Brooktown High
Japan has been a long time contributor to the world of gaming. The Japanese have given us entirely new genre's of games, and contributed some of the best titles and spawned some of the greatest franchises to date. Millions of people in the Americas have enjoyed countless hours of such classics as , Final Fantasy and newer hits such as the series of Brain Age titles to recently hit our shelves. And now they introduce to us the latest concept in the simulator world, Dating.
When I first popped Brooktown High into my PSP I didn't know what to expect. I had never heard of a dating sim before, let alone played one. Published by Konami and developed by Backbone Entertainment, Brooktown High plunks you down into the life of a highschooler trying to keep good grades and pick up as much of the opposite sex as you can manage.
To begin you go through a quick personality quiz that determines your characters looks and traits. Your look is of course generic and your wardrobe sparse, that is until its time to get your allowance and earn a few extra bucks on the side with some part time work.
Much like the life of a real teen, the world is thrown at you a week at a time. You must get through your 5 days of school, while keeping those grades up, then jump into the weekend with your hormones poppin'. That week of school actually equates to only a few minutes of game time where your only objective is getting to class on time. It's not the least bit difficult to do as your only obstacle is talking to fellow students. Unfortunately after a couple of boring and repetitive conversations it's not something you care to repeat. It would be much more fun if they took a page from Leisure Suit Larry and let you try to "bone", "screw", "f**k", or whatever else your dirty little imagination can come up with, all the ladies you meet (or men if that's what you like).
Flash forward to Friday and you take part in whatever job or club you signed up for. Cut scene, now it's Saturday and you have a choice of keeping those grades up or playing one of the non-super-fun mini-games. Provided you set up a date at school while you were getting into one of those high-octane conversations earlier, then this is point in the game where they throw you into it. Date's over, now it's Monday again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
There are of course variations. Too shy to date? Then don't. Hate school? Then fly by it as quick as possible. But then what's the point? The whole object of the game is to get into some sexual innuendo and do some making out. You won't ever get to see any of the good lovin', but that's to be expected.
Apparently there is some issue with saving games (which are about 1 megabyte), onto the Sony 4GB stick. The game reports that there isn't enough free space. The only workaround is to go out and buy a smaller stick. That in itself is ridiculous, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to play this game that badly as to go out and buy some new memory. Luckily for me I'm just a poor kid and only have a 1GB stick. I saved 4 different games just to rub it in.
Although the game is certainly unique, it's just not very good. But don't take my word for it, try it out for yourself and you be the judge. Personally, I don't like The Sims style games, but if you do, who knows, you just might like this one. But be forewarned, where The Sims is a steak dinner, this is meatloaf.
