Singles: Flirt Up Your Life review

Killing stuff and frequenting dodgy chat rooms - it can't be Boomtown, can it?

It's a common belief, a mantra even, that sex sells, but I'd challenge that with a move universal theory that simple voyeurism rakes in the bucks. Society has developed a profoundly bizarre obsession with Everything Else, to the point where we have television shows like Big Brother, where viewers sit at home in their houses on their sofas watching a program about people sitting in a house on a sofa... Surely something must be going wrong?

The Sims hasn't spawned very many copycat titles; something of a surprise when you consider how overpopulated many of the other PC game genres have become. We're up to our ankles in real-time strategies, drowning in first-person shooters and beset with second-rate RPGs. Publishers are all too keen to cash in on a good thing or market 'safe' games which ride on the success of their prequels or similar, rival titles. Why aren't more people trying to emulate one of the most shockingly successful games of all time?

Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

Character sleep is oddly fitful.

Perhaps it's not as easy as they think. The Sims (and the eponymous sims within) was a fine demonstration of artificial intelligence, contextual awareness and open-ended gameplay. It was accessible, intuitive and easy for any gamer, experienced or not, to relate to. Everybody understands the challenges of modern life, the importance of a steady income, that leaving the TV on at night ramps up your electricity bill and so on. The variety and content contained within The Sims was matched only with the freedom of expansion, the latter boosted by the constant, somewhat cynical, additions released by EA.

Of course, if you can't conjure up a suitable competitor to The Sims you could just plug the gap they left wide open. The Sims skirted around adult topics, exercising considerable restraint. Singles is bold, nay brazen as it embraces all that is carnal. There's no blurring or censorship here; your subjects walk around in their underwear, seduce each other, have sex and bear all in the shower or bath. All this exposure is interesting for, ooh, about five minutes until you discover the most disturbing thing of all: They go to the toilet with all their clothes still on. That is so wrong.

Goodbye to Romance

Mod cons are attractive but limited.

Singles looks a hell of a lot better than The Sims. The lighting, the quality of the models and the animation are a step forward and will tide us over nicely until The Sims 2 arrives. It's a shame there isn't more in terms of furniture and decor to choose from when customising your flat though. You have considerably less freedom or variety than you would in The Sims and residences tend to end up looking like rather generic designer flats. It's nice, but all a little sterile.

Into these urban environs come your selected singles. Your job, as a 21st century cupid, is to pair up two flatmates of your choice whilst simultaneously juggling financial demands and making their day-to-day lives as pleasurable as possible. Improving their quality of life betters their relationship's chances and improves their outlook, which in turn can do wonders for their career and so on and so forth. Rather than specific activities improving specific skills, advancement is managed with RPG-style experience points, which gift you skill points which are used to improve a character's personality by making them funnier, neater, a better cook or even more passionate. So much for good old courtship.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me...

The downtown flats might have great views, but they appear to have skipped on interior decorators.

Starting out with no knowledge of cleanliness whatsoever highlights one of the problems with your Singles subjects. The Sims were independent, free-thinking beings with their own desires and preferences, whereas the Singles are blank templates waiting for you to impress upon them what to do. They're independent enough to go to the toilet or shower themselves when things get desperate, as well as keep their bellies full, but they possess far less character from the start and will stand around for hours utterly motionless unless you give them persistent instructions. Any order is met with a rather comic dash, Hanna-Barbera style, which soon becomes rather distracting. Ask them to cook dinner, for example, and they'll scurry into the kitchen, full speed ahead.

Getting your two chosen singles to socialise is a little bit of a struggle, as they are initially totally uninterested in each other (and just about everything else, as well), their blank, virgin minds requiring constant tinkering. Naturally, it's slow going, but, with a fair bit of patience it's possible to make flatmates friends and, eventually, lovers. Being a very self-contained unit, these two won't have that much to come between them except their own personality quirks and it doesn't take long to run up against the limits of the game.

Love Sick

Do you really want to see what this man looks like naked? We have, and we're pretty sure you don't.

With twelve pre-defined personalities, there's plenty of lonely heart combinations for you to try out, but being unable to personalise the characters and being somewhat limited in how you can customise your love nest really cuts down the scope and the appeal of Singles. Add to this the frantic and constant clicking required to get your subjects to look after themselves and it becomes quite an effort to produce worthwhile results. Most significantly, they almost always do exactly what you tell them to. There's little imagination, little independence inside their tiny minds and this makes looking after them a joyless activity. Micromanagement leaves no time for voyeurism.