Title: My Virtual Daddy: Mick Powers Studio: US Male Director: Jordan Black Cast: Mick Powers Genres:: Gay, Bears, Hairy, Interactive, POV, Voyeurism Condoms: No Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

Virtual Daddy doesn't have a plot, or characters, or even locations really. It's primarily explicit footage of beefy, hairy Mick Powers staring at you as he talks dirty. There are several menu choices always available on-screen, which you select with your remote control the same way you select options from a DVD menu screen. You can use this menu to swap footage in and out, so for example you can watch footage of "you" (a nameless stand-in whose face is rarely shown) twisting Powers' nipples, or pushing your finger into his ass, or stroking his dick. Once you get the hang of the menu, you can sort of create your own sex scene.

It's not a bad idea, but the execution is uneven. First, the good stuff. Powers is charismatic and verbal. He's a bit soft (though by no means paunchy), and looks much more like a real "daddy" than the super-chiseled stars of the big studio releases. When he stares at you as he holds his legs up and reveals his hairy thighs and ass, it's undoubtedly erotic.

All of the interactions that involve your hand manipulating his body--stroking him, fingering him, using a toy, spanking, nipple play--are a lot of fun, especially when Powers groans and urges you to do it more and harder. The creative use of alternate angles--something which should be done more in all types of porn--mean that you can switch between close-ups of the action and p.o.v. shots of Powers' face as he moans with pleasure.

But when it comes fucking or sucking, the illusion falls apart; it's hard to keep pretending you're the one in the scene when suddenly you can see your stand-in. And the alternate angle shots in these scenes are often from weird, distant angles, positions I'm sure no human could replicate without being a member of the Fantastic Four. Maybe if the conceit was that you were directing Powers instead of playing with him, the suspension of disbelief would be easier to maintain.

Production value looks lower than what the filmmaker probably intended: you can see the makeup on Powers' face in close-ups, and there's some artifacting of the image at times. Also, Mick's toenails are so long that I swear I could hear them scratching the TV screen, which is not the kind of realism I want in porn.

Finally, the interface takes up nearly a third of the screen and sometimes obscures the footage, and the individual segments of film are only two to six minutes long, so you quickly find yourself re-watching the same moments while you play with Powers. I hope that for future releases in this series, the filmmaker indulges the viewer with much longer clips.

Despite all the promises of new display technology, it's going to be a while before "virtual" means anything more than "novelty." To be completely honest, you'd probably have a much more realistic experience if you popped in your favorite jerk-off flick and grabbed a Fleshlight or Onacup (or better yet, a buddy).

There's still a lot of potential for immersive, interactive sexual experiences, but it will likely come from combinations of newer technologies like teledildonics and video games--some sort of worldwide virtual circuit party where your avatar hangs out in a digital sling while men thousands of miles away control the very real toy in your ass (not that I've thought about this a lot). However, My Virtual Daddy: Mick Powers is a good-faith attempt to bring some novelty to the now classic experience of watching porn on a DVD, and by that measure it mostly succeeds.