Speed ​​Dates isn’t a weak, full-on action video game – it’s a bold art film, subtitles and all | games

I I spent Valentine’s Day not with my wife, but with 18 Turkish women. No, wait, I can explain. It’s a new game called Speed ​​Dates – Winter Edition, which I only found by chance when I searched “Winter Games” on Xbox Live in hopes of getting some Olympics fare. And boy, did I find it!

The game is in Turkish, with English subtitles. It really feels like art. Like those movies Channel 4 used to show with a red triangle in the corner of the screen.

You are a man named Murat wandering downtown when you meet a friend who recommends you join her for a night of speed dating. You agree and the game begins. This is the kind of quick, no-exposition opening that we haven’t seen since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

You are presented with a list of women. I clicked on it. You are the speed of history. Its a great full motion video! I fondly remember the widespread arrival of FMV in the 1990s. Mad Dog McCree, The 7th Guest, Command and Conquer, Phantasmagoria, Wing Commander 3: FMV It was the first sign that video games could take on Hollywood. I thought the genre had been swept away by a tsunami of high-quality graphics into the uncanny valley, but the author behind Speed ​​Dating fully pays homage to what I can only assume is the intentional buffering and stuttering of cinematic scenes, like Scorsese deliberately making Raging Bull in black and white.

My first date doesn’t go well. Eileen has two children and asks me if I would consider adopting them. I say I like it, even though that’s a lie. I don’t even want to adopt my own children let alone someone else’s. Is this how speed dating works? Do people jump in there with the big stuff? I think you should.

The camera work is strange. Your dates sound straight out of the camera, in the tradition of classic movie dialogue. But your guy? He’s looking at you directly into the camera. This doesn’t make any sense until I realize that it’s clearly an homage to French New Wave cinema.

I fail to connect with Ayla because I refuse to say her kids look cute, and move on to Layla who is a completely different Kettle of Plenty of Fish, and wears one of those shirts with a giant circle cut out of the midsection. I want to tell her she’s going to die of cold, but instead I have to tell her if I would rather be in control or in control?

I don’t really want to either, but the game requires me to choose one. I’m too old to start stuffing my balls inside my crotch, so I say I want to be in control. She is happy about this because she wants a strong man. Then she asks me what my favorite food is. I have three options. Stuffed green pepper. Turkish ravioli. Or raw meatballs. Of course I go for the raw meatballs. I’m not stupid.

She’s back to having sex again and asks what’s my fantasy. For some reason, the game doesn’t let me choose an option. Instead, my friend says he wants to be invisible so he can hear what people say about him. Talk about unexpected dialogue twists. Did David Mamet write this? I identify with Lily. Get in there!

Ida breaks my heart. She asks me what I would do in the event of a zombie invasion. amazing! I literally think about this question every day of my waking life, and I take pride in the fact that in all 26 homes I’ve lived in, I have made zombie-related defense and escape plans within the first week. But she told me she wanted to be one of the zombies. Plot twist! We don’t match.

I start by playing this as a game, where the goal is to get along with everyone. It’s a lot of fun to claw your way back from a bad start by being down to your every whim on a date. I told animal rights activist Ezgi that I had an idea about using the city’s garbage trucks to distribute food to animals. Tell YouTuber Ayse I follow many YouTubers. I told the bespectacled accountant Pienaar that I was very happy He does Have a financial retirement plan. All lies. All matches.

The game is lazily stereotypical at times. All women love shopping. They all ask me about my favorite food. Sadly, raw meatballs don’t appear as an option again. But the dialogue constantly surprises me. Esraa asks me if I have inherited any traits from my family. My only response options are chaos and panic. I never know where this game will go.

After eighteen quick dates, I’ve matched with eight women, which isn’t bad considering I’ve been out of the scene for three decades. And then… nothing. What I thought was going to be a final scene where I chose the lucky lady I chose instead sees Murad simply thanking his friend for inviting him, and wandering off into the night.

Some may find this anti-climatic. I prefer to think of it as the top spin at the end of Inception, because I’m still wondering what the hell I’ve been through here. What I can say is that it was the best five pounds I’ve spent in years. Speed ​​Dating – Winter Edition is amazing and engaging, as all great art should be – even if most of the time it is completely unintentionally so.