Ever wanted to date more than one guy/girl at the same time? Well look no further…introducing Date or Ditch, the game made to spruce up your dating techniques. Don’t worry if you’re not hot on your heels, you’ll have help with a guide button (Help! Need advice!, as if you’ll need it) and an in-game virtual dating virtuoso, on hand to give you tips and advice.
The game starts with an upbeat tune, which sounds like a cheesy game show, with a brightly coloured options screen. You are given a gender selection screen and you have the choice to keep the in-game name, or change it to a name of your choosing. The fun begins when you get to snap four pictures of yourself to set the scene of the dating game. These images will be used to represent your characters emotional response during the course of the game.
It’s party time and you are led through a short tutorial by your guide, who will teach you skills needed to achieve the goal of catching phone numbers. With a brief conversation and a few cheeky one liners, you are on your way around the bar to “get digits from hotties”.
With the point and click feature it makes it easy to move around the singles bar to pick your victim. When you choose your potential date it revolves around a rather boring conversation, in which you are only given three responses to choose from. The aim of the game is to answer correctly and the love meter goes up, answer wrong and it goes down. Simple eh?
You may think the meter affects your dating capabilites, but think again. You have the notion that filling the love meter will enable you to hook up with your chosen mate, but no matter what you do, you will have to hook up with that person. It leads you into a false pretence. You don’t like the date? Tough, you have to hook up. If the love meter drops the game informs you the game is over and you have to restart at the same scene. No matter which gender you choose, the story line is the same. The roles are simply just reversed, same questions and same answers, the dialogue is just repetitive and this is a huge let down in the game.
There are a few extras added in; dating quizzes to try and keep you interested along the way and it takes advantage of the DSi camera that allows you take a picture of yourself and your partner to give a love compatibility rating.
Gameloft have created yet another isometric layout, similar to Farmville and Zombie Farm. Even though the game is 2D it is graphically average, in that it is neither fantastic nor dire and the characters features are presented well. This game would suit a casual gamer and is definitely not suited to a the hardcore gamer.
This may have seemed like a great idea but don’t waste your money on it. You would be better off in a chat room online. Test the waters there instead.
VideogameUK verdict: 3/10
