Australian Gamer Review

DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN YOU

MySims

Reviewed on: Wii
Available on: Wii

If Electronic Arts ran a competition to give this game a subtitle, my entry would have been MySims: How to be everybody’s bitch and still have the dignity to live with yourself.

Players: 1 Player
Genre:
Release: 2007-09-20

Developer: Electronic Arts
Distributor: Electronic Arts

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Now let’s make one thing perfectly clear before I get into this:

THIS GAME IS FOR CHILDREN.*

I’d think that not even a thirteen year old would leave this in the console after the first thirty minutes. This is solidly aimed at kids up to the age of ten. Twelve would be stretching it. Oh and another thing while you’re playing? Don’t worry your console Wii Console isn’t going into cardiac arrest, it’s just reading the disc. I’ve had a Wii since release day and now have a catalogue of around 25 games and I have never heard the little white wonder work so hard before!

"Dammit Jimmy, why do you keep watering that tree with a watering can?"
"Girl, just check out the size of dem apples"

MySims starts off as any Sims game should - by making your main character. You have the regular types of options for your sprite: hair style/colour, face shape, skin colour and clothing. The new additions are face paint (1 & 2) which are anything from painted designs on the face to freckles, beauty spots and scarring. You can also add glasses to your Mii. The plot that follows is a story of a happy little town. In the town there used to live a guy who had the ability to make really cool stuff around the place using the power of Essences. Essences of various elements could be found all over his surroundings, thus giving him the tools to perfect his craft. But one day that dude bailed on everyone for some unknown reason and everything went to crap. Houses went derelict, people moved away. So the reason you are here? Cause you have the ability to uncrap it! Apparently you have the same skills that the guy who disappeared had, how amazing! So you have you rock up to this town, via train, and make your way to the Town Hall, to tell the Mayor that you have arrived. She’s pretty stoked and takes you to your new residence. Guess what? It’s just a pile of boards and bricks, so you have to show your stuff.

Impressed by your skills, the Mayor then tells you about a workshop she has for you, where you can make furniture and other things for the residents of your new town. When you get there, it too is just a pile of junk, so you are at it again. So there you have it, you have a house and a workshop. You are not here for a holiday, sunshine! No Sir-ee! You are here to be worked like an 8 year old in an Asics Factory somewhere across the water. So get to it! Firstly the mayor has you whipping up a podium for her, so you go back to your workshop, crank one out, and then deliver it. She’s happy and asks you to go and see one of the other four residents who actually hung around the town after it went to poo and see if they need help. So it’s off to the flower shop to see what the owner wants. As you may have sussed out by now, like a good little boy scout (or is it politically correct to say ‘Scoutperson’?), you go and do exactly as you are asked. As things around the town improve, more people come. More people means more houses to build and more furniture to create. Oh goody!

Actually there is a little more to the building process than I have let on. Just like the original Sims game, the characters have needs and things that they like. In MySims these are known as Essences, which are picked up through interaction with the characters and environment. Punching or kicking another Sim, when being mean, would have to be my favourite way you extracting Essences. Hail the G Rating! Essences are used to build and paint the structures you build in the township and the objects you create in your workshop. Most of the tasks asked of you require Essences to be added to them. Blueprints are issued to you by the requestor, so designing each piece is not a problem. You simply go to your Workshop, click on the task and a green shaded outline of your project appears on a turntable. In front of the turntable are a selection of pieces that are available to you to complete your project. It’s not hard to put it together as the pieces you need are highlighted green. The only real challenge there is to put the piece in the right position by rotating it with the D-Pad on your WiiMote. On the Essence side of construction, not all Essences are available from the get-go. There are about eight available in the beginning, but others will be available as you progress through the game and improve your town. Your town starts with a ‘no-star’ rating, a level you must raise. As the star levels increase, the Mayor of the town permits you the use of various tools - so nice of her - thus getting you access to more types of Essences.

"Just look at Mikey here girls, we know he's a pimp with a hat like that"

I suppose for some, the constant rewards for completing tasks will be enough to keep you going task after task, house after house. You do receive blueprints from those you help, for creating additions for the interior of your own home. Or maybe you lonely type guys, yes you! The one who blew out Mum and Dad’s monthly download limit years ago when you heard there was a code out there that allowed you to play Tomb Raider with Lara Croft running around in the buff. Yeah, I know it’s you! You’re turning red as you read this. I can see you continually playing this until you get the little Hairdresser chick to move in with you. Maybe that will be your holy grail. I guess that there is one ultimate question that comes to mind: Like the original Sims, is there actually an end to this game? Well I suppose as a reviewer whom you turn to for detailed information on the titles I review, I have failed you. But I absolutely couldn’t be arsed repeating the tasks of the last four and a half hours when a sudden blackout hit my town out of the blue, suiting my console down mid build. No storms. No warnings. Nothing. Yes, I know I should have saved, but really, I’m sure the available memory on my Wii will serve me better holding more downloaded content from the Virtual Console, or store another random Mii based on a historic figure or movie star. So does the talented old dude who created stuff for this joint before you come back from out of nowhere? Will getting your town up to a five star rating start the end credits rolling? I’ll let you tell me... not that I even really care.

* This is the opinion of the reviewer and may not be shared by other staff members at AustralianGamer.com. If you are a thirty-eight year old single male and still living with your mum, by all means go ahead a play it. That’s if mum will let you use the TV. It may be Queer Eye night, where she sits there looking at Carson and wondering why she got you as a son and not someone like him, who she could be proud of.

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Final Verdict

Okay, it’s playable, but you have to be a fan, or seven years old. I have one comment that comes to mind, but I am not sure that I can use it in a review. Let me just say that you should go and watch The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and listen out for his description of talking to Zuzu Petals. There you will find what I really think of this game.

Pros
It may keep your kids, your little brother, your little sister or niece or nephew out of your hair for a while. The SimSpeak is still there ‘seb della bah scarvaschnooz’ (TRANSLATE: in all it’s glory)
Cons
Repetition. If this game is aimed at kids, how about reminding them to save every once in a while? Or maybe an autosave after each task? Repetition. Loading times. Repetition. No real creativity required in making furniture. Did I mention repetition?