Sprung - The average gamer will be disappointed.
You basically become these characters, although your choices for their actions have little or no consequences on the plot of the game. As the game begins, you come to understand that this is more of a “choose your own adventure” novel than a game. You are given choices of phrases that you would like your character to “say.” You hear a response, choose another phrase, rinse and repeat. While each “mission” does have an overall goal (find a date, get him to kiss you, tell her you love her, etc.), there’s rarely more than one way to successfully complete each one – which means that you will be retrying…a lot.
While the overall premise seems like something comparable to the Sims franchise, the gameplay itself leaves much to be desired. With a wide array of items ranging from high heels and makeup all the way to joke and horoscope novels, Sprung does try to liven things up a bit. However, the title is missing one very important detail - Action. Even with the large selection of items, Sprung doesn’t really take advantage of your inventory. Sure, items come into play sometimes, in shopping scenes and whatnot, but really, they are just filler – placed in the game to hopefully detract from the lack of action whatsoever present in the title. And no, I’m not talking about that type of action. Get your heads out of the gutter people.
The graphics are fine, but sickeningly repetitive. You can choose from basically four or five different facial expressions, which while a nice idea don’t affect the gameplay at all. Well, unless you count the stupid hypnotizing mission, which is easy enough to pass, so my point still stands. The stylus can be used, but really, it’s much quicker just to hit the “A” button repeatedly. Moving on to sound, I suppose one could say that it was good…in an elevator music sort of way. Personally, I enjoyed it more with the sound down – especially when you have to start a scene over for the 20th time.
Overall, Sprung is a game in a class all its own – but that’s really not a good thing. I did like certain aspects of the story, and on the whole, I am pretty torn about what score to give this title. Those who love action and hate reading will despise Sprung, while those that like more of a story rather than senseless murder and violence might love it. Sprung gets its inspiration from the text adventure days of the past, and while not extremely thrilling, it does make for nice game to play while on a trip…Like a trip to the store for instance, where you can buy a better game.