Singles: Flirt Up Your Life Hands-On

NOTICE: In a shameless effort to promote their articles, ActionTrip announces it will show actual images of the virtual sexual intercourse in the full review of the game.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you bunk two attractive singles of the opposite sex in the same apartment? Well, I haven’t. But I sure have been wondering about what it would be like to spy on two attractive girls living in the same flat.

One of them would get out of the shower one day with just a towel wrapped around her firm, young bosom, and she accidentally brushes her hair across her girlfriend's bare shoulders, peeking out through her spaghetti-strap nightgown. Her friend would squirm a little and giggle and then she’d tentatively approach the other girl and gently unwrap the towel, letting it fall down the moist silky skin...

Ugh... I'm getting a little carried away, aren't I? (A little? - Six)

OK, so you can’t really set things up like that in "Singles: Flirt Up Your Life," (well, actually, you can, but I'd have to rewrite my clever opening, so let's pretend you can't) but you do get to control the lives of two young people who are short on cash and are forced to share an apartment together. The best way to describe this game would be to call it a Sims spin-off with an erotic twist. You see, whereas The Sims is mostly focused on social interaction, Singles is more about the core relationship between two prospective lovers, with special attention on the "getting to know your intimate bits by being extremely close to them in both a physical and emotional way" part.

This is a game that ActionTrip readers were born to play.

There are plenty of similarities between Singles and The Sims. In fact, when I first loaded the game I could barely tell the two apart; especially with the camera zoomed out. They are so goddamn similar everyone who’s ever played The Sims will have no trouble coming to grips with Singles. Yes, the Comic Sans font is there, and the actual layout of the buttons as well as their function in the interface is very, very similar to The Sims. Even though you can’t commend the programmers on their originality, the fact remains that, just like The Sims, Singles offers a perfectly functional interface that’s easy to learn and very easy to use once you get the hang of things; so in a way, this is a pretty good thing.

The similarities don’t stop there however. The whole consumer mentality of The Sims game is also very much a factor in Singles. You see, the designers had to give you something to do besides try and get your roommate to give you a thorough oral exam. This means that you’ll, naturally, go to work and earn money so that you can buy better stuff. Buying better stuff reflects on how the two lovebirds view their surroundings. If the crib is cozy and has that pimp-daddy quality to it, the chances of seeing raunchy, kinky sex between computer characters are that much higher. Hey, this just gave me a marvelous idea! We should make an expansion pack for this game that includes new; um; toys and other requisites (Nazi and nun costumes and such) that, um, enhance the erotic experience and take it to a... whole new level? Anyway, I digress...

Buying new stuff is one of the draws of the gameplay, just like it was in The Sims. Besides that, you’ll have to micro manage the shit out of your young singles. The AI does know how to bathe when toxic waste and dead birds start falling out of the guy’s armpits, but it won’t exactly bother with hygiene unless one of the young lovers contracts cholera or the plague. What this means is that you’ll have to feed the two singles, bathe them and take them to the lube every so often (too often), which will, of course, give you plenty to do besides chat, snuggle, French kiss and bone.

As time goes by, your characters will gain experience. Essentially, you can allocate their skill points in such a way that one of the characters is a career freak/workaholic and the other a genuine soccer mom. (I wanna be the soccer mom! - Smap [No, you want to do the soccer mom. - Six] Well, duh.... - Smap) It doesn’t matter which one of them plays which role. If we put aside the erotic aspect for a second, this should secure a lot less micro management on your part, as the two will learn to actually cook tasty meals and earn more money so that you can buy them better things.

But the crux of the matter in Singles is the erotic aspect of course. Unlike The Sims, where all the strategic parts of the body are blurred out, this one goes all the way, and when I say all the way, I mean ALL THE FUCKING WAY! Each of the characters is different emotionally; they can be neurotic, fun or whatnot, so it will be up to you to make them gel together enough so that they engage in sexual intercourse. Well, in all fairness, there’s more to Singles than just sex. Your ultimate goal will be to help them find true love, but sex plays a mighty important role in all this. The key difference between Singles and The Sims comes into play here. The erotic/emotional component is more elaborate and offers a lot more interaction between the characters. As I said, they can just snuggle for a while, or flirt, but after some time (and in my case QUITE some time; no, UNNATURALLY long time), they will start to "Kiss with tongues" and grab each other’s tight asses. (What, what did I say? Why are you looking at me like that?)

Once the romance gets underway, you’ll mostly focus on getting those two to sleep together. That will become your main obsession so to speak. The best thing about this is that, thankfully, the models in Singles look a whole lot better and more complex than in The Sims, and they are very, very anatomically correct. Well, all you need to do is check out the screenshots to get the right picture.