"The Bachelor: The Videogame" comes out today, and it is both stupid and terrible.

Is it necessary to tell you that "The Bachelor: The Videogame" is both stupid and terrible? No, I imagine you could have predicted that simply based on its name.

Is it necessary to tell you how and why "The Bachelor: The Videogame" is both stupid and terrible? Oh goodness, yes. As it is sometimes considered cool to spend hard-earned money on things that are stupid and terrible in an ironic form of self-entertainment (the old "so bad it's good" reaction to veritable garbage), you might think a video game that is based on a ridiculous reality show that is based on unrealistic fairy tales would fall into that category. But this is not one of those "so bad it's good" things. It is one of those "so bad it's so, so, so, SO bad" things. If I could sum up this review in one word, it would be this: DON'T.

But here come lots more words, because the ways in which "The Bachelor: The Videogame" is both stupid and terrible are the most entertaining things about this game.

At first "The Bachelor: The Videogame" pretends that it knows something about The Bachelor. The opening credits present a familiar dramatic visual: The handsome, bug-eyed animated bachelor-bot stands in an elegant countryside gazebo at sunset while four desperate hourglasses with heads wait outside in quiet desperation, awaiting a rose to validate their obsessions. They twitch and gasp and sway in amorous anxiety, just like the backbone-less women on the show do during rose ceremonies. "Yes!" you'll think in sadistic glee. "I'll be making bitches cry in no time!"

Unfortunately, the similarities between the game and the show end there--except for how two-dimensional Chris Harrison is. (The real-life Bachelor host indeed lends his signature voice to the game's idiotic instructions.) Cartoon Chris prompts you to select an avatar from among eight ethnically diverse male and female characters, depending on which hetero love path you'd like to go down. If you pick the ditzy-looking red-headed med student and name her "Heather," as I did, you'll then unlock the game's first bachelor, Jason Mesnick. (Obviously, since he's everyone's favorite.) Then it's time to play.

You embark on a series of group "dates" that are actually just competitive, points-based mini-games and puzzles. The game contains about six or seven distinct mini-games, the appearance of which change slightly each time depending on the "date" you're on (you might race a dunebuggy on one date, and a speedboat on the next, but it's exactly the same game) but the simple instructions remain the same: Solve the puzzle, trace the image, identify the photo. The number of points you earn in each mini-game determines if you'll earn a rose and move on to the next "date." If you survive through each round with Jason, you'll earn the final rose and move on to the next round and the next bachelor--the next level, in a sense, but it's populated by the exact same dates in new packages, and a similarly silent, bug-eyed bachelor, so you're really just hitting replay.

The format sounds more confusing than it actually is (I've seen more impressive iPhone apps) precisely because the marriage of these childish, poorly designed mini-games to the Bachelor concept is lazy and illogical, whether you've seen the show or not. Random hearts travel across the screen during each date--I eventually learned I could collect these for extra "love points." At first I thought they were meant as reminders that this was all supposed to be romantic.

In fact, what's most disappointing about "The Bachelor: The Videogame" is that The Bachelor the TV show is basically a game. Actually, not even basically. Inherently. There are rules. There are competitors. There are challenges. There are progressive levels, (lots of) losers, and a winner. There are highly orchestrated humiliation rituals and badges (roses) to be won. The structure of The Bachelor the show is so superficial, predictable and repetitive that the conceptual work of turning it into a programmed simulation has already been done. The game could so easily have engaged the romance, drama and social structures of the show. But instead of a "so bad it's good" adventure in cocktail party fights and booze-fueled hot tub liaisons, you're stuck "collecting hexagons" on a virtual game board that has the vague resemblance to an ice rink because, oh yeah, this is an ice skating date.

Really? Collect hexagons? The girls on The Bachelor shouldn't even know what those ARE. Another game asks you to watch as a variety of bottles hit a series of scales and decide which bottle is the heaviest. Just more proof that the people who made this game have never actually seen The Bachelor. On this show, you don't weigh the alcohol. You drink it.

Despite every glaring conceptual and design flaw, the group of friends I gathered around the ol' Wii to play the game got bizarrely into it--at least in besting each other and yelling Bachelor-themed insults at the bikini-clad avatars on screen. The designers may have been too lazy to embed any of the trashy and dramatic elements of The Bachelor into the game, but that didn't stop us from squealing "I'm doing this all for YOU, Jason!" and "I want my MAN!" as we fought the clock, computer and each other during each "date." In multiplayer "frenemy" mode, the game may not facilitate calling your friend the b-word when she attempts to sabotage your dragonfly tracing during your sailing date with Jason (which, yes, makes no sense), but you can still yell it, and it will feel right--like you're imbuing the game with the essence of vain hostility it should have had to begin with.

Yes, we had some fun. But that's the rub: Any fun you have playing "The Bachelor: The Videogame," you have to make yourself. And if that's worth $30 to you, you should try yelling at your TV during an actual episode of The Bachelor. It's just as fun ... and it's free.


(Image courtesy of WB Games)