Overview:
Very rarely does the brain – you know, the largest erogenous zone in your body and your second most treasured organ – enter into pornography. Ok, so it’s a given that every time you view a sexual image, your eyes receive the information as light and transmit signals to your brain which then interprets those signals into pictures and decides which ones are arousing (twitpic of Lexi Belle showing off some skimpy new panties) and which ones are not (twitpic of Lexi Belle’s gentleman friend eating Miso soup), but for most porno fans that’s about the extent of it. What the porn world really needs is a company that caters to the intellectual side of eroticism, focuses on what the brain can do for our nether regions, and prides itself on taking the higher mental ground at all times. With a name like Brainpass, this network just might be that entity. Then again, it could just have a ton of obviously hot porn with nary a nerd to be found.

Brainpass’s tour page promises “all exclusive content”, five live webcam shows each week, daily updates, and over 50 networked hardcore websites for you to devour. With industry giants as Lex Steele and Peter North given multiple websites on which to ply their trade, young semi-amateur starlets like Christine Young and Cherry Potter getting their first solo sites, and an absolute shit-ton of assorted hardcore niches filling their own forums, Brainpass isn’t wanting for extra content. Joining in for this fucking extravaganza would normally set you back almost thirty bucks, but your gracious reviewer has managed to score you, his dear reader, a ten dollar discount. $19.95 to sexercise your brain for a whole month? That sounds like a McValue meal to me! You never know, though; once inside, things could be quite different – kinda like the last girl I was with. Ouch.

“What the hell is the Pornstar Network and where’s my damn Brainpass?” If those words escape your lips upon entering the members’ area, I would not be surprised in the slightest. See, Brainpass no longer exists as more than a tour and preview area. You sign up for it but then find it has gone the way of the Dodo, Tasmanian Tiger, and Billy Mays. In its place is something called Pornstar Network. Spiffily designed and laid out in an easy-to-digest yet hella-packed fashion, the Pornstar Network may at first appear to lack the brains we had hoped to find inside Brainpass. You will come to find, however, that the brains of Pornstar Network work on a rather subtle, but no less effective, level. The Navigation system works beautifully with very few faults, enabling members to access all kinds of content from a centralized location. Websites aren’t treated as the satellite entities most other networks endorse, but as integral parts of what makes Pornstar Network function. You can’t go anywhere without hitting some great content and the home page not only shows you what has recently been added to the network, but also what scenes and pornstars have been online for a while but are well worth visiting (or revisiting). New scenes arrive roughly every two hours, adding at least six items to the already extensive archive (10677 videos and counting) every day. Photo fans aren’t neglected either, as the 1200-strong gallery archive sees at least one new photoset added each day. And what of the models? Well, I tried my darndest to dream up a slut obscure enough to not be featured here and failed; even the woefully under utilized Jackie Avalon makes a couple of appearances alongside her more well known co-fuckers; the usual suspects – Sasha Grey, Amy Reid, Alexis Texas, Tory Lane et al – make plenty of noise and it’s a breeze to find all of their content via the thorough and thoroughly attractive model index.

Being a rather large group of 56 sites, the Pornstar Network has a hell of a lot of variety (and a bit of repetition) to offer members. Even a quick glance at the Sites page shows that, of the 56 sites currently available – Manuel Ferrara, Black Dick Round Ass, My MILF Story, Jizz Mouth Wash, First Sex Video, Lube My Tits, I Want Latina, Tiny Ass, Lex Steele, Sperm Glazed, Pornstars Analyzed, Pornstar Squirt, Big Wet Asses, Hostile Fucking, Swallow Squirt, Cheating Mommies, Flirty Pussy, Bruno B Reloaded, Load My Mouth, Hardcore Gangstas, Out Door Back Door, Heavenly Knockers, Sperm Cocktail, Europe Hotties, Deep In Cream, Cover My Face, Lex POV, Club Vanessa Blue, Annie Berry, Swallow Me POV, Feet Frenzy, Fuck That Asian, Lex on Blondes, Lex Movies, Lex Interracial, Lex Big Cock Movies (man, Lex gets around), Cherry Potter, Kelly Summer, Cute Angie, I Love it Black, The Lucky Man, Bang Me Boys, Only DP, Black Reign X, Girly Gangbang, Dog House Digital, Peter’s Cumshots, Real Squirt, Melissa Doll, Club Peter North, Hard Core Fiesta, Busty Christy, Shelby Bell, Sweet Amylee, Silverstone Video, and Christine Young (phew) – some present almost identical content, at least content that adheres to the same niches and uses the same performers and shooting style. You’ll notice that Lex Steele has six sites to his name – if that’s not a tad excessive, I don’t know what is.

