MySims Review

Okay. So MySims for the PC is a port of MySims for the Nintendo Wii which was inspired by the original PC franchise The Sims. Things weren't this mixed up since Street Fighter: The Movie, which was a game based on a movie based on the game of the same name. Unlike the Street Fighter movie game, the PC port of MySims doesn't get completely lost in translation and actually manages to be pretty solid.

Even though MySims is being published by Electronic Arts and carries the Sims label, it is quite different from The Sims games. You don't manage multiple people in MySims and you won't have to worry about maintaining mundane toiletry tasks. MySims actually has more in common with Nintendo's Animal Crossing games than it does with The Sims series.

Time to go back to my mansion and eat my lobster.

Much like the Nintendo title, you control a single walking avatar from a top-down isometric camera angle. You begin your adventure by creating your Sim. In the character creation screen, you can change your Sim's skin tone, outfit, face type, and more. It's not incredibly deep, but it's deep enough so that no two characters will look alike.

Once you've created your Sim, you'll start your journey off by getting the controls down. The WASD keys are used for movement, the Q and E keys are used to rotate the camera, and the mouse button allows you to interact with objects. Once you get those mechanics down, you'll discover the joys of the game's light RPG quests. Generally, these missions will have you building various home furnishings for townspeople.

As the light narrative goes, your quaint little town was once a flourishing city. However, once the city's architect left, the population went with him. That's where you step in, with your abilities to build anything you've got a blueprint for; you are single-handedly going to restore glory to your once great city. Once you step in as the city's new savior, you'll realize that your city currently has a zero-star rating. From there, you'll have to solve the land's housing and population problem and hope to one day achieve a five-star rating.

To properly build most objects, you'll need things called "essences," which are spread out through the land. There are six categories of essences: cute, fun, geeky, spooky, studios, and tasty. These essences are manifested through real-world objects like apples and woodblocks or non-physical elements such as happy faces. There are tons of different essences out in the world to collect and many different ways to collect them. For fruit, you'll generally have to shake down trees. Fishing will provide you with fish essences. Digging will give you buried objects, and the list goes on.

Nice hat, dink.

Using these essences and your relationship book, you can construct objects to fit peoples' particular needs. For instance, it's best to decorate the local Italian restaurant in tasty essences. The Goth girl will appreciate Goth things, and so forth. In addition to playing with people's well beings by messing around with their property, you can also perform good or bad deeds to them. However, this feature isn't nearly as deep as the good vs. bad system as featured in RPGs like Fable or Fallout. Rather, these actions usually just provide you with different emotional essences, and never really provides you with any long-term repercussions.