Misslead: Cat (Season 1)

It's not too difficult to work out which gender demographic Misslead: Cat is aimed at. Your character is living a soap opera existence with a lazy, strapped-for-cash boyfriend, domineering father and lesbian sister who's just had her son kidnapped. It's like picking up a copy of Take A Break magazine.

And while this is primarily a story-based game, where you progress through conversations with other characters, you do have some tools at your disposal. Or, should we say, in your handbag. These consist of a mirror and a mobile phone.

Yes, Misslead: Cat has all the elements to attract girls like a Benefit make-up counter with a half price sale. It's got drama, chat, handbags, mirrors and constant self-analysis. This latter part is integrated using a neat little function. As you progress through, choosing dialogue to deliver to other characters, the game adds up your responses and delivers a mini-personality assessment based on them. So you play and have all your personality flaws pointed out to you. Girls love that.

It's clear a lot of thought has gone into creating Misslead: Cat. In many ways, the game succeeds being both refreshingly original and charming. Unfortunately its design doesn't quite match the quality of its ideas though; the dialogue falls flat while the all-important conversational branches are, at best, a bit lame and in places quite bizarre.

To that extent, the best comparison is text adventure, Phoenix Wright, albeit with a more urban story and setting, and less evidence gathering. You can visit locations such as the cafe, your apartment and the various homes and offices of other key characters. While there, you talk to any characters present and try to find out information and solve dilemmas in order to move forward in the story.

These conversations are central to the game. You generally have a choice of between two and five responses at each step, and picking the right one steers it in the direction required to progress.

You also earn angel or devil points for giving particularly subtle or downright evil answers. These can then be used in later conversations to give 'special' replies. However, one of the game's problems is that these replies don't always feel like they're doing you any favours. The whole system could be scrapped and have little consequence on the game.

Onto the story, and it's a mixed bag. Misslead: Cat never really feels like it has its own identity and, although there's a fair bit of humour, it's not always clear it's intentional. Using Cat's special angel response delivers an "Animals are great!" line, while her standard devil response is, "Society is a cess pool!". Her usual insults include calling people capitalist scum or pig dictators - fun, but a bit random considering the game's target audience and not entirely fitting with the rest of her character. In between condemning the human race to death, she's also giving her boyfriend all her money.

Still, what is clever about the story is the way the plotlines from the four different games available in the Misslead series (each concerns one woman character - Cat, Ria, Dee, Li Mei) all overlap. You'll meet and talk to the other characters, but only discover their full part in the story by playing them all through four different seasons.

And while this story is a bit up and down, overall it's quite compelling with plenty of unexpected twists. The conversation branches might have you flicking through carelessly after a while, but it's a testament to the game's quirky, kitsch approach and intriguing plot that you keep flicking at all.

So, it's far from perfect and the gameplay is lacking, but - as an alternative to a copy of Heat - it's not a bad choice.