Reviewed: June 1, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Konami

Developer
Backbone Entertainment

Released: May 22, 2007
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

7
8
7
8
7.8

Supported Features:

Not that I was a nerd or anything…more of a loaner. Even though I was on the tennis and bowling teams I wasn’t considered a jock, and even though I was the assistant in charge of the library’s computer lab, I wasn’t stuffed into the category of “nerd” or any lockers. I probably went on four dates during high school, one of which was Senior Prom...with a “friend”.

Okay…maybe I was a nerd. Oh well; it’s time to change all that.

Brooktown High breaks down your senior year into a very rigid schedule of school, jobs, clubs, and of course, dating. You begin each day at 8am and classes start at 8:30am. You have a few minutes in your room to change clothes and use your computer before dashing off to class.

You’ll get to school around 8:10am giving you about 20 accelerated minutes to interact with as many students as you can, or at least the few you really want to talk to. The warning bell sounds at 8:25am giving you 5 fast minutes to find one of four doors, each representing a specific class. You have Art, which builds Originality, French, which improves your Charm, Gym, which pumps up your Athletics, and Physics, that boosts your Smarts.

As you study and participate in after school clubs, your grades and stats will improve, all affecting your GPA. Based on these stats you will also be perceived by other students to fit into certain stereotypical cliques like the Jock, Rebel, Nerd, or Prep. It’s not a huge deal, but it can determine the type of girls that will talk to you and who you might end up dating.

Once you pick your door you’ll study that same subject for the entire week. Yes, it’s a bit odd and a bit annoying that you don’t have more control over this much of your weekly life. Even worse though is that if you fail to get to class before the final bell you will likely get caught by the robotic hall monitor that makes ED209 look like R2D2. After juicing you up with a 1.21 gigawatts taser you’ll be sent to detention for the entire week – no stat boosts for you.

After the final bell on Friday you will head off to your after school job where you can make some much-needed cash, or participate in one of four clubs or activities like the Astronomy Club, Volleyball Club, Foreign Language Club, or play in a rock band. Apparently the school marching band was considered even too nerdy for this game. You pick your clubs or jobs using the computer either on Saturday or Monday before school. It’s up to you to decide what’s more important, grades or your bank statement.

To help you out, your parents will offer some financial assistance with an allowance that is initially determined by the questionnaire during character creation, and then modified based on your academic record. If the grades slip you might find the cash flow cut off at the source and if you start to fail your classes you might get grounded all together. Of course, if the allowance stops you can always get a job.

You’ll want to pick a college pretty early on in the school year then work to keep those grades up for midterms and finals. It wouldn’t be the first time a college was picked based on the girl you are dating, so you might want to use your computer to read up on what each school has to offer before you end up committing. You can apply to multiple universities to keep your options open, but those application fees can add up fast. At least have a backup in case your first choice turns you down.

So we’ve covered everything except what you probably want to know about…the dating scene. It can be rather challenging to meet the girl (or guy) of your dreams in what equates to about two minutes of real-time each week before school. You can use your cell phone to chat-up acquaintances, but only after you’ve scored their “digits” through personal contact at school. And important questions like dating and dance invitations are better done in person.

Brooktown High is populated with 20 unique characters, but what makes them so unique is just how deep each is rooted in their stereotype. You have Biscuit, the sexy volleyball jock, Elektra, the rebel with a voodoo fetish, Charity, stuck-up and a big fan of gifts and spending your money at the mall, Starlight, daughter of hippie parents who swing and have made her very untrusting of men and relationships, and Catherine…oh sweet artistic Catherine…ahem…who I ended up marrying and taking to my 20-year class reunion where I was voted “Most likely to be a playa”. But I get ahead of myself.

And for the female players, or guys playing female characters, Brooktown High has the required amount and variety of beefcakes and nerds. There is Beeman, classic conspiracy theorist and computer geek who speaks fluent 1337, Rage, a shirtless wonder in search of energy drinks, Brent, the lord of volleyball, and Hilton, the most popular guy on MySpace.

Basically, you have your ten most well defined stereotypes and a girl and guy to represent each. So when it comes time to talk or even attempt to date these people you have to decide just how much of your “self” do you sacrifice to appeal to these characters. Much like real life, there is always a bit of compromise in interpersonal relationships. I caught myself impulsively answering a few dialogue trees “honestly” and ended up vigorously backpedaling (an actual dialogue option) or even having to restore my save game.

