Create a Character (Avatar)
The create an Avatar options in Home are actually really extensive. For the most part, you can create a very close (but never perfect) “3D You” in which to interact with others. You can change not only body shape, but also details like the broadness of your nose and chin, the height of your cheek bones, and so on and so forth. There are also presets that I call “Pick-A-Race” that enables you to change your race quickly instead of messing with the facial feature and skin tone options for hours on end.

What I HATE about the Avatar creation is clothing, or complete lack thereof. When Home first came out, every guy was wearing blue jeans and a gray overshirt, while every girl was wearing tight blue jeans and one of three possible shirts. It wasn’t until later that I learned that you had to go to ‘the Mall’ and BUY (WITH REAL MONEY) new clothes! Each hat, pair of shoes, shirt, or whatever costs between $0.50 – $2.00 of REAL MONEY. And of course with everyone except perverts and pedophiles too cheap to care about buying clothes for their Avatar, everyone sticks with the default clothes.

My initial impression was that, despite having all this creative freedom in creating my character, I was just as distinguishable between other Avatars as one Smurf is with another.

And like The Smurfs, if you’re a ‘Smurfette’, you’re a gang rape victim waiting to happen. (See immediately below)

Interact With Others
If by ‘interact’ you mean “dozens of lonely video game nerds circling the nearest female avatar and staring at digital cleavage” then you’re right on the money. I shit you not, if you don’t have any other people in your Friends list, pretend you’re a girl (make a female avatar), buy a short plaid skirt for $1.00 (real money), and dance for 3 minutes (having music to dance to is optional because for some reason it’s not nearly as stupid or creepy as in real life). By the time you can finish humming ‘The Bad Touch’ by The Bloodhound Gang, you’ll be in the center of a virtual bukaki circle attended by every nerd in a 50 foot radius, all of whom are striking stimulating conversations such as:

“Hey”
“Where u from?”
“U look good”
“ASL?” (Age, Sex, Location… scary that I actually know that…)
“i 8 inches”
“U want hard cox?”
(no text messaging because that would require the use of both hands)
And you wonder why these guys are on Home instead of on real dates…

To be fair, communicating with other people is simple. You either hit the triangle button and start punching in text with either the Dualshock 3 controller or (if you’re lucky) a USB keyboard, or you hold the L2 button and speak into a headset. I have yet to hear what I sound like on the other end of a conversation, but if it’s like the cat calls and cursing of everyone else in Home, then I probably sound like I’m giving oral sex to a live microphone.

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