“By adding apples to the podium, you’ve made it tastier!”

Developer: Electronic Arts
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Available on: Wii

Every genre holds certain defining elements that both separate it from the alternate media offerings and provide a basic expectation for a title. In this case we’re looking at the mega-happy bright-coloured talking-animal realm of kids games. What makes a kids game? Is it the aforementioned abundance of cutesy charm? Most probably. When you buy a kids game you can expect a certain amount of silly jokes and friendly characters. What you can never be sure on is the quality and content of the actual game. While some titles are nothing more than an interactive form of cartoon with nil intellectual value, others can still sport the quality and content you’d expect from a more mature, serious game.

MySims is a kid’s game. There’s no question about it; but does this necessarily mean there is no value for the older gamers? While previous Sims titles have as much appeal to mature adults as children they were never intended to appeal to a specific age bracket. MySims is a different story. While it still features some of the values of The Sims many have come to love, it ends up a smaller, cuter and somewhat-limited Sims experience with a few new features for the series.

From first boot of MySims the impending experience was pretty clear. Being presented with mini-people that look like bloated LEGO complete with colours brighter than my pasty skin and faces smiling harder than the most excited of ravers was a pretty intense experience. After choosing from a decent range of skin options, I was off into Phaxx Town to meet the world and build a better community. It seems it’s my task to build a new town and furnish the buildings to each Sims requirements.

Soon before I could really ponder my own existence I was slapped with the menial task of collecting 20 Red Apples from the nearby trees for the mayor. No problems. 20 Red Apples later I found myself chopping down a tree to harvest it’s essences of dark wood. Well that was a sudden weird twist. What next, summon a dark troll? Not long later I realised that these tasks are getting very samey. Every Sim that appears in town wants me to build them a house and furniture, themed with essences easily acquired throughout Phaxx town. Suiting children and their renowned lack of intellect, the entire basis of MySims is repeating the construction process many times until your town boasts a shiny 5-star status.

The numerous, linear object-driven goals are fairly redundant anyway. Collect giraffes, soccer balls, gold or spiders; it’s all interfaced the exact same. In fact, every item in MySims is very limited in interaction. A failed excuse could be that you don’t NEED to interact with anything in the town apart from exactly what you require for the task. Your sim has no needs, no abilities, no aspirations or any basic human function requirements. Interacting with something such as a fountain (‘splash in fountain’) provides nothing other than a few seconds of watching your Sim… splash in a fountain.

Once a noticeable number of Sims had moved in a bit more excitement surfaced. Walking around town to see familiar faces you moved in can be quite rewarding. There’s a lot of Sims to move in (some with important tasks, some who just want to chill) and a lot of house plots, spanning from the desert – to inner town – out to the forest. Once you hit a level 5 town you realise the bustling metropolis that has been constructed with each building placed and furnished to your choosing.

Constructing buildings and furniture is an interesting experience when compared to that of the original The Sims games. The most significant difference is that walls and rooms are not defined when placing a building. Placing varying block types (again very similar to LEGO) in an arrangement will create only the outlay for the building, while rooms and inside walls are seemingly auto-generated. It’s up to us to choose size, roof, paint, windows and more of these soon-fashionable constructs. It sounds limited, but walking around town to see each building crafted to my size and specification, it is quite a nice system that is suited well to the Wii control scheme.

Creating furniture is another fun creative outlet in MySims. If a Sim requires something specific, blueprints for the item (such as a chair or fridge) are provided. It’s then our job to grab blocks of varying size and shape and match them together to craft an item. The potential in furniture creation is limited only to the types of blocks provided, which are indeed numerous. Though blueprints are provided, sticking to the exact specification is not necessary. Aside from that, Sims can also have any other furniture crafted for them at any time. The potential for phallic furniture is limitless.

It’s fortunate that the construction process allows a lot of creativity and holds no barriers. Aside from that, there’s not much to do in MySims. If you enjoy watching obese LEGO tickle each other and blow bubbles, then great! There’s lots of scenery to walk up to and press A on. Unfortunately the core of the game is very repetitive and any interaction, be it social or not, is generally limited to one or few options. Talking to a Sim consists of the choices “talk”, “be nice”, or “be mean”. Nothing like the in depth social potentials of MySims bigger brother titles, but that’s not really the point here. The point is to explore, build, manipulate… and prospect for Maui totems.

MySims

70%

The Good -

* A big town is a rewarding town.
* It’ll save you some brain cells.
* Your kids may learn to look for gold.

The Bad -

* Very repetitive goals.
* Limited world interaction.
* Your kids may learn to look for spiders.