I found it quite distasteful to actually suck up to a lot of these girls for the dubious privilege of dating them in hopes of a kiss. Pretending to care about art, fashion, vegan diets, and astronomy was almost as painful as having to buy and wear all the latest fashion trends, and that button-up shirt that impresses the astronomy chick won’t fly when you want to hit on the Biscuit. And don’t even try going to the beach in anything more than a swimsuit and sandals. The painful grimace on your date's face is just so embarrassing you want to bury yourself in the sand…at least until you find yourself making out in the nearby cave. After all, clothes lose their importance once you take them off.

Maintaining an active social life can eventually hurt your grades, especially if you become a serial dater like I did. Dating severely cuts into your study time on Saturday, so make sure to leave a few open weekends to maintain a GPA high enough to keep the parental units off your back and the allowance in your wallet.

Other than clothes, there is a wide assortment of gift items you can purchase. Sometimes you be asked to buy somebody something (also known as a FAVOR), and other times you merely have to analyze the color-coded text dialogue for helpful hints at gift ideas. Elektra is probably the only girl in school that would know what to do with a voodoo doll, and if you are going to buy her chocolates it had better be in the shape of a skull. The trendy Charity will certainly enjoy the It Bag, and Starlight is the only girl who can stomach the Vegan Cough Syrup.

As you make contact with both male and female characters you will establish a reputation (or REL) that can be tracked on your PDA in the form of a chart that shows each character’s head either below or above a line of neutrality. The girl you are going steady with is likely to top the charts while the girl you just dumped will be sinking to new levels of “extreme hatred”.

Being the people pleaser I am, I tried to keep everybody at or above the line of neutrality, which meant plenty of sucking up when I inadvertently got caught cheating on Catherine, not once but twice, and once was with her best friend. Amazing we ended up married – I owe it all to a kick ass prom and my 007 tux.

Of course, making friends with everybody can make it tough if you want to date a rebel like Elektra who expects you to hate or at least extremely dislike everybody but her. I really had to turn on the charm to even get her to go out with me once. Needless to say, we had nothing in common and it ended badly…but we are still friends according to my PDA.

Dating can be a complex proposition. Not only do you have to have enough REL with a girl, you also have to pick a place and time that suits their preference and schedule. Some choices are easy like taking the artsy girl to the art café or the nerdy girl to the LAN party or Biscuit to the beach or bleachers. It gets harder on second, third and fourth dates, should things get that serious, in that you have to pick a new location each time. Sometimes the girl will offer an alternative and sometimes they’ll just tell you to take a walk.

As your REL increases with each character and you continue to engage in successful social interactions your charm and confidence levels will slowly increase as noted by the bar graphics on the HUD. When these levels max you will earn an Ultra-Cool move that you can do at anytime prior to talking with another student. You can store up to three of these power-ups, and when you use them your stats are temporarily boosted, putting most girls into a hypnotic state almost powerless to resists your request for a date. Just make sure to have the right person targeted before you talk to them. Nothing is more awkward than having to turn down a same-sex invite to the “make out closet” at the Spring Fling. Sorry Brent…you’re just not my type.

Weekend dating is only practice for the Winter and Spring dances as well as the Senior Prom. If your charm is riding high you can actually have girls hinting at you for a date to the dance...sometimes girls you barely know. Oddly, once you have asked a girl to a dance you cannot tell others you already have a date. You can only double-book or play dumb.

Dating is all about keeping the date alive as long as possibly while working toward that big kiss at the end. Dances are a bit more complex and include mini-games that you can practice in the privacy of your bedroom. Your boom box allows you to dance DDR-style to any of the music in the game soundtrack on any of three skill settings. Your computer allows you to play 21 Knickers, which is a friendly term for strip blackjack, although you only strip to your underwear. Hey, it’s rated TEEN. Whaddya want…Hot Coffee?

You can also click on the bed to practice some solo kissing (sorry, no slumber parties for the girls) in a game called Tongue Twister; basically some kind of shooter mixed with tonsil air hockey where you move an icon around the inside of a mouth avoiding distractions like the TV and the teacher while spritzing the occasional green cloud of halitosis that threatens to ruin the party in your mouth.

