You spy her on the opposite end of the bar, a blonde angel wearing a tight green dress. You swallow hard and contemplate your game plan. Will you compliment her on her deep blue eyes, her golden hair, or that cute little body of hers? Finalizing your strategy, you slowly push your way through the throngs of drunk party goers and ease yourself onto the stool beside her.

"Your hair is like spun gold." You remark.

"Get lost creep!" She spits back.

Dejected, you turn around, walk back to where you previously were, then approach the same woman again.

"You are as breathtaking as a Maui sunset!"

"Get bent jerk wad!" She says.

Dejected, you turn around, walk back to where you previously were, then approach the same woman again...and again...and again...and again.

Congratulations! You've just played and beat Ubisoft's Sprung for the Nintendo DS, a dating sim that puts you in more than 50 different dating situations and forces you to make conversational decisions in order to win the hearts of guys and gals alike. It's certainly a novel idea and for the most part Sprung is an interesting experience, but its repetitive nature is its own undoing.

If you've ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book, you'll know what to expect from Sprung. Playing as either a male or female, you engage in numerous dating scenarios with your peers and the object is to say the right thing. This is done by selecting from several different responses displayed on the Nintendo DS's bottom screen, and you can do this with either the D-pad or the stylus, though I don't recommend using the stylus because the text is extremely small, so accidentally picking the wrong choice is a common occurrence.

The game takes place at a ski resort named Snow Bird Mountain, and the object is to mingle among the hotties and become the supreme mack daddy pimp of the megaverse. The game features truth or dare, a game where you and your buddies try and see who can get the most phone numbers, preparing for a date, and going out on double dates, among other situations. If you sweet talk your way through you'll move on, but if you act like an @$$ and trash people, you'll need to restart. The problem with this is how unbalanced the game is. The conversation trees weren't as well thought out as they could've been, so sometimes you'll say the wrong thing but that'll be ok because you'll be able to choose all of the replies until you get it right. Other times, starting off on the wrong foot will cost you, so the entire game is this annoying trial and error process by which you'll spend a lot of time repeatedly rereading the same sentences until you figure out what to say via the process of elimination.

To its credit Sprung features pretty graphics that really capture the essence of the game. On the top screen is the person you're talking to while on the bottom is you, and both characters perform animations in between the game dialogue and it's extremely well done. Also, the soundtrack is equally impressive, as the game features upbeat tunes that help to keep things from becoming worse than they may already be.

While Sprung is highly repetitive, I definitely enjoyed most of it. Despite the fact that it's about as shallow as those Choose Your Own Adventure books, it's a neat and mindless game to play when you're stuck somewhere, and because it's an oddity in the U.S. (since dating games are more of a Japanese thing), it's definitely an attention grabber. However, I became frustrated at how easy it is to screw up, and having to replay an entire scenario numerous times (and finally beating it by picking the options that I hadn't picked before) really brought the game down. It's realistic in the sense that you should choose your words carefully while trying to meet someone new, but then again, if you seriously strike out with someone, to save face you wouldn't have the exact same conversation a billion times.

If you can imagine what it'd be like to strike out with someone at a bar and then have to hound them all night trying out different pick-up lines, you'll know what to expect with Sprung. It's a decent game but only if you're a supreme mack daddy who knows all the right answers. Otherwise, you're going to be reading the same conversation trees again, and again, and again until you gouge your eyes out, or just return the game to the store.