After cruising around the various sites, the studio directory, and the DVD archive it’ll come time to select a scene to watch. Upon doing so you’ll first find a good looking streaming video that’s great if you only want to sample a scene or are reluctant to clutter up your hard drive with something you probably won’t watch again. Full length downloads are available in the following formats: WMV @ 720x480, MPEG @ 640x480; while chaptered clips can be viewed at additional resolutions of 352x240, 320x240, 192x144, and 160x120 in MP4 formats. The highest quality clip (the full-length WMV) looks quite good without being stunning. With so many High Definition videos online these days, it’s kinda tough to be too impressed with the quality provided by the Pornstar Network, although it is definitely adequate… for now.

All scenes come with a gallery of screen captures that also reach 720x480 and look fine enough; if you’re into screencaps, that is. If you’re going to be watching the video anyway, these pics aren’t of much use and should only catch the attention of completists. Zipped archives are available for both these screencaps and the 114 photo galleries and, like the videos, they download at a fairly sluggish speed from Pornstar Network’s servers. Upgrade? Yes please! Maybe take a few of those extra Lex Steele sites down and beef up the servers, webmasters. We fuck fans want our porn as fast as humanly possible. Instant gratification generation and all that shit.

Thankfully, any technical trouble or downloading disappointments you might face are overshadowed by the incredible wealth of thoroughly exciting porn laid out here. You’ll see the world’s greatest sexual performers performing the world’s greatest sexual feats – anal, double anal, triple cumshots and all that gooey goodness – as well as some real world hotties getting freaky for the first time on the amateur-based sites. Whatever your flavor, unless it’s extreme fetish material, you’ll find it here on the Pornstar Network. Now, before I really start to get into this whole Television Pornography Salesman shtick I seem to have happened upon, let’s bring ourselves back to reality and discuss the positives and negatives of a Pornstar Network (née Brainpass) membership.

Pros:
- You want oodles of content? How about over 10,000 videos?

- Updates arrive multiple times a day and there’s even a countdown timer to tell when the next one is due.

- Design and navigation across the network is perfectly functional and attractive.

- Members get a great mix of semi-amateur and totally professional content that covers a wealth of hardcore porn niches.

Cons:
- A handful of the websites haven’t been updated in a long time.

- At a maximum resolution of 720x480, the newest videos can’t compete with the High Definition offerings some other networks manage.

- The Pornstar Network’s servers seem to struggle with multiple downloads, slowing transfers to a languid pace.

- There’s really no legitimate cause to give Lex Steele six entire websites to himself. Sure, the guy’s a monster talent, but it simply clutters the network and causes confusion.

Conclusion:
56 websites. Yes, 56 websites! It’s almost inconceivable that a network with so many avenues of pornographic enquiry could be faulted, but Brainpass/Pornstar Network has a few issues that need addressing. There’s quite a bit of repetition across the Pornstar universe and some sites lie dormant amidst the daily updates. An increase in video quality would be a great boon to the network, too. Overall, when you factor in the number of incredible performers doing incredibly arousing and explicit things for your entertainment, Pornstar Network is definitely worth the twenty bucks it takes to spend a month perusing and abusing the variety of sites. If only the webmasters could decide once and for all on a name.