Review: MySims (Wii)

The Sims series of games is one of the most successful gaming franchises in history. The PC versions have sold in their millions, and have spawned a host of ports onto the major consoles. Best known for its social and environmental interactions, Sims is a game that has no real objective other than to live, and experience life through your Sim.

MySims is the latest iteration of the franchise, which has be redesigned with Nintendo’s emphasis on simple and intuitive gaming in mind. It’s cute and cuddly, and actually rather good.

MySims is unmistakeably part of the Sims family. If the name wasn’t a big enough clue, the green plumbobs above the Sims and objects should reassure fans of the franchise that under the unrealistic characters and cartoon houses lie the same mechanics that has made the series so successful. MySims's approach, however, is not so much on the social aspect as you may expect from a Sims game, but can be seen as a very basic SimCity clone. There is no need to feed, wash, or find your Sim a job, and the objective is no longer to simply live. Once you have created and personalised your Sim (and there is a great deal that you can customise, from physical appearance, outfits, and even their voice), you discover that you have been selected by a mayor to help reinvigorate her decaying town. It appears that she has heard of your building skills, and so it falls on you to improve the town, which in turn will encourage more people to move in. Your town is given a star rating, which increases as improvements are made, and the goal is to get a five star rating. As the rating goes up, more Sims move in, and life in your town becomes more vibrant and entertaining. Each Sim has a simplistic personality, and when enough of them get together, events start occurring around the town, which your Sim can participate in.

In order to increase your town’s rating, you have to keep the population happy. Each morning a new Sim will arrive by train and appear in the town’s hotel. Your Sim can talk to them, and if you think that they will be beneficial to your town, you can ask them to move in. There are commercial Sims (who will attract other Sims with their shops, restaurants, arcades, and all manner of conveniences), and normal Sims (who will change the town’s character with their own personality). Once you have selected a Sim, you must then choose a suitable plot of land and build their property. Knowing each Sim's personality is critical, and anything you build for a Sim must compliment it. A Sim with a geeky nature, for example, should have geeky decorations and fixtures on their building, like skylights and angled windows. A Sim may have a spooky personality, and so their house should be finished with Gothic columns and statues. If the property makes the Sim happy, then your town rating will improve.

Once a Sim has moved in, they will want furniture and accessories. Commercial Sims will give you set tasks of specific items they need. Normal Sims won’t be so explicit, but may hint at items they need in the conversations you have with them. The principle is the same for all Sims, however: if you build them something that matches their personality they will become happier. This then makes up the majority of the game. Move Sims in, speak to them regularly, and build items for them. It may sound monotonous, but MySims manages to makes this process fun and engaging. The interactions with the Sims are basic (you can only be nice or be mean to them), but their individual personalities manage to appear as the game progresses, and as more Sims move into the town a community feel begins to emerge. The town itself covers a large area housing fifteen Sims, and two additional areas become unlocked as the star rating increases. The forest and desert areas can accommodate seven Sims each, and as you make you way around the game there are constant occurrences of Sims interacting with each other. You will notice something new every time that you play the game, and some of the animations are very funny. Relationships between the Sims start to form, and the town comes alive.

Building is a substantial part of MySims, and thankfully it is extremely enjoyable. When building houses, there are set blocks that you can use to construct them and they can only be two stories high. Other than these restrictions you have complete creative control. If want to make your Italian restaurant look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, you can. An ice-cream parlour can look like an ice-cream cone, and the disco can be designed to look like a stereo. More blocks and architectural features are unlocked as the game progresses, and any property can be redesigned at any point in the game to take advantage of them. Building furniture is also well thought-out, and allows for a great deal of creative freedom. Each item has a blueprint that you can use to make it. This is only a guide, and whilst there are always two or three key blocks that need to be used, the rest of the object can be made to your own specifications. Your bath can look like a car, or your fridge can have arms and legs. It’s like virtual Lego, and you can easily spend hours perfecting your creations and unlocking that hidden creative talent.

