MySims user review

Generally an unfinished game.

Review written by
Smitty618

January 28th, 2009

I've noticed that this game has gotten particularly "kind" reviews, because in any persons opinion who has actually bought the game, it's only natural that the buyer, and me myself, found this game incompetent and mediocre. Though it has a good overall concept, they've implemented the ideas poorly.

Lets cover the concept. MySims requires you to create your own character and house. It has a varied amount of clothing and building blocks, from gothic to nerdy cultures, which become a part of the game a bit later. Now you move into a town which is completely derelict and its only recipients are a boring, droning mayor and some nutty fools. Of course, my favorite part of this game is evicting all the people I really don't want in my town.

You then need to complete objectives, to make your town better and more accomplished overall. The first objective is to collect the "essences" needed to fulfill the requirements of the villagers. These essences also play as paint to add color to the building. Essences can be found in the MySims world. They either grow on trees, need to be dug up, or are just scattered around. Then you need to build the object as ordered, whether it's a chair or a DJ set.

The builder is a highlight of MySims, because it is possible to make almost anything you can imagine. After this is done, it's finally time to deliver it to the orderer, and they give you the blueprint. This contributes to your town rating, which improves every time you complete objectives. You can get a maximum of 5 stars, and every star you get gives you a new tool, which opens access to new areas, with such examples as a forest area and a desert area, including some secret caves containing some rare elements.

You can also build anything you want in your spare time and put it in your house, which is fully customizable. It sounds like a solid game concept, but somewhere along the line, they messed it up.

First let's get the minor issues out of the way. Graphics, poor. Yes, they're not exactly dire, but could be a lot brighter, as it seems to be dreary and dull. The graphics are fuzzy, and overall, a gamecube game. It's no Twilight Princess. The dinky, tinky tunes are quite depressing and get annoying, though they do vary. It also has a poor frame rate, and runs unsmoothly. It also just suddenly become dark, it doesn't gradually take time, it just happens. These don't really make the game a BAD game, but I'm going to elaborate the major factors, that ruin the game.

Now, here's the big problem. The loading screen. It should take 8 seconds tops, but mostly (and this is every time you walk into a building, which is pretty frequent) it takes 30-45 seconds. It just kills the flow of the game, and it's unnecessary. I'd understand if the game was huge, but it hardly is, it's like animal crossing size, and animal crossing takes around 6 seconds to load the map. It shows lack of effort put into the game.

It's also extremely glitchy. People will just vanish sometimes, if you plan to talk to them. And even after all the loading, the game still has pop-up. It's like we've gone back to the N64 ages when objects 10m away from you don't appear until your facing into them, it's almost ludicrous how unpolished this game is.

The game will take around 8 hours to get a 5 star town, and after that, it's not probable that you will return, only maybe to create some more furniture, or get some more blueprints and villagers. It's way too short and quite generic. Though the create modes are detailed and give you many options, the game is let down by uninnovative gameplay. Basically, you can fish, but instead of moving your wiimote in the fashion of an expertise fisherman, you actually move the bait with the wii-mote sensor (like a cursor), and press A when a fish (well.. essence) comes near.

In summary, even if you want to be able to create your own furniture, and be able to create houses, it's just not worth it.