Konami's
Brooktown High for the PSP is a high school dating simulator that lets you
meet and interact with other students in a fictional educational
environment. The game is based on increasing your popularity by dating the
top students, getting good grades and making a lot of friends. You can
choose your character 'type' and focus on that while going through your
weeks. Selecting after-school activities and jobs also allows you to pick
your character's style. Brooktown High also includes several mini-games
and more, which increases its replay value and makes this a fun, if
somewhat superficial title.
Brooktown High is a somewhat odd and
quirky game where you get to become a high school student who's looking to
become popular with the other students as you date and make friends with
them. Before you begin the game, you can create your own character, an
avatar that will represent you on campus. You can choose to be either a
boy or girl and select the clothes you wear. When you're done creating
your character, you can enter the campus and talk with other students.
Each one has a different personality and style with all the usual
suspects, such as the jocks, nerds, cool people and popular students
represented. When you walk up to them, you can talk to them using a simple
menu interface. You can choose which way to respond and listen to them,
but how they react to you is fairly predictable, which makes gaining
popularity simple Once you get the hang of this system and make friends
with them, they can help to hook you up with other students and give you
tips on who's available and who'. Once you've gotten a bit of a handle on
the other students, you then have to rush to class before the hall monitor
grabs you. Attending class helps your grades and popularity significantly,
though there's nothing to do except watch as cut-scene as you do. When you
are in class, your grade stats go up, which makes your parents increase
your allowance, giving you more money to spend. Each round is represented
by a week, and after each week, you can return to your bedroom. When
you're in your bedroom, you can choose to study, which increases your
grades. The higher your grades are, the more allowance your parents will
give you.
In
your room, you can go on your computer where you can shop and purchase
different outfits for your student, message other students and apply for
after-school activities like the volleyball team or take on a job such as
a lifeguard to earn money. Which selection you choose plays an important
role on campus, since you are judged on your looks as well. If you pick
the wrong outfit, the other students will refuse to date you. Most of the
interactions with the other students are fairly straightforward, though
some don't seem to respond to you positively no matter what you do. Once
you've talked to some of the students, you can give them gifts or perform
tasks for them, which makes them like you more and increases your
popularity stats. As you earn money and status, you can use your
connections to go on dates. When you see a student you've talked to
previously, you can then ask them out on a date from one of many
locations. When you're on the date, the interaction is somewhat similar,
but you can also play mini-games, such as a kissing themed one which will
increase menu system, where you can choose to be either obnoxious or cool,
and make friends or enemies depending on your conversation. Meeting the
other students and making them like your score even more. After each date,
your partner will decide whether they want to go out with you again or can
dump you depending on your performance. After each week has passed, you
can then return to your room where you can change your outfit, practice
mini-games or sleep. There are several types of mini-games in Brooktown
High, most of which are fairly simple to play and easy to understand. As
you'd expect, they make a nice change of pace from the interaction with
students, but don't reinvent the wheel. The game is mostly about
interacting with the other students, and it succeeds in this department
thanks to its easy to navigate and understand menu system.
As you might expect, the gameplay is
fairly predictable and unfolds in the same pattern each week, which
becomes tedious after awhile. This makes things repetitive quickly, but
the additional items you can purchase and extra mini-games helps to reduce
this to a degree. This isn't going to challenge experienced players, but
it's a fun title that casual gamers will probably enjoy. While it's not
that exciting for extended periods, playing Brooktown for short bursts
leads to a more enjoyable, if superficial experience. Brooktown High's
production values are decent, with some nice character designs and some
humorous voice-overs that bring the characters to life. This isn't the
deepest or most intense game on the PSP, but it's a solidly produced and
entertaining title that should appeal to its younger target audience. Most
of the fun comes in creating a customized character and seeing how they
interact with the other students. Obviously, Brooktown High isn't intended
to be anything more than it is, and the game provides a good balance of
accessible role-playing and simple arcade mini-games that makes for an
enjoyable experience that should appeal most to casual and younger
players.
Grade:
C
