You start with creating your own character and your husband and son. The options are rather limited. After this you don’t have to start babysitting your own housewife, but a couple of goals appear. So there really is a storyline, divided in a some ten episodes, as if you play along in (half) a season. Most goals are required to finish an episode, the others are optional and serve your relationships with the other people living in Wisteria Lane. It actually boils down to choosing between being the biggest bitch in Wisteria Lane or everybody’s hero.

The storyline has it cliché moments, but sometimes there are some surprises too. Although at times a little far fetched, it's often quite enjoyable. As usually with this kind of games the atmosphere of the series isn’t noticeable in this game. Still, it manages to create its own atmosphere, which works well.

An other theme are the personal secrets, which every resident in Wisteria Line (you included) have. With a little luck you can use those secrets to your advantage too. A search (at night) in your neighbours’ homes is a nice source of information, the other possible way is to gain the trust of someone and that way get a hold of a secret or two.

Next to those hobbies you also have to take care of some chores: cooking, gardening and cleaning are your household duties. Taking care of your garden and house normally influences your appearance, but in reality the influence isn’t noticeable. Cooking can be skipped without somebody complaining or dieing. The Sims might be very needy and dependant, the Housewives certainly are not.

Cooking and gardening come in the form of minigames, nice ones for those who like that kind of thing. Another minigame is the game of poker you and your Housewive friends play once in a while at Bree’s. Poker is also playable via your computer and like gardening and cooking it is available as an extra in the title menu. If you don’t like minigames, hire a maid, a (seductable, for the Gabrielles of this world) gardener or catering.

The biggest problem are the many bugs. They tend to appear randomly, but are usually quite serious. You might get stuck completely because a certain event doesn’t get triggered. Reloading the last save game is the only resort. Needless to say this causes a lot of frustration. There are some smaller bugs too, like lage and clipping.

The graphics aren’t that good. Often characters move and act like zombies and image errors happen too often. Concerning the music you got some irritating tunes but (especially near the end) some good tunes too. Sound effects like the TV or Bree playing the piano are good but repetitive.