Genre: Social Interaction/Dating
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Release Date: Spring 2007

Okay. I don't know about you guys, but I, like, so totally hated high school. Check this: in a school full of nerds, I still didn't fit in! What kind of ironic garbage is that? I was, like, a complete and total prodigy anywhere else, yet a doofus at the actual place of learning I was eventually sent to. What a joke.

(…wow, "ironic?" Like, ohmigod, total vocab word alert! I should seriously save it.)

Anyway, if you're, like, like me, then you seriously want to check out this thing Konami's trying to sell now, called Brooktown High: Senior Year. It's being developed by the same people who did that awesome-tacular Death Jr. on the PSP, but that's not even the coolest part. See, in this game, you'll finally get to live high school your way, and have things play out the way they should have gone. Slammin', I know!

Once you start, you'll be creating your own character, and right off the bat, you can choose to be a hottie or a hunk, which avoids any of that icky Harvest Moon Syndrome, where you have to wait six months or more just to play the version of the game tailored for you, depending on which chromosome you just happened to be born with. Eew. Then you'll take a multiple choice test — no, no, wait, get back here! It's a personality test! With it, you can tailor your character to be just like you, or create your own ideal character with whatever traits you want. The answers you give help to determine how people react towards your character.

Once you finally get to school, you'll start making friends with students of all types — jocks, nerds, preppies, those wannabe rebels who always talk about "expressing themselves," the whole shebang. There'll be 24 of these people, so it's not shallow like some of those other dating games. You might make a few enemies too, so be on your toes. Also, the game isn't even limited to that stupid boring hallwayed building. You can hang out at the movies, the mall, even the beach! Can anyone say "Spring Break?"

You'll do all of this super-cool stuff via mini-games, conversation, joking around, or even shopping! The prom, of course, is the ultimate goal, and it's your mission to make sure that you end up at it with your true-love-perfect-partner-soul-mate-type-thing on your arm. Do you have what it takes? Come on, now, this is your high school. If you can't win in the virtual world … well, then, I may just be talking to the wrong person here.

So, yeah. If you, like, haven't gotten the idea by now, I think you should seriously give Brooktown High: Senior Year a shot. Dating games here in the States are kind of tough to come by, yet Japan's lousy with the things. (Some of them even end with super-steamy things I can't even talk about here.) Not too many American branches of companies put a lot of stock in them (Capcom even cut them out of the domestic releases of Rival Schools. Thanks for nothing, you guys!), so it's kind of cool to see Konami giving them a chance. If this takes off, odds are you'll see more, and hey, there's always room for a new gaming genre, right?

You'll be able to check out Brooktown High: Senior Year for yourself in the spring of next year, which as we all know, is the season for love. Save your dreamy sighs for then!