Twistys initially appears to have a lot in common with another excellent and equally huge site I reviewed recently, Teen Dreams. On closer inspection, Twistys is more clearly a pornstar and glamour babe site though - and not limited to (mostly) teen babes - with much fewer unknown girls and more focus on all the popular hardcore pornstars and glamour babes of recent years, although with a total of more than 1,700 models on the site you do get quite a lot of variety.
The search features at Twistys are exceptional, with numerous detailed search options for both models and photosets/videos, and browsing the site is always pleasent and painless. Photosets are both viewable online with a nifty slideshow feature, as well as downloadable in zip files. The formats and technical quality on the videos vary somewhat, but the fairly recent videos generally look pretty good.
Aside from the thousands of photosets and videos already in the archives, you have four new photosets and one video to look forward to every single day.
(Read the full review below)
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Site info updated October 5 2008
| Pictures: |
10,261 photosets (approx. 50-150 per set)
Resolution varies, usually between 1024 and 1280 pixels, but 1600+ on recent sets |
| Video: |
2,334 (approx. 5-30 minutes each)
Windows Media (wmv) and QuickTime available (mpeg and RealPlayer on some older videos)
Highest quality: wmv 640x480 (720x404 on many recent videos), 2000 kbit (resolution and bitrate varies significantly between old and recent content)
No DRM protection |
| Bonus: |
117 downloadable hardcore DVDs (scene number included in the video total above)
Access to seven other sites, see September 10 and October 5 2008 updates below |
| Pricing: |
1 month recurring: $24.95
3 months recurring: $59.95
3 months non-recurring: $75
6 months non-recurring: $99.95 |
Update, October 5 2008:
This is a follow-up to my update below from last month. I've just rejoined Twistys (or the Twistys network as it is now) today, so in addition to updating the hard facts in the boxes above, here is a bit of additional info about Twistys and the additional sites you now get access to with your membership (and it's actually seven rather than the five I mentioned a month ago, though one of them - When Girls Play - can't be visited from anywhere but within the Twistys member area, and another - Nicole Graves - is not yet listed under the bonus sites, but your login will work).
Twistys itself is still getting four new photosets and one new video every day, which means the total number of photosets has now passed 10,000, while the video section is also rather well stocked, to say the least, at over 2,300 scenes.
Additionally photo resolution has gotten a boost in the last few months, from a - by today's standards - decent 1280 pixels to a pretty respectable 1600x1070 on many of the recent photosets. A thread in their forum also suggests that they are planning on adding a 3000 pixels version where possible (they still use a mix of licensed and exclusive content) in the near future.
In fact you could easily argue for another point in the content quality score, considering there's also now a pretty substantial number of videos on the site in pretty good quality, but it's late and I'm too tired and lazy to update a bunch of category pages right now. Perhaps next time.
And now onto the seven included network sites. I've chosen not to review any of them at this time, but here are some brief descriptions (which should also indicate why there would be little reason to review at least the first three separately).
As in my previous update the links here are direct site links.
Busty Ones - just a subset of the Twistys content, featuring models that live up to suggestions of the site title.
Euro Foxes - also just a Twistys subset, here with Eurobabes.
When Girls Play - another Twistys subset, this time lesbian videos and photosets.
Blue Fantasies - another subset, this time seemingly content they've decided qualifies as glamour content. (Correction, October 9: The content at Blue Fantasies is in fact exclusive to that site. Typically popular models you can also find heavily represented at Twistys will have a few exclusive photosets and/or videos at Blue Fantasies. Altogether there are a bit under 400 videos and a little over 700 photosets on this site, so it's actually a pretty sizeable addition to the network).
Anette Dawn - one of two solo girl sites. Anette is an absolutely gorgeous Hungarian babe who also did a good handful of lesbian scenes with girls like Eve Angel and Sandra Shine for Viv Thomas a few years ago, under the name Bridgett (and she's also been in several lesbian videos at Club Sandy, also as Bridgett), before she got a boob job and went strictly solo softcore as the case is on her site. She's well worth spending some time gazing at though, and she does go as far as masturbation rather than merely semi-boring posing, so these 59 photosets and 44 videos is a nice addition to the network (though some of them could already be found at Twistys as well).
