The Urbz: Sims in the City

"The Sims RPG - Ignoring The Setting It's Not Too Bad"

Take the buying items for your house and taking care of your sim's needs and combine that with some traditional RPG traits like exploration and solving puzzles and you get the Urbz. Despite it's “ghetto” setting, it isn't really all about the streets, although practically everyone in the town talks that way. Ignoring the setting you can have a fun experience with this game, however, it does have some considerable problems.

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Storyline (5/10)
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Probably the first Sims game with a proper storyline to follow, and unfortunately, it shows that they're having a hard time trying to inject one into the series. You play a bum basically who's living in the basement of an office block owned by “Daddy Bigbucks”. As events unfold, you break into his office, discovering his plans to turn miniopolis into a theme park but are caught and sent to jail where no one believes you. Eventually you get let out and you have to rally the residents of the town against Daddy Bigbucks. As you can see, the storyline is about as dull and unimaginative as the names everyone is given. However, it does keep the game going, and gives you reasons to go from place to place.

Unfortunately, most of the goals you are given feel like they have absolutely nothing to do with the main story, and for the most part they don't. Due to this the game can get pretty boring pretty quickly since it feels like even the developers couldn't be bothered keeping the game centred on the ludicrous story. It serves as a function to give reason to the game, but nothing more and it means you certainly won't be playing the game for its story since it fizzles out after about an hour.

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Gameplay (6/10)
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The storyline is the big difference between this and the other Sims games; it gives you something to follow along and offers up puzzles to solve along the way. There's nothing terribly exciting or ingenious about them, but it does give something else to do other than the traditional buying more stuff for your house. In order to make money in the game you have to take on one of a variety of jobs and play a mini game to earn your wage. As with other games in the series, you need to improve your stats in order to get promotions and therefore earn more money. However, while there are a variety of games on offer, they all get boring pretty quickly and only last for about a minute, but in some cases it's a minute too long.

As mentioned, you can buy a variety of offerings for your house to facilitate your sim's needs. However, it's just as tedious as ever, especially since there aren't that many items to buy. Also, interaction with the NPCs isn't entirely rewarding since you just choose one of four topics to talk about and depending on whether that NPC likes the topic you choose or not your reputation with them will be affected positively or negatively. Unfortunatley, since it's supposed to be a major part of the game, the fact that it's rather tedious to waste time talking to the NPCs is disappointing. In the end, it feels like they've tried to combine two games, and ended up with two half games that don't mesh that well together. It does provide some entertainment if you like the Sims aspect, but in terms of providing a storyline to follow, it doesn't work quite so well and you quickly start to ignore the details of it. Also, it's use of the touch screen and dual screens isn't very impressive, and pretty much has the feel of a GBA port with almost no effort being made to use the new technology.

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Graphics (5/10)
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Exactly the same as the GBA version, which isn't entirely a bad thing, but some of the sprites and animations look pretty bad. The backgrounds are mediocre; they do their job but do really offer anything all that pretty to look at. I'm not a huge fan of the “streetz” looks of the game, mainly because almost everybody in the game is stereotyped. There's a lot of room for improvement here, but despite my personal opinion, I guess they do their job alright.

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Sounds (4/10)
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First of all, I can put up with “simspeak”, the stupid sounds that people make when talking in the sims games, however, they managed to make them even worse in this game. The music and sound effects aren't particularly good for the most part either, but the ones that aren't bad, certainly aren't good.

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Lifespan (6/10)
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The game can be finished extremely quickly. The lifespan factor lies in the same place as other Sims games; getting a job, earning money and buying things. Instead of just disappearing for hours on end as in the first Sims games, you can now choose from a variety of mini games, which reward you depending on how well you did. The course of the game does provide some slight puzzle solving, but there's nothing all that taxing. If you enjoy the concept of the Sims, then there's some enjoyment to be had, since there are a variety of places and items to buy, as well as being able to convince some of the NPCs to move in with you. However, deep down, the game is extremely shallow in terms of depth and thus if the whole decorating your house aspect doesn't appeal, there' is the main storyline to follow, but it's over extremely quickly.

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Summary (6/10)
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In terms of “The Sims” games, there are much better offerings available, in terms of gameplay, again there are much better offerings. Unfortunately, if you want a combination of the two, then you'll have to put up with this since there isn't really an alternative. It does take the traditional Sims gameplay and provide a storyline to follow, and thus it is a different experience to the other Sims games, but overall, it's an experience that is extremely short lived. It is a game that can be played on the move, but considering the price, it provides relatively little entertainment for the value. There's also very little to make you want to carry on playing after you get halfway through the game, let alone once you've finished.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/07