If you play your cards right you might get to bust a move on the dance floor or swap spit with your date playing either of these mini-games at the dance. Practicing at home also boosts skills like charm, originality, and athletics. Of course, any great date ultimately ends with you and your date in your bedroom with your parents out of the house. Where you go from there is up to your conversation and kissing skills.

I’m probably making Brooktown High seem far tawdrier than it really is. The farthest you can go on any date is a KISS, and even then everything switches over to those classic video montages of fireworks, flashing lights, rockets launching, Texas oil pumps, a power drill repeatedly boring in and out of a piece of wood, a champagne cork popping and shooting white frothy foam…damn…this game IS dirty!

Actually, it’s all pretty innocent fun and quite possibly a bit educational. Not to sound like the end of a South Park episode but you know…I learned something today. It’s not always about scoring with the hottest girl in school. It’s about being yourself and not caring what other people think. Yeah…right. This game is about adaptation and trying to make it with every girl (or guy) in the school in a single year. Just don’t burn too many bridges or you may end up going to the prom alone.

The characters all have large faces and expressive eyes that do a great job of expressing emotion and their current state of receptiveness to your flirtatious advances. Studying their expression and body language can really help you pick the correct next branch in the dialogue tree.

You can customize your own character with a wide assortment of fashion and accessories, and even keep with the current trends when the new spring fashions arrive during the second half of the game. Sadly, there is no used clothing store, so you are stuck with all your old clothes and have no way to sell them off for extra cash. A fashion oracle will tell you how good you look and how appropriate your clothes are for the person you are dating or the location you are taking them. Thankfully, I was able to wear my $300 tuxedo to all three school dances and nobody seemed to notice.

Location artwork is pretty cool. You spend most of the time in your room, which has either a distinct girl or boy motif. The schoolyard is basically the fountain and steps leading into the building. Once inside you either go left or right depending on the class you want to take and the people you want to meet. Obviously the nerds hang out near the computer lab while the jocks are never far from the gym.

Sadly, these locations are rarely used. I would have very much enjoyed 20-30 minutes after school or a lunch period or even a study hall to enhance my socializing. Trying to pick out the exact character you want to talk to can be an exercise in hairstyle recognition. If you think you have the right person just tap up on the D-pad for a quick bio of the targeted character.

Other locations like the beach, bleachers, café, shopping mall, park, LAN party and other date, club and work locations all appear as single screen animated backgrounds. Some locations have sub-locations that you can visit with the EXTEND-O-DATE reward.

There are some really great tunes that make up the list of available songs including a great cover of Simple Minds, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” that had me looking around for Molly Ringwald and the rest of the Breakfast Club. That one song really put me in a high school frame of mind. The other songs are good once or twice and some are really great for dancing – especially Mercy Me and We All Fall Down.

There is a lot of dialogue in the game but only a small portion of it is actually spoken, usually the first one or two sentences of any text bubble, and then you have to read the rest. Sometimes this makes sense, like when the person is using your character name. Oddly enough, many of the girls sounded alike, which actually got me into trouble a few times like when I mistook Delia for Meena.

Sound effects stick to the sounds of the environment like the copier at the office or the waves at the beach, or the clatter of a keyboard at the observatory. Any periods of dead space are filled in with whatever song you have selected for the music background. There is also a great announcer voice that announces REL UP or REL DOWN or EXTREME HATRED or my favorite, EXTEND-O-DATE! It gives the game a campy game show flavor.

And then you always have the added enticement of going back and trying to replay the game while interacting with all the characters you never paid attention to the first time through. Play as a jock, play as a nerd, or try to ride the delicate fence between the two. Or just buck tradition and become an artsy loner. Who new going back to school could be this much fun?

Whether you are trying to relive your misspent teens or preparing for what lies ahead, Brooktown High is an engaging, and often insightful look at social dynamics, pop-culture, and the various cliques that form any contemporary school environment. It’s all about the choices we make and the results of those choices, all set against the angst of high school life and the topsy-turvy world of dating in a time where hormones are raging as hard as last weekend’s kegger at Brent’s party house.

See you in detention…