Match Maker

It's a desperate sort of mind that's willing to allow the course of its hopes and expectations to be led along by the schlocky speculations of a part-time columnist claiming to commune with the stars. If we all met as many mysterious strangers as bedroom astrologers predict, we'd be Wildean socialites, forever dining out with attractive new companions.

Reality being generally a lot less interesting, the purpose of a horoscope column is really to give the bored and needy some sense that their life is indeed a little bit like a soap opera, while they munch on their breakfast bagel. Match Maker may initially appeal to this sort of person, and it at least tries to back up its claims with a sort of pseudo science. Alas, its stars decidedly fail to shoot, but rather fall spectacularly swiftly.

Upon starting up the application, you're prompted to enter your birthdate, after which Match Maker works out a load of graphs meant to represent your biorhythms – your intellectual, emotional and physical prowess at any point in the year. A few times a year, the peaks of these will coincide, giving you a power day, on which you will basically rock.

Just looking at these graphs of flowing curves isn't going to be interesting by itself, so Match Maker also enables you to check your compatibility with someone else by, you guessed it, entering their birthday. More interesting again is checking your compatibility against a celebrity. This is an inbuilt feature and it includes an impressive list of most male and female stars. (Apparently your reviewer is completely compatible with Justin Timberlake, but not at all suited to Drew Barrymore. Shucks!)

For anyone thinking this is all too hokey for words, sit tight because from this point on things only get flimsier. You can also check if your prospective partner is a good match by just writing both your names down. At least claiming that dates and the passage of the moon have some significance has a sort of mythical vibe to it, but basing any sort of conclusion about people by names alone is surely beyond a joke.

The last two of Match Maker's features are truly laughable. The 'love scanner' makes the pretence that it can tell if a person is well matched to you simply by your pointing the phone at them. In practice, it's just an animation of a figure being 'scanned' and then a random vague little phrase suggesting that 'they could be the one'. Sick bags at the ready, indeed.

Love Guru, meanwhile, is for reasons unknown a ginger cat. The idea is that you ask your handset a question, press a button, and, like a magic 8-ball, the ginger cat gives you an answer. Unfortunately, since clicking a button feels much less fun and tangible than playing with an 8-ball, the whole pursuit seems pointless. Even the most loony New Age die-hard wouldn't take tips from this Love Guru.

Whilst the cat has a nice animation that plays while he's deciding your fate, the game is otherwise fairly poorly presented. The main menu utilises whatever theme you're using on your phone menu rather than a properly customised one, and although there are some graphics in each of the pack's sections, it all feels distinctly drab. There's no specific palette used to give the thing a sense of visual cohesion, so the graphics tend to appear like so many disparate sprites scraped from the bottom of the bargain bin.

To say that Match Maker is an acquired taste would be an understatement. Indeed, if you do acquire a lust for extended sessions, seek professional help as you'll be suffering something akin to a genuine disorder. It could have been fun had it been made with a bit more fluff, improved presentation and less of the dry graphs, but as it stands Match Maker deserves to be avoided like that letchy middle-aged weirdo that always follows you to the water cooler at work. (Or does that only happen to us?)