Game Reviews

New York Nights: Success in the City (iPhone)

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New York Nights: Success in the City (iPhone)

What do you want from life? A nice job with a healthy salary? A strong relationship? Lots of friends and a secure home? Chances are, despite the odd personal differences, these are things we all strive for from day to day. New York Nights: Success in the City - a conversion of the mobile game - is the perfect place to get some practice, as achieving all of these at once is your goal.

If that sounds a hard task, it's actually a much simpler process than it would be in real life. Randomly talking to strangers, inviting people you've known for five minutes to live with you and pecking them on the cheek as a way of lifting their mood would probably result in you picking up a black eye or two. In New York Nights, however, befriending as many people as you can is key.

Taking an isometric view, you control a character of your choice - male or female - as they move into New York with just a couple of hundred dollars to their name. Using your finger to tap on city-goers, you can chat them up with the hopes of gaining a friend.

Each relationship you start is rated out of five and making sure you engage each potential mate in the right way is the way to up your rating.

This means paying attention to their interests, which scroll handily along the bottom of the screen whenever you make contact with someone. The key then is to ask questions that relate to said interests: a fashionista, for instance, will respond well if you ask him about your outfit, but bringing up politics might not be such a wise choice.

That's just one of the ways you can interact with the game's cast of characters. As well as telling jokes, it's possible to flirt with people, pick up their number, setting up a dates and, if such encounters go well, start to go steady with them. Commit undesirable acts like hitting up friends for money raises your criminality rating, which can lead folks to giving you a wide berth whenever you walk by.

Refreshingly, gender isn't an issue in New York Nights. Whether you choose to play as a guy or gal, pretty much everyone can be sweet talked round into a snog or two - even the local policeman, if you entertain his desires to rattle on about the law.

While all of these contacts have their uses, setting up job contacts (as the game progresses, you can earn dollars either by dancing in the local nightclub or putting in the hours as a city trader) and so forth, the game attempts to worm in a plot of sorts.

Adding a set structure in an environment that, at least, gives the illusion of offering free choice works surprisingly well, with chance encounters with a film star (Starlett if you play as a man, or Ben if you're a lady) all leading to a Hollywood style romance that, ultimately, opens doors to your dream career.

It's at this point, just an hour or so into play, that New York Nights comes to a short and sharp end. Having wooed your star by indulging their every want and need, the game effectively ends. You can carry on exploring the game's six locations for as long as you want, though.

Continued play seems to confuse the game a little, each friend you try to pick up thinking you're already tied down to a non-existent relationship, blocking any romantic progression with any other folks that may catch your eye. It all feels like a bit of an afterthought to try and prevent you from deleting the app once you've completed its main wares: a short and sweet title stretched unnaturally to justify the purchase price.

It's a slightly bitter to end to a game that, otherwise, shows much promise. Addictive while it lasts, a breeze to take control of and entertaining to boot, New York Nights: Success in the City is an absolute gem for the hour or so it actually takes to play, but ends far too soon to truly call itself a success.

New York Nights: Success in the City (iPhone)

Essentially a lifestyle simulator, New York Nights brings a real sense of fun to building friendships and finding your perfect partner, but is far too stunted to really be called a classic
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Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.