"Such high hopes, such disappointment"

I really, really wanted to like this game. I just bought my DS, and so far I've been disappointed with the library of games available to me, and I had really hoped this one would provide hours of mindless entertainment, as the original PC version of The Sims had. I figured buying it used for $14, I couldn't go wrong. Oh, but I was wrong. So very wrong.

I'd heard that all of the Sims console ports were mission-based, and that didn't really bother me, but I guess I expected a lot more out of this game.

GRAPHICS - 6/10
I can't slam the graphics TOO much, because they did look just like a Sims title. However, there were way too many clipping glitches, the polygons were pixellated as all hell, and the animations were way too repetitive. Still, the DS handled 3D rotation very well, and everything was fairly identifiable as what it was supposed to be. It even had a mildly respectable draw distance.

SOUND - 4/10
Yeah, I wound up muting my DS right away on this title. The background music is simple, repetitive, and annoying. The only amusement I got out of the whole thing is hearing the Sims speak Simlish, which has never failed to make me giggle madly. However, even that got really annoying one day, as apparently the designers of the game decided to recognize "National Talk Like A Pirate Day". One of the characters, Pegleg Pete, naturally talks like a Pirate, and for 24 hours on that day, EVERY SIM IN THE GAME used his speech pattern, so everyone talked like a pirate. It made me giggle for 20 minutes, then got on my nerves for the remaining 23 hours and 40 minutes (not that I played for 24 hours straight, but you get where I'm going with this).

STORY - 4/10
Since when does The Sims need a story? Kinda defeats the purpose, don't you think? Anyway, the story here was pretty simple and fairly lame. Car breaks down in a small town, and you're kind of forced to take over a hotel. From there, you alternate between making your hotel bigger and better (which I finished with 100% by the second day), and dealing with your customers. Over the course of the "plot", three special customers occupy your Penthouse Suite, and cause various sorts of trouble, which you inevitably have to stop. Whoopee.

I will say some of the missions, while presented humorously, were surprisingly dark. Your first trouble client is a Mafioso named Frankie Fermicelli or something like that. I kid you not, one of his missions requires you to bury a body (okay, so it's just a "wiggling chest", but its heavily implied that there's a live person inside) out in the desert at night. Am I playing The Sims or Grand Theft Auto?

GAMEPLAY - 3/10
Ahh, here is where the game REALLY starts to suck. As I said, I was a raving Sims Fan. This, no matter what it tells you, is NOT a Sims title. It has the brand name, it has the logo and the name, but it deviates so far from The Sims that it's not really a Sims game. You only have one need bar, your Sanity, which is incredibly lame. Your Sanity goes down ridiculously fast at Level One, but as you upgrade, by Level Two it goes down so slowly that you don't really have to worry about it.

Movement is pretty good, I never had any trouble with that. Move with the D-pad, change camera angle with L and R, run with B. Interact with items and other Sims using the Touchpad.

Interactions with the Sims is frustrating yet simplistic. Sims can be in one of five moods, and each interaction requires you to memorize one of three movements they will make, and which of three reactions you perform. It's incredibly repetitive, and gets old VERY quickly.

The Minigames are fun for about ten minutes. I never bothered with creating music, as it is way too convoluted. Painting is mildly fun, making various X-Rated stick figures and sketches, and having it randomly decide whether your picture is Scrap or a Magnum Opus. It really IS random, too; you could just draw a black scribble that takes 2 seconds, and have it be a Masterpiece. In the Casino, you have ONE card game, and it takes a few tries to learn. Once you learn, it's almost hard to lose. Plus, you win so much money from playing that I was able to buy every single hotel upgrade within a day and a half. The vacuum is silly and pointless, as is the Metal Detector.

And then there is the WORST part of the game. Combat. That's right, I said COMBAT, in a Sims title. Combat with the Water Gun is hard, because it's nigh impossible to aim accurately, and often the aliens will nail you before you can even get a shot off. Combat with the Ratticator Suit is even worse, requiring you first to scare the opponent (which doesn't always work), then aim your Rattarang, then kick them when they're stunned. The control scheme for all of the above is insanely difficult to perform well, and most of the time when I won, it was by blind luck. Plus, it REQUIRES use of the stylus for accuracy. I'd much rather use my thumb or fingertip, but nooooo...controls are too sensitive.

Ugh. What else sucks...without just saying EVERYTHING....

Oh, designing a room, moving furniture, etc. That's horrid. You can't just place things anywhere, and there are no squares telling you where you can and can't move. You just drag your items around until the silhouette turns green instead of red. You can't place items near a wall, and you can't place items near each other, so most of your furniture and items wind up landing in the middle of the room. Not that there ARE any good items, really. You can't use or interact with most of them, they don't affect you differently, they don't look all that neat. I was sorely disappointed in this, because when playing REAL Sims titles, most of the fun I had was in designing my houses.

And lastly, the story arc itself is just bad. Most of your Missions are simple "raise X amount of money" or "Go fetch X Item". They're generic and not very fun.

REPLAYABILITY - 1/10
Honestly, I've owned this game for six days and I'm already ready to return it or resell it. I will admit, for the first two days it seemed like it had a lot of potential, and I could NOT put it down. That was the problem though. In two days, I pretty much finished everything there was to finish. And the final "mission" requires you to fight as The Ratticator (since when does a Sims title have an End Boss?!), and the combat is so ridiculously inaccurate that I just didn't bother. I'm going back to the used game store tomorrow. I mean once you've beaten it, what else is there to do? Make paintings? I have MS Paint for that. Make music? Blah. Interact with Sims? I'd rather play Rock-Paper-Scissors...at least that has an element of surprise and guesswork to it.

BUY/RENT?
Don't buy it. Save yourself the money. If you're REALLY that curious, then rent it. But honestly, what I would recommend is just walk by it on the shelf, look at it for a minute, thinking "Huh, there's a Sims title for the DS. I wonder if it really is as bad as that one guy said on GameFAQs..." and then just walk away.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/06