Desperate Housewives: The Game (PC)

The typical video game player might quickly dismiss ABC's hit TV show Desperate Housewives as nothing special, but the show's composition of wit, humor, and intrigue has made it a huge success, a meticulously crafted guilty pleasure. Besides, the show has a great hook: It's narrated by a woman who mysteriously, tragically died in a pristine, seemingly perfect suburban community. This dark edge permeates a mostly light and upbeat show, and it's also integral to the computer game adaptation. Desperate Housewives: The Game looks like a Sims clone, but it's really more of a point-and-click adventure game that tells an original story in the vein of something from a season of the TV show, complete with all the philandering, double-crossing, and skeletons in closets that define the series. There's very little in the way of challenging or exciting gameplay in here, but Desperate Housewives: The Game succeeds in capturing the spirit of the show. And in so doing, it delves into some subject matter that very few other games have dared to broach.

In the game, you play as a woman who has just moved into a nice two-story home on Wisteria Lane with her teenage son and successful doctor of a husband. So, rather than let you play as any of the stars of the show, the game instead lets you interact with them in different ways by role-playing as a character you create. Initially, you'll get to meet and greet with the other wives on the block, who demonstrate their personality quirks a little too forcefully here compared with the show, partly due to the soundalikes who provide their voices. For example, Lynette Scavo always sounds frazzled and exhausted here, since she's trying to raise three kids while holding a steady job; and the pretty Susan Mayer is constantly insecure. Nevertheless, fans of the show will find both the likenesses and the dialogue of these characters to be fairly close approximations of their selves from the show.

The show's housewives ultimately aren't key players in the game's storyline, which revolves around your own character and her mysterious past. However, the game does a decent job of letting you interact with them, as long as you don't scratch too deep below the surface. By presenting you with different dialogue options and social interactions, the game lets you be a good neighbor, a nasty bitch, or somewhere in between. You can tell a lot of the dialogue choices are meaningless, but the story does present you with some mutually exclusive goals on occasion, and it even has multiple endings based on the actions you take at the end. Many of the story's plot twists can be seen coming from a mile away, and sometimes you're forced to choose from a completely ridiculous set of dialogue options that will feel inconsistent with how you're trying to play the game. But the ridiculous quality of the plot ultimately works to the game's advantage, much like the show itself. In short, the story starts off fluffy but gradually escalates into something very different and more consequential.

Desperate Housewives is a very easy game to play, though it appears to have more depth than it really does. The resemblance between this game and The Sims series is unmistakable, and indeed, some of the gameplay elements seem like vestigial traits from that series. For instance, you have meters representing your character's need to maintain a good appearance, be happy, and so on, and you refill these needs by doing things like primping your hair and watching TV. But none of it seems to have any bearing on gameplay. Your character doesn't really need to eat or sleep, even though you can do these things. Yet nowhere do the "virtual life" aspects of Desperate Housewives seem more superficial than in your choice of attire. Yes, you have the option of going to the shopping mall and purchasing different clothes for your housewife alter ego (you may also update your home with better furniture, different flooring, and so on). However, how you're dressed seems to have no impact on gameplay at all. So, for instance, you can walk right into Lynette's house wearing practically nothing, walk past her three young kids, and go use her computer without anyone saying anything.

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