Naked Desert stars Anna Malle as a ghostly nymph who appears to outdoor revelers in their moments of need, sexual and otherwise. Despite a strong cast and decent production values, there's a chill hanging over this one that multiple camera angles and all the extra DVD features in the world just won't shake. Stockable, yes; but Vivid has much better product on the market — product like Nikki Loves Rocco, which features swingers Jon Dough and titular performer Nikki Tyler stumbling upon a conservative dinner party hosted by Melissa Mill and Tony Tedeschi. Tyler practically jumps Rocco during dinner, and soon, their inhibitions out the window, everyone joins in on the fun. Well-acted and well-made, this light-hearted comedy is everything that an adult feature film should be.

The Scope (Editor's Choice, July '97) is another top-notch couples film, albeit one with more of a dark side. The premise of a telescope that can see into the future may seem a bit hokey, but it actually provides a great story-telling device. Great cast, great sex, and great production make this one of the better films Vivid has released in the last year.

As is usual for Vivid titles, all three discs have generally fine picture and sound; however, pixelation is ofte noticeable, particularly on Nikki Loves Rocco and especially so on The Scope. Also, playback on all three DVDs "stuttered" for a half-second or so on our Toshiba 2107 whenever the discs played through a chapter stop or a point where the multi-angle feature (video branching) was available. This may or may not occur on your player: We double-checked the discs on an RCA model, and the "stutter" was absent.

One final note: We question the wisdom of slapping that misleading "3D DVD" sticker on the cover of The Scope, the implication being that much or all of the program material is presented in 3D. Fact is, the only "3D" on the disc is in the form of the "Bad Girls Room," a small, computer-generated 3D dungeon environment with hot buttons that access brief sex clips that are decidedly 2D. It may be a more interesting way to present these bonus clips than has been done in the past, but we don't think if s a good idea to make more of it than it is. Besides, if your customers have been playing games on Sega, Sony PlayStation, or PC CD-ROM for any length of time, they've probably seen this sort of thing — minus the sex, of course — a gazillion times already.