MySims (PC)

A cuter, more cartoonish Sims universe for younger players who like to build.
12/3/2008 7:20 PM | 1 Comments | Page 2 of 2

So, you have to build all this too, one by one. Building interior items is a much more involved process than simply slapping a roof on top of some walls. You must piece together little bits of the item until it meets certain minimum shape requirements, much like Lego. You're free to go beyond that and improvise with your own personal spin if you so choose, or you can just stick to the template.

Sims will also ask that the items you craft for them incorporate various "Essences," which are gathered from the environment. You can shake an Apple Tree to gather the Apple Essences that drop from it, or chop the whole thing down to get some Wood Essences; go fishing for the Essences of various sea creatures; get Happy and Sad Essences from being nice or mean to Sims, and so on.

Building cool stuff like a giant arcade cabinet for the town's resident videogame nerd was fun, but I quickly started to resent the requests for mundane objects like beds and chairs. Theoretically, the template allows you to save time by more or less just selecting the correct pieces and snapping them into place, but in practice it can be tricky to place items just right. After five minutes of struggling to get a bed knob positioned just right onto a headboard, I decided that, screw it, the mayor could just deal with having a three-post bed.

The PC version comes with a handful of new features, the most significant of which is a new multiplayer component. No, you can't go and visit another Sim's town, but you can hop on the train and go to the "Garden," a customizable online environment where players' avatars can meet up, play mini-games like tag, and chat with friends via an instant messaging system. The garden is also the only place you can grab unique Essences like Kittens and Textbooks (both of which, strangely, grow on trees). You can create items and send them to friends as well.

It's cute to see the mayor, after you've built her a podium, go up to it, tap the microphone as it feeds back, and then start to practice her speech. Or the Italian chef walking around outside suddenly throw down a towel on the grass and have himself a picnic lunch -- which you're more than welcome to join in on. This social ecosystem becomes richer and more rewarding the more Sims you're able to attract, but it's just a shame that doing so involves so much mundane object-building and resource-gathering.

Fiddling around with the bits of furniture can start to grind after a while unless you're the kind of meticulous person who doesn't mind obsessing over and personally crafting every nook of your Sims empire. For me, it was just something to put up with so I could watch my Sims do more cute stuff.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.