"A Sad Effort from a Great Series"

I have always been a big fan of The Sims. Although, I have never bought the computer games I have just about every game for the Gamecube and Gameboy Advance. I was very excited to see that they had made one for the DS and was very excited to see how it would work on the DS. Unfortunately, I was dissapointed.

Gameplay-5/10
The gameplay works in a unique way that's different from the old games. Instead of chosing things to say to people like "talk" or "compliment" you must chose from one of three options to please whoever you are talking to. There are four different types of conversation so that if someone is loopy you need to restrain them to keep them sane. However, at first you will have no idea what you're doing because you have to look at the other persons actions and based on that select you choice. For example if someone bends over during a romance conversation I would tap kiss. The next problem with the gameplay is the touch screen. It's incredibly hard to use when it must be done quickly so you can move. For example, you might want to check a guest in but they're sitting down and you tap the disturb option. Then, you have to move out of the way so they can get up, go next to them once they're up, and tap check in all before they sit back down again. Also there will be times when you have to defeat villains as The Ratticator the local superhero. When you're The Ratticator you have to enter the "butt-kicking mode" as I call it, and use three comands via the touch screen to arrest the enemies. This is fine when it's only one person, but it's pretty hard in the big robot fight at the end because once you attack a robot with the "rattarang" you have to move fast or you'll be attacked by the other robot who is right next to him. Another thing that really brings down the gameplay is that it is in real time. Remember Sim time, well it's gone! At first you think that it's pretty cool but you soon realize there are more problems than benefits. It probably wouldn't be so bad if it didn't give you a mission where you have to do something at a specific time like aafter nightfall when you're palying at noon so you have to wait about six hours before you can move on. You will find yourself cheating by seting your DS clock ahead of time. BUT BEWARE!!! If you do this without taking the cartridge out first it will launch and big alien invasion. The next problem is that you can only get skillpoints by randomly finding them at specific times during specific days that you will only know if you check out a skill points faq. This wouldn't be bad if there wasn't this one mission that involves you getting 5 or 6 mechanical skill points. The final problem I have with the game play is that you don't have a meter that tells you when you need to use things like the toilet or the bed. You only find this out when you're running somewhere and the toilet icon goes over your head meaning you better find a toilet fast or you gonna lose a lot of sanity. You sanity is like your health. If you lose all of you sanity, depending on the situation, you die or become unconsious. Then, once you wakeup, you must recover your sanity so that whatever made you lose it won't kill you the second you face it again. Sanity would take forever to fill up if it weren't for the punchhing bag in the freezer. I happen to like the swanity meter and find it one of the few good things about the game.

Graphics-8/10
These graphics are crap! Or they would be crap if they were on something like the PS2, but for the DS they are really good. They can be kind of pixelated at times and are not as good as Super Mario 64 for DS but I still like them.

Sound-9/10
A lot of people hate this music but I love it. The music can get annoying but luckily for you, you can change it from a radio in almost every room. You can also create you own variations of the songs and ringtones. They do speak in Simlish as they always do and I love playing the game with their voices. I find them hilarious and love hearing them over and over and over again as you will probably have to do in this game. If you get sick of them you can turnd the sound off though so this isn't really such and important section.

Storyline-8/10
I give it a 8 because I'm comparing it to Sims games. It's a pretty fun story. Your car breaks down in Strangetown and you basicaly go into the hotel to stay there while you car is being repaired. While your there you discover your lack of willpower as you somehow end up the hotel manager. Kinda crazy but what did you expect. Anyway, you get a bunch of crazy guests for your Penthouse Suite that you start out helping and then realize that they are bad and you need to plot against them. It's not really a deep storyline but it's fun and I've always loved The Sims humor.

Overall this game really isn't as bad as I made it seem by the gameplay section but it's really mostly for diehard Sims fans. If you want to experience The Sims handheld I recomend The Sims: Bustin' Out for GBA.

OVERALL SCORE:
Gameplay-5/10
Graphics-8/10
Sound-9/10
Storyline-8/10
Overall-7.5 rounded to 7

Note:Overall is an average and I rounded based on my opinion of the game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06