Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10779 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2005-03-11
• Platform: Nintendo DS

Manufacturer's Description
Welcome to the utterly weird world of Project Rub, the insanely addictive game where you'll have to flick, blow, poke, stroke and rub your way into your girl's affections. With 30 increasingly bizarre love matches, from poking balls to vomiting goldfish, you'll have to use the power of touch, voice and even your breath to bring the game to its climax.

Customer Reviews

Looks brilliant in parts, but overrated and...... that music!
Project Rub (AKA "Feel the Magic XY/XX") is basically a series of mini games masquerading as a dating sim.

The game opens with an impressive animation, combining retro and contemporary graphical influences. Some in-game graphics are also stylistically impressive. In some other areas, however, the graphics are more just simplistic or dated-looking.

As for playability, the mini-games just aren't that satisfying, and many feel underdeveloped. I completed a good few on the first attempt and was left thinking "Is that it?". Others are more fun, but generally there's little (if any) replayability. Completing all the games on normal difficulty isn't hard, just a matter of perseverance.

Once you've completed a game in "story" mode, you can save it to "memories" and play it on its own. These are supposedly longer versions, but I had no real desire to revisit them or to complete the game in "hard" mode.

The "story" screens look nice at first. However, after countless ludicruous plot twists, you lose any feeling of attachment, and they just get in the way; especially when you've already seen them.

The tunes are jaunty, self-consciously wacky, and start to *really* grate after a while. There doesn't seem to be any way to turn them off. In all seriousness, I never want to hear them again, and they seriously put me off the game.

I really wanted to like Project Rub, as presentation-wise it's often brilliant and innovative. Unfortunately, its in-your-face weirdness also gets annoying very quickly, and the games just aren't enough fun.

Nice little game... Interesting...
Well, Sega, despite not being Nintendo's rivals these days, have answered back and given their own spin on the mini-game ideology, and have also embraced the new features that Nintendo's DS has to offer, in the form of the DS launch title ; Project Rub.

Sega certainly aren't afraid of trying strange subject matters for their mini-games either, and you'll find yourself making someone puke goldfish and turtles, guiding someone on a unicycle over winding roads, unbuttoning a girl's blouse..... yes, that's right - unbuttoning a girl's blouse!... like Wario Ware, this list goes on, but I won't spoil it for you!

Best of all - all of the daft tasks at hand are completed using the touch screen and the microphone to combine touch and sound to control everything in the game. Whether it's the DS's quality build, or a combination of the DS itself and the games developers, it has to be mentioned how awesome the control really is. Put simply - it does what you tell it to, when you tell it to. It's an amazing achievement - these sorts of games would have been ruined by bad controls, so it's really pleasing to see that someone has got it right so early on in the DS's life.

The game itself is not as fast-paced as the Wario Ware games - there are time restrictions on some games I suppose, but there is not always a countdown timer to show this... the game just lets you know what's happening by storyboarding the action across the two screens, and giving you very clear instructions before you take the mini-game on. So then, it's not as challenging as Wario. Infact, it's really quite easy to complete. You have a "Story" mode that awards you with a challenge to play in "Memories" mode each time you complete a mini-game. Essentially, it just unlocks the mini-game you just completed and makes it selectable from the menu contained within "Memories".

So what's it all about then? It has a story mode - and what's that story exactly? Well, as I mentioned before, unbuttoning a blouse is a mini-game. It's the owner of this blouse that is the games subject matter. A young girl has captured your heart, and you are completing a series of mini-games to win her love. Whether it's defending her from scorpions & bulls, warming her by the fire, holding her hand while she walks - you'll find that there is some rather original and compelling material in there. There can't be many games around with this sort of theme (good ones, anyway!) so it's a nice change after all the GTA's and Halo's that you've probably been hammering away on recently.

You can also win new "looks" for your lady friend (put the Sonic the Hedgehog hair on her - it's amusing!) and can access this "looks" screen using the "Maniac" option on screen. Once in there, you have 3 options to change on your lady friend - the torso, the head and the legs. I won't ruin the list of designs, but rest assured there is lots there to keep you busy if you like the idea of being a pixel-plastic-surgeon! One interesting feature, is when you press the screen swap key, and the top screen (where you normally view your lady friend as you change her features) moves down to the bottom touch screen. Your pixellated filly will giggle naughtily if you use the touch screen to the full advantage - go on, tickle her and see what happens! A pretty useless feature, but I think sadly most people will be like me and will be tickling round the skirt area. It's not big and it's not clever - right!? Hehehehe...

Graphics are lovely. That's an odd word to use, but they are just lovely. The frame rate is smooth as blue-lid sunpat, and there are many moments when the storyboarding will raise a smile or two. For the subject matter of the game, the graphics work perfectly. Reminiscent of the Dreamcast's Space Channel 5, the hues of Orange and Yellow may convince you that San Andreas crept in a bit, but that won't stop the corners of your mouth turning up during some of the moving sequences.

I think that the game combined with the sleek, new DS machine, makes it seem better than it probably is. It's still a great first effort though, and shows just how willing developers are to embrace the new control methods.

Overall - a great launch title that has more polish because of the very swish new machine that it slots into. If you have a DS already and like mini-games, it's definitely worth a look.

Not Wario Ware - but still very, very good.

Rub it!
Project Rub is basically a tech demo for the Nintendo DS. It uses all the DS's new features, including touch screen, microphone and blowing.
It's an extremely fun game, incredibly addictive and easy to pick up and play. Even non-gamers will probably enjoy some of the sections.
The game follows the story of a young boy who is trying to impress a girl so that she will date him, whilst simultaneously fending off his rival. The boys attempts to impress are told through a variety of minigames which involve blowing out candles, evading bulls, playing ten pin bowling against real people at a bus stop and unicycling across planks laid between 2 buildings...yeah, it's kinda crazy! Great fun though, with th eexception of the one rhythm game included (the only time i got infuriated at the game).
Graphics wise the game is once again quirky and fairly unique, although don't be expecting award winning eye candy! Same goes for the sound, which is just as frenetic as the rest of the game!
There have been complaints about the longevity of the game, and this is where it falls down. You can complete story mode in a few hours and then you just get all the minigames to play whenever you want. However, at least you can make them harder. The goal of the game, after completing the story, is to collect all the clothes items to dress up your girl. You can get most by completing the minigames and finding the 'rub rabbit' icon on the loading screen. the others are only available by plugging certain Sega GBA carts into your DS at the same time. A crafty marketing ploy methinks, but only really going to appeal to truly die hard rub fans!
Overall, i'd say that this is an original, quirky and, most importantly, fun title that you should give a try. Either that or wait for it to get really cheap! Let's face it, what else are you going to play until Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Metroid Prime: Hunters come out?