Nicole Graves - another busty hottie who has done a fair amount of glamour work for Twistys. This site is very different from Anette's though, as most of the content here has a very clear amateur style to it, and Nicole doesn't shy away from sex with neither boys nor girls. A pretty large site with more than 190 videos and over 200 photosets.
Naughty Staff - a (very) small collection of hardcore guy/girl videos with a secretary/office theme. You only get 15 scenes and it doesn't really look like there's an update schedule, but for a bonus site it's hard to complain about a few hot hardcore videos with girls like Carmella Bing, Bree Olson, Eva Angelina, Rebecca Linares, Alektra Blue and several other babes.
Update, September 10 2008:
A Twistys membership now also gives you access to five other sites. I might decide to review one or two of those at a later date (at least three of them are reportedly quite good) - and do a proper update of this Twistys review as well (aside from the expected increase in content volume, updates are steady, nothing much has changed since my last visit though) - but for now I'm just going to give you direct site links here so you can take a look if you want.
Anette Dawn, Blue Fantasies, Busty Ones, Euro Foxes and Naughty Staff.
Update, March 11 2007:
A couple of months ago the video quality at Twistys received a fairly significant boost, from a previous maximum of around 480x360, 1100-4000 kbit (resolution and bitrate varied, and still varies, somewhat) to 640x480 or 720x404 (the latter a widescreen format used on so far a few of the exclusive videos), 2000 kbit - meaning the recent videos look pretty damn good.
I haven't updated the quality score considering it's afterall still only a very small portion of the now more than 1,700 videos at Twistys that are available in the new higher quality, but otherwise the new videos on their own would probably be worth a 19 out of 20 in that scoring category - even after I've upped my quality expectations a bit recently (and the requirements for getting listed on the Technology Leaders page).
Original review:
On the surface, and even on initial closer inspection, Twistys has quite a lot in common with another site I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, Teen Dreams. They both have huge collections of photosets and videos starring hundreds upon hundres of models, they are built partly (Teen Dreams) or mostly (Twistys) on non-exclusive but usually high quality (production wise, we'll get to the technical quality later) content from a number of different sources (studios/photographers), and they are both adding even more content at a brisk pace.
I've already concluded that Teen Dreams is an excellent site, so let's find out how Twistys stack up, and if perhaps there aren't enough differences between the two sites to put them in less direct competition with each other than they initially appear to be.
There appears to be at least one, Twistys isn't solely based on teen models, although as I mentioned in the other review, Teen Dreams - like many other teen sites - is regularly pushing the definition of the word "teen" perhaps a bit too far into the twenties for purists.
At the time of writing Twistys archives hold 1,534 videos (or 15,000+ partial clips, the slightly inflated number they are showing on the tour page) and 7,115 photosets (688,000+ photos). With more than 1,700 models on the site that should make for a fair bit of variety, not to mention enough content to keep you entertained for months - and that's leaving out the four new photosets and one new video they are adding every day.
Currently 168 of the videos and 1,178 photosets are shot exclusively for Twistys, and while that's not all that much compared to the total numbers, objectively speaking it's still a whole lot more than what many really good sites count as their entire collection.
88 downloadable DVDs are also included in the video count and they cover a nice range of hardcore sex, including anal and gangbangs. They can be accessed both from the regular video archives as well as from a DVD list.
(Member area screenshots)
You can find everything from solo posing or masturbation over lesbian sex to hardcore anal and group scenes at Twistys, and if you're a fan of well known pornstars and glamour babes the model roster should really please you, and this is where the second big difference between the two sites kick in - Twistys is highly focused on more or less high profile babes, with much fewer "anonymous" girls than Teen Dreams.
Whether you're into blonde babes like Jenna Jameson, Briana Banks, Britney Skye, Jana Cova, Zdenka or Devon or prefer brunettes like Taylor Rain, Tera Patrick, Jenna Haze, Aurora Snow, Jelena Jensen, Erica Campbell, Penny Flame or Taylor St. Claire, you can find them and many, many others here.
