You'll instead have to make your singles eat together, watch TV together, play board games together, flirt, sweet talk, do chores for each other, and generally be civil to each other (and little else) before their relationship can reach a stage where they're willing to spend the night together. Instead, it'll take a good couple of weeks of game time to work your way up to that. You can't just make your two characters hop into bed together from day one. The characters in singles all look to be somewhere in their 20s, and some of them are described as being "always on the scene looking for some action." So it's ironic, then, that the game is actually somewhat conservative in its structure (as if these types of people, in real life, would be averse to a one-night stand). Surely this is not the strangest notion ever presented in a game. So, Singles purports that any combination of two young people, regardless of their sexual orientation, can eventually be made to hook up. What's also rather strange is that there's a token gay male and a token gay female character that you can pick for attempted same-sex partnerships.only, you can pick both these characters together. In practice-though you supposedly have characters that range from yuppies to swingers to artistes to girls-next-door to computer nerds-there's really no obvious difference in gameplay terms, regardless of which sort of mismatched pair you select. You can't make your own characters but instead are limited to a fairly small selection of Caucasian men and women, the latter of which are all quite pretty, and the former of which all look like dirtbags.
Like in The Sims, in Singles you need to manage the mundane aspects of the lives of mundane characters. This will, maybe, take you a weekend's worth of casual playing time, though the process is purposely dragged out so that you can't see everything the game has to offer in a half hour. The ultimate point of Singles, apparently, is to unlock all the different, possible animations. There are four categories of actions-romance, sensuality, fun, and friendship-and just a handful of different, possible options within each one, all of which are represented by a single animation that plays out the same exact way each time. It culminates in, finally, what the game refers to as "the wild thing." One of the major shortcomings of Singles is that, unlike The Sims, the range of character actions here is actually very limited. The proverbial dance all starts with playful flirting and teasing and gradually works its way up to hugging and kissing. The premise of the game is that two swinging, unattached singles (of course) just so happen to move into an apartment together, and it's up to you, for some reason, to get them to hook up (as if inter-apartment relationships are a good idea). In Singles, you always have direct control over two different characters. Now Playing: Singles: Flirt Up Your Life Video Review So as not to mince words, in Singles, your purpose is to get two roommates to have sex with each other.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's It's also not as bad of a game as you might expect, though this is not to say that it's good. But the truth is, Singles isn't nearly as racy as it sounds. Indeed, Singles was originally developed in Germany, a country that's notoriously strict about depictions of violence in its video games yet has no qualms about full-frontal nudity, if Singles is any indication. Apparently, however, it's kind of the other way around in Europe. While we desensitized American savages gleefully absorb scenes of graphic violence, we hypocritically express shock and dismay at the sight of an unclothed human body.
This is a strange premise, and it's one that might never have made it to these shores were it not for publisher Eidos, which took upon itself the task of releasing a downloadable, Adults Only-rated version of Singles in North America. Only, here, the goal isn't merely to keep your characters nourished and gainfully employed but to get them to knock boots, as it were. For the most part, it's a shameless, stripped-down copy of The Sims. Singles: Flirt Up Your Life is, in a word, European.