Of course, you don't have to sink to low levels, as the game rep at E3 quickly pointed out. The game, for now a Windows only release, offers players three levels of encounters: friendly, non-commital and choose your word that rhymes with itch.

That's if you want to solve the mystery at the heart of the game. On one level a straight-up roleplaying game, Desperate Housewives places you as a new neighbor on Wisteria Lane, with her own set of secrets and lies that not even you know. As the game progresses, you can gather clues to the secrets of the show's regulars as well as exposing yourself.

And that can mean literally, as players do have the option of seducing handyman Mike Delfino.

Written by show scribe Scott Sanford Tobis, the game does dovetail with a season of the hit ABC series. Which season, however, Buena Vista Games has not yet revealed. Things that happen in the game do reflect things that happen in the show. If we were to put money on it, we would bet that the game fits somewhere in the third season, only because that would be a great tie-in for American gamers and addicts of the show. Do these audiences intersect?

The game can also be played in a manner close to The Sims, with your character going through the tasks of running the household, keeping up the house, gardening and perhaps cooking a nice dinner for the family. Yes, one mini-game does feature getting a recipe right.

Don't worry, though, Texas Hold 'em also plays a large role, and since statistically a lot of female gamers focus on video card games, this seems a smart strategy for Buena Vista.

Most of the game's character interaction works through text balloons, but Brenda Strong reprise her role as deceased housewife Mary Alice Young to narrate.

The price and rating of the game are pending, but Buena Vista intends to go global with the game sometime in the Fall of 2006. So the real question is, how Desperate are you?

(Screen shots on this page can be clicked to reach a larger version.)

Derek McCaw