As usual I was also very pleased to see that most of my favourite East European babes were listed - from solo/lesbian girls like Eve Angel, Jo, Peaches, Nella, Sandra Shine and Sophie Moone, to hardcore anal babes like Dora Venter, Nikita Denise and Sophie Evans - often with numerous photosets and videos, many of which I hadn't seen before despite the content being non-exclusive.
If there is one disappointment with some of the model content sections, it's the shortage of videos compared to the often impressive number of photosets. The decision on how many videos to include seems somewhat arbitrary to me, and not so much a reflection of a model's popularity or how many videos she has actually done over the years for various sites or the DVD market.
Since Twistys is buying or licensing most of the content rather than shooting it themselves, I imagine they may not always be able to get hold of as much as they like with certain models though. If that isn't the reason I could certainly make a few suggestions on model pages I would like to see spiced up with a few more videos. Photos are great, but I must admit that if we're talking actual sex scenes (whether lesbian or guy/girl) as opposed to the girl just prancing around looking gorgeous, I much prefer some live action.
Moving on to an important aspect I often leave out of reviews, but usually include when looking at large sites - the site design and particularly the search features are excellent at Twistys. The main page of the member sections lists the latest updates, most popular models, videos and photosets, and links to other major sections like the model archives, photos, videos and DVDs.
The model archive by default lists the models by popularity (there's a rating system on all model pages), but you can have them listed alphabetically instead or use the powerful search tools that lets you search on first and/or last name, age range, eye/hair color, cup size, ethnicity etc.
There are similar features in the photo and video sections, with search options like title, category (couples, guy/girl or lesbian orgy, solo, threesomes etc.), location, clothing, various toys and niche (more detailed than category, there are nearly 40 niches, ranging from anal and blowjobs over domination, gangbangs and glasses and latex fetishes, to pregnant, shaved pussies, squirting, tattoos and voyeurism).
Not surprisingly, given the many different content sources as well as the age of the site (five years), the technical quality of particularly the videos varies pretty significantly.
Most of the photosets I've checked appears to look pretty sharp (not overcompressed) and the resolution usually in the 1024-1280 pixels on the long side, the larger ones usually the exclusive photosets. Pretty good, although I wouldn't have minded something in the 1500-2000 pixel range where possible - some sites have started offering that, and while it's admittedly too large to fit on most current monitors without scrolling or zooming, it makes for some amazingly detailed closeups on certain... interesting bodyparts.
Let's hope we'll get some of those supersized photos in the future.
Video quality ranges from quite good on movies from the last 8-10 months - wmv format (and optionally QuickTime) 480x360, 700-1200 kbit (occasionally higher) - and getting progressively worse as we move back towards the oldest movies from 2001. The worst you'll get from the oldest videos is 320x240, roughly 200-300 kbit - not good at all, but many if not most of the videos in between have their low resolution somewhat saved by increasingly higher bitrates.
Video formats also vary a bit in the oldest parts of the archives, sometimes wmv or QuickTime, other times mpeg or RealPlayer. Usually you'll get a couple of choices, and thankfully you're very rarely stuck with RealPlayer only.
Most of the videos can be downloaded in either a single file or in multiple parts.
So to end as we began - how does Twistys stack up to Teen Dreams? Extremely well, although the latter does take a slight lead in some areas, like technical quality on recent content. As it should be clear now that we're through with the review though, they are not nearly as directly interchangable as they can appear.
Twistys isn't a teen site, and while you can certainly find a fair share of teen babes here, it's more of a traditional pornstar and glamour site, collecting and listing some of the best photosets and videos all the hottest and most popular soft- and hardcore models in the adult industry have done. And adding some of their own exclusive productions as well, usually with some of the hottest babes on the site.
It's an amazing site, and while I've resorted to direct comparison here - as I regularly do where appropriate, as I feel comparisons have their place in reviews - Twistys certainly deserves to receive the final judgement on its own merits. And I think they pretty much speak for themselves.
Click here to visit Twistys
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