Another important aspect of MySims is “Essences”. Almost everything in the MySims world gives off an Essence, and these give anything you build its character, which is important when trying to please the Sims in your town. There are over 80 different Essences to collect, and each is categorised into the same personality traits available to the Sims, namely Cute, Fun, Tasty, Geeky, Studious, and Spooky. They can be collected in all manner of ways, from shaking and chopping down trees, to fishing and prospecting. Essences can also be collected from your interactions with the other Sims. Being mean to someone, for example, might make them sad, and they’ll give off a number of sad Essences for you to collect. Be nice to them, and they’ll give off happy Essences. If the geeks of the town get together for a rocket launch, join in, and you may be rewarded with Rocket Essences. As the game progresses, you will build up a healthy collection of Essences which enhance the object you build. They become the paint that you use to decorate, and deciding how to use them is key to making your town a happy place. Commercial Sims will give you tasks that involve building an object with a certain quota of Essences. Poppy, the flower girl, may require a flower stand that is made with 4 red apple Essences. You must then collect the Essences and go to your workshop to build the stand. The tasks get more complex, and the amount of Essences required increases to the extent that you need to become very creative in your designs in order to complete the task. Collecting Essences can become a chore, but with careful planning you can place the common Essences in convenient places, and it becomes a worthwhile use of your time to build up your collection as the game progresses.

Although building objects for the Sims is easy and fun to do, you will find yourself spending all of your time working on projects for other people. You never feel that you get the chance to fully explore areas, and conversations with the other Sims are often boring, and relate solely to objects that they need. The social aspect of MySims never develops as you hope it would, and although you can move in a wide variety of different Sims, the towns seem to feel the same, no matter who you chose to live there. It’s very formulaic; the Studious Sims like to have book parties, the Tasty Sims like to get together for picnics, and the Spooky Sims have seances . You’ll find yourself only talking to the other Sims because you want to get given tasks to complete, not because you want to get to know them. Don’t think that by doing so will add variety to the town, because it doesn’t. You can be mean to Sims, but it doesn’t take much to win them back; just give them a new television, and they’ll be your best friend. Your house will be bare and empty, because you spend all your time making stuff for other people. You don’t have to, of course, and could easily just meander through the game smelling the roses and fishing for rainbow trout. With the star meter constantly flashing away in the top corner, however, you feel obliged to help the mayor out, and restore the town to its former glory.

It’s hard not to compare MySims to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, and although similar in concept, both approach it differently. Animal Crossing probably gives you slightly more freedom in certain areas, but MySims allows for a greater degree of creativity. MySims seems less of a chore to play and more enjoyable. There’s no online aspect in MySims , however, and so the ability to visit other people’s towns is not available. That’s not a great loss, as each town would most likely be very similar, but it means that your town will never be a meeting place to chat with friends in the way Animal Crossing is. The ability to share furniture and objects that you’ve created would also have been a good addition. Other games utilise WiiConnect24 for similar purposes, and it seems strange that MySims hasn't taken advantage of this. The Wii’s control system is, however, perfect for MySims. The Nunchuk is used to move your Sim around the town, and the Wii Remote’s pointer gives you precise control when building items and collecting Essences. MySims has a great style, and although the cute approach may not appeal to everyone, the graphics and animation are excellent. Each area in the game is well-designed with wonderful features such as a giant skeleton in the desert, the ocean lapping against the shore, a scrap yard with rusty spaceships, and an eerie graveyard complete with ghosts. The music is fantastic, with catchy tunes that play in the background, and each Sim that moves in has their own theme that can be heard as you walk past their building. It is almost a certainty that you'll be humming the music long after you've stopped playing the game. MySims does suffer from long loading times, but overall your time spent creating, navigating, and building in the MySims Town will be a pleasant one.

MySims is a game where you can play for hours and not notice the time passing. Fans of the more traditional Sims games may not like its cute and simplistic approach, but if you have any creative bones in your body, you will enjoy turning your quiet little hamlet into a bustling town. The game is huge, both in a geographical sense, and also in terms of gameplay. Once your town has reached that five star status (which should take you over 20 hours), the game won’t end. You can evict old Sims and move in new ones, or freshen up the town by redesigning the houses. You can take the game at your own pace, and choose the experience you want to have. Beyond building, however, the game doesn’t have much to keep your interest. There are enough tasks to keep you amused for some time, but if you find this becoming boring, there’s nothing else in the game to keep you playing. The interaction with the Sims is shallow, but as the town grows, so does its community. There’s a great sense of achievement watching your town prosper, and it’s a shame that MySims lacks the social mechanics to make it more than a virtual box of building blocks.

Rating: 7 / 10

Words by Chris Thornton