The Sims: Bustin' Out review

Party time!

Management games have always been popular with a wide range of people. From the original SimCity to the likes of Dungeon Keeper, the prospect of being “God” for a day appeals to huge numbers of folks and sales figures for these products have always been highly impressive.

Of course, these games really hit the mainstream when Will Wright, the creator of SimCity (the granddaddy of god games, having been released in 1987) focused his vision down to managing individual households rather than generic city areas. The result was The Sims and it soon became the best selling PC game ever. Since day one, EA have built on this success by releasing more and more add-on packs for The Sims, which enabled said Sims to try out different jobs and buy different items for their houses. Bustin’ Out puts in place perhaps the most important development in Sim history; the ability to visit locations other than your own house.

Virtual wardrobes

Nice shirt (no sniggering at the back)

Things start off very simply and you’re allowed to create your own character in typical Sims style, choosing a facial type, gender, name and clothing. You get taken into the game and start off chatting and dancing in a nightclub. This soon emerges to be a dream (as you discover when you are woken by your mother) and you find yourself living with your parents in their house. Pretty much as soon as you start you’re given the chance to move out of your mum’s and go and live with your mate in a trailer (a very nice trailer, it has to be said, complete with hot tub and air hockey table).

There is no formal tutorial, but throughout this opening chapter you’re given plenty of tips and advice on how to control your character and the game menus. After all, this is at heart, a PC game and translation to a console controller is always a tricky prospect in these circumstances. Thankfully things have been kept pretty simple and the controls, whilst not as smooth and effective as mouse driven controls, are still easy to get to grips with.

Pull my finger

Nudity is of course handled well

As well as the control issue, translating high detail games like The Sims to consoles has always been tricky, but Maxis have done a fine job of getting as much on screen as clearly as possible. Things are presented very nicely in widescreen and feature nice hi-res textures with a smooth frame rate for all the zooming and panning you’ll be doing trying to track your sims.

The animations and sounds are typically cute. Your characters walk around in a pretty stiff manner, but the interaction animations are very well realised (check out “pull my finger” in particular). If you’ve never heard a Sims game in motion, the “language” used is superbly done, being evocative rather than having actual speech – it certainly gets the message across and you can very quickly start to recognise your Sim’s different moods by sound alone.

This is how we do it

Future TV

All the components of previous incarnations are present here: you can meet friends, progress your career, buy stuff for the house and renovate it too. As well as this you’re given transport (starting off as an ‘ickle moped). As the game moves on and relationships are built, the transport can be used to go visiting people in their own environments. This is the real selling point of Bustin’ Out, but I’m not sure it works so well myself.

In theory, this should make things a lot more interesting and varied but in reality it make things a heck of a lot more difficult than they’ve ever been. Yes, there are places to go and people to meet, but this essentially adds more things to fit into the same timescale. Had this been a feature of the effectively target-less PC original, then it would have been an extremely welcome feature. Added into a game where you have set goals and targets and this makes maintaining relationships extremely difficult.

Connecting people

Living the high life - literally

Where being able to visit other locations would really pay off would be in the ability to play online and interact with other non-AI sims. EA, in their never-ending squabble with Microsoft have deemed this feature only suitable for the PS2. This reviewer cannot obviously comment on these features other than to say it’s an absolute crime that EA and Microsoft are still at loggerheads about this.

Bustin’ Out does give some chances for multiplayer action by allowing a partner on the same Xbox to control another sim. This is a bit of a peculiar addition in my opinion as management games tend to be played as very much solo affairs. Playing online and using the game as a sort of chat room is ideal but when you’ve got someone else in the same room as you who’s itching for a go then I’d wager that Project Gotham Racing 2 or Top Spin may get brought out well before The Sims ever does.

Finally

Eat my goal!

Overall, whilst there’s nothing wholly wrong about Bustin’ Out, there’s not enough new about it to really recommend a purchase. If you’re a fan of the series, this is arguably the best of the bunch, as Maxis have at least included a “fish bowl” freeplay version of the game. I’d not really recommend this to newcomers as there is a steep learning curve for anyone who’s not tried The Sims before. Similarly if, like me, you can enjoy The Sims but have played other versions previously, then there’s even less to recommend. It has to be said that the whole experience seems far less engaging than in any previous efforts for experienced “sim-ers”.