Before we begin Gamers, yes the title is an inside joke. Sadly, it’s also not far off from the truth.
Download PC Version Love & Sex: Second Base
Download Android Version for Love & Sex: Second Base
This game is very much like the REALLY old school sims. There are three main stats you must have to get anything done in game. Charm, Knowledge and Fitness.
However, the means to improve is minuscule and randomly given. That’s the first problem. The second is that it has a stat system outside of those three things; hygiene, hunger, and energy. You start as a loser at a dead-end job. Meet two girls who frankly aren’t that invested or endearing at the start. Quirky does not mean someone you can invest in.
You’re backstory as the sad sack continues as your first roommate moved out with his girl, who was also your roommate. Whom you naturally had a crush on.
She chose the other guy. For some reason, she’s still in the bloody game. I’d call that choice the end point and let people focus on other matters. There are many.
One time of the five I’ve installed this highly frustrating juggling act, did I manage to get anywhere near the sex. This most recent one in fact. Ask me how and I couldn’t tell you.
EVERY thing is random. It’s easier to code, yes. It’s also badly done. The computer often put me in situations where I could not get any of the outcomes I wanted, because I had not enough of any of the given stats above. Or not enough money.
Also, the dates… just, Jesus. If, by some miracle you can figure out what she likes to get to 95% or better, you win sex. Except that you have to have the energy to do that as well or one of the two is going to end the date.
So you lose. Someone needs to tell whoever designed this that a bit of difficulty is fine, but grinding like that and then not just granting a pass to the sex, it’s almost criminal.
The game is not that large. For the fact it has now about eight girls that you can choose to get with. Again, if you can be bothered. They all have different likes and dislikes. It seemed to me even with the walkthrough that I swear to god has not been updated in the four times I’ve seen the game be posted to the site, you will be getting a lot more negative stats than positive ones.
I think the coding has gone wrong somewhere, and yes that’s exactly why I’m not a fan of Skyrim style let’s just randomize everything. Urgh.
The plus side is, you can get three girls of the number pregnant. I admit I didn’t play near far enough to figure out if there was consequence to that, but I’m sure they’ll add one. Hard. I did for both Sasha and Bree, but I was in the middle of trying to get Bree’s second date before I found a pregnancy test. It took one time.
I can’t say if that’s random, but it’s the first time I’ve seen that in any game. I admit, since it actually is my ‘fetish’ and I don’t mind harems, I can’t mark that as bad. I’m just not sure it’s good either. Since there is a definite problem with all the malus’ in the coding, I don’t doubt it could be means to go to a darker path in story eventually.
I don’t know if there’s stuff for threesome marked in game. There might be, but lord knows I’ll never see it. If you miss one date, you lose 10 points with any girl. If you barely had enough to start dating, that’s going to take a LONG time to recoup.
For the record, I don’t mind some necessity of realism in any game. I don’t mind having the food, the shower the energy. BUT, each thing should have been one tick. Each time you did those things it should have filled the damned bar.
A human does not need to eat that often in a day. Note; I said NEED to eat. Yes, you will be hungry but it’s not like you will pass out from not eating for six hours. I’ve gone up to a day and a half at times and it’s not fun, by any stretch, but I’m not dead.
Penalizing the player by not having a defined icon that doesn’t disappear if you go at the wrong time, doesn’t help anyone build their defining stats up. There is a fight scene to the intro to one of the girls who is patreon based, that you need fifty fitness or twenty-five if you take the martial arts trait, to win. That’s ridiculous for how early you get the scene in many cases.
That alone has made me uninstall it twice. Making the stats drain too often, or too far in one go, is the same issue in different skin.
The game does not have a lot of actual event content to it, and it feels like the devs only made gaining stuff you need so hard, to pad it out. If the girls you lived within rl were that indifferent to you, attractive or not I guarantee you’d not bother trying to invest in their lives.
So really, what was the point of this game? It certainly isn’t fun, and that’s more the shame because I can see it has a fair potential.
I think at the end, that’s what blazes my embers the most. Lightening up on the curve, and not punishing the player for wanting to see the sex scenes someone took a good deal of care to draw out, would be a good start to achieving that potential.
Also, straightening out the ex roommate story line to be less complex would as well. Make it more clear she’s not as certain as she could be about running off to marry captain hot pants… or make her blind in love, refusing to listen and broken in consequence.
Which would be when you make the move. The main character should not have further involvement with her than that.
She ripped out his heart. Would you, as any kind of person seeking to build yourself back up, chase the female for being the ‘one who got away.’ Maybe it’s just me but they made this poor bastard one of the worst kinds of masochists. As a fan of dating sim games, there are some things that just don’t need to be that complex.
Or that anal, for realism. Most people have enough imagination to at least consider what it would be like to be in those shoes. Immersion doesn’t need to be I’m actually walking in his, exactly like he would people. T
hat’s not what the word means. As to all the side characters, I would have left them out until the mains were completely done. As in the whole story, and you end up in any given actual relationship including marriage or a poly agreed bond. Either way, they are superfluous attempts to throw a wider net. You don’t have to chase them, but it’s still annoying that most of them are paetron bait or half finished.
My conclusion is simple. The artwork is good. The story has potential and the writing might be hot enough. I don’t know, I skipped over much of it. I’ve installed this game I’m fairly certain for the last time. I wish I could say there was more to recommend it. It’s not bad, if this is the creator’s first attempt, but it’s far too punitive to be called fun.
Until next time, my friends, play safe and stay wild.
