this game is 
by Spice Interactive, and they didn't go out of those bounds at all. 
That said, you still don't want to be caught with this at work. Makes 
the "have to 'score' with 3 girls" rather laughable when you notice 
that nobody actually ever scores with anyone. Personally, I also 
thought that any of the girls in the game were better looking than 
"Kitty" at the end. Even with the humor - and both the surfer and 
genie became annoying quickly - this game was worth only a few hours 
of my time, and I had a better time watching the movies outside of the 
game rather than in it. With more hardcore and specialty titles out 
there now, you might find this title worth it only if sold at a big 
discount, or you're really looking for a bit of funny sexist fluff.


Peter Karsanow - bishoujo.helper[AT}sbcglobal{DOT)net
http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/