Wales Interactive is back with another live action video game from Paul Raschid. And what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than to release a sequel to the acclaimed Five Dates. Ten Dates is an interactive romantic comedy, and although the jokes write themselves (“now with twice the amount of dates!”) it’s a heartwarming story of human connection. It’s out for all major platforms including mobile, and we tested it on a PlayStation 4.
Ten Dates stars best friends Misha and Ryan, two young adults who head out to a speed dating event – one of them somewhat reluctantly so. Here, both will meet and engage with five different dates in search of someone special, and each date will have a very distinct personality and background. Your reactions and responses will shape your relationships with them, and steer the story through a branching narrative with multiple outcomes.
As you’d expect, you’ll find yourself in a host of different situations – with conversation topics that are sometimes awkward and sometimes confrontational. You’ll quickly realize that you will likely gel better with some of the cast members than others, and your own preferences will reflect on the choices that Misha and Ryan make – though it’s a lot of fun to roleplay on a second playthrough and make some wildly counterintuitive choices just to see where the writing and acting takes you.
The cast for Ten Dates includes people who previously starred on productions like The Witcher, Death on the Nile, Until Dawn, Outlander and Conversations with Friends, and they all put in quality performances here. With a dozen hours of footage, there’s a lot to explore here, with each of the ten potential partners representing a “type” of some sort – some are more business and action-oriented, others more reserved and personal in their approach. Some will be witty in their responses, other will be all about charm and fun. With different conversational styles and interests, you’ll have tough choices to make – and those you find yourself initially attracted to might not be the best choice for Misha or Ryan by the end of the night.
Gameplay-wise, Ten Dates features the familiar mechanics of having the story unfold through pre-recorded video and giving the player the choice between various responses at regular intervals. And you might be all too nice for this in person, but Ten Dates gives you options to be pretty harsh if your speed date partner is pretty self-absorbed and generally insufferable. But for every moment where you feel the urge to be the ‘straight talk express’ there’s also one that’s heartwarming. And if you upset someone and didn’t mean to (sometimes a choice pans out different from what you intended), you can always go back and set things right – this is the kind of date night that does offer second chances.
As an interactive romantic comedy, Ten Dates works great for a date night at home. It doesn’t have massive lasting appeal despite a number of different endings, but if you’re more into games and your partner likes RomComs, then this is a lovely middle ground.
Score: 7.4/10
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