Virtual House. The life stage.

Ambitious, everything about Virtual House - The Life Stage can be summed up with that one word, "Ambitious".

It is not really a game, more a simulator but it is fun. Doesn't that make it a game? I'm not sure. Maybe it does. What ever the case 'Virtual House - The life stage' is quite fun.

If I'm to be honest, I slipped into super critical mode when I first saw this game. I simply did not believe the humble 3DO had the power to pull it off.

I do not mind admitting I was wrong. It did have the power and in my honest opinion it did pull it off very successfully

'Virtual House' is just that. The ability to create, decorate, wall paper, furnish and then walk around a virtual house.

The game was developed by Micro Cabin. These were the same people who brought us the technically impressive 'Guardian War' which was also known as 'Powers Kingdom' in the UK.

I found 'Virtual House' pretty easy to get into. That is not an entirely true statement. I could not, with no amount of button pressing, figure out how to open the damned doors. Which meant my exploration of some of the demo houses was limited to a single room.

This was the first and only problem I found with Virtual House. The menu's aren't always that straight forward and can be a quagmire to navigate. However, once you have mastered the quirks of the menu system, I found I had a room up and running so to speak, in no time at all.

You as the designer are allowed to pick the size and shape of the room from a number of predefined shapes; cubes, spheres, etc. You can also decide where windows go, where the furniture goes, the colour of the carpets, the ceiling, everything up to and including the shades for the wall paper.

Considering the 3DO doesn't have a keyboard and is limited to a minimalist D-Pad, the implementation of this game is actually great.

Once you've built your dream abode, you can then walk around it, admiring it from a number of angles and then save it to memory.

Below are a number of screen shots from my own lovingly crafted room. You'll notice that the problem with opening doors was never satisfactorily ironed out!

My room started off in a barrel shape.

Naturally, the first thing I added to my wire frame room was my beloved Panasonic 3DO. By that point in my very first creation, I hadn't entirely figured out how to raise and lower and rotate objects, so, as can be seen from the pictures, the console remains smack-bang in the middle of the room.

I then added a desk, a plant, a drawing board. Naturally followed by a Tatami mat (Japanese grass mat) and a Kitchen unit - After all, what room is complete without them?

I then lovingly placed a nice big window in front of the desk and gave the place some wall paper and some flooring. I think, even with my humble fumbling with the game, the results look pretty good.

One final thing is that 'Virtual House' includes a 3 or 4 minute rendered introduction. The subject of which is a cutesy rendition of a Panasonic Multi-player, complete with arms, building a house and befriending a little girl. It is all very cute. Quite, quite pointless but worth at least a glance.

So, if you are ever wandering around Akihabara (Electric City) in Tokyo, Japan, grab a copy. 'Cos that's the only place I have ever seen it!

3DO Kid.