Overall, Habbo Hotel could best be defined as a visual chat utility-- rather than screen names sitting in rooms with lines of scrolling text, you've got avatars hanging out with a broad array of actual 3D rooms to pick from. Instead of a MySpace or a home page, you've got an actual, personalized room of your own to invite chat buddies back to-- though Habbo provides customizable profile web pages that serve a similar purpose, too. Conceptually, it's rather interesting to consider; much discussion these days goes on around the idea of a "3D internet," where images and approximation of actual human interaction gradually replace text-based, read-only formats.

The many rooms, plazas and restaurants of Habbo Hotel are easy enough to navigate, and the variety's fantastic-- there's pretty much every sort of atmosphere available that a teen imagination could conceive of enjoying. Keeping that in mind, the conversation is exactly what's you'd expect-- this is quite squarely a teen scene, and the conversation is generally either unintelligible or obscene. Despite claims of vigilant word filtering and moderation, the clever kids always find creative ways to spell certain words to avoid them being replaced with the ubiquitous "bobba." Most rooms feature either a word-salad brawl or some crude romancing-- that is, if you can follow the conversations. It's not always clear whose speech balloon belongs to whom, especially in crowded rooms where text and avatars overlap in Habbo's comparatively unsophisticated graphics scheme. The net effect of a barrage can be confounding, and an actual adult fumbling through Habbo Hotel would probably need a strong stomach.

To be fair, Habbo's hangups are owed more likely to its population and not to its environment, which is fairly user-friendly (save for the occasional Shockwave glitch) and rather impressively detailed, with plenty of features to delight the imagination. There's a fun degree of automatic interactivity with the environment-- approaching chairs and banquettes makes your avatar sit, for example, and the fun bots that staff the restaurants can make small talk and serve drinks. When entering a dance club, then, you can have your avatar do whatever it is you'd normally do in the scenario-- whether that's hit up the bar, sit at a booth, or dance on the floor.

Perhaps it's the juxtaposition on the rather aggressive crowd that makes the pervasive advertising just slightly eyebrow-raising, though. Most rooms feature an advertisement for a movie, product, or sponsor site, and several featured rooms are themed around an existing ad campaign already. Superimposed against cute sprites and kid-friendly literature, the campaigning (BUY EXCLUSIVE FURNI!) is a bit jarring. Nothing pops the balloon of faith in the next generation like watching a cursing match going down in the "Hogwart's [sic] Library" against the backdrop of film advertising. The Habbo homepage advertises the "Info Bus," where Habbos can learn about online safety and community rules-- the Info Bus Station was, however the site of yet another crudely-worded exchange.

It's difficult to tell which Habbos are paying for credits or joining the VIP club-- the only giveaway in the public rooms would be a strikingly unique avatar set, but since there are so many choices, even that's not a definite. Perhaps, however, the subscribing members are in the exclusive games rooms, or entertaining sophisticated friends in their well-furnished chambers, and the population that can be sampled via casual use are exactly that-- the other casual users.

A lot of effort seems to be put into making the Habbo world positive, variegated and entertaining-- games, planned events, and plenty of info. But the free games rooms were virtually deserted, and users seem primarily interested in socializing, not collecting furni and joining clever storytelling competitions. If this is your scene, you can most certainly enjoy Habbo for free-- but be prepared to dodge frequent, friendly suggestions to buy credits. Or Sunkist Soda.