The Sims 2

"This could have been a great game....."

When it comes to video games, there are almost as many types of video games as there are types of players. Likewise, video games are of greatly varying quality. There are some that are fantastic, some that are atrocious, and many more that are somewhere in between the two. This is one of those in between games, but not in the good way.

I expect you'll have heard of the Sims before at some point. If you haven't, basically you design a character and then control them and get them to interact with things. However, whereas in other Sims games, you control the character's home life, here the character you create is the manager of a hotel after crashing your car there. You have to build up your hotel, look after guests staying there and also defeat villains (who strangely act like friends once you've beaten them…). When designing your person, you don't get many choices on how they look. There is a limited amount of faces and clothes that you're allowed, and it doesn't really make your Sim feel truly unique, if you know what I mean.

Now, although this game isn't very fun overall, it does have some nice aspects to it that deserve some credit. It's a bit like having a small sweet in between massive helpings of cabbage. For a start, there are a variety of extra rooms you can add to your hotel, including music rooms, art rooms, a casino and more. Most of these are actually quite cool, and you can do stuff like draw pictures or make music. Usually these activities are mostly novelties, but some of them are pretty entertaining, especially the card game that you can play in the casino. You can also customise your apartment with furniture and gadgets, though you don't have a lot of space to manoeuvre things around with. You can also play Space Invaders (albeit from a strange angle).

The graphics are also fairly decent. Nothing spectacular, but for a DS game, they aren't too bad. The animations are generally well done, and most of the objects have a reasonable amount of detail to them. However, there are a couple of glitches every now and then, such as characters going through objects or other people. Nonetheless, the graphics are overall pretty good.

The graphics may be good, but the game itself is not. Although designing your hotel can be quite interesting, you are constantly bound by a number of goals. The aim of the game is to get through all of the missions you have to do. You have to stop evil people from unleashing their plans for domination and get your hotel up to a decent standard, among other things. There are also other tasks for you to do, such as finding treasure by wandering around the desert, or putting out fires. A lot of tasks get really repetitive. I mean, sure, finding nuclear rods in the desert is OK the first time, but when you do it over and over and over again, it starts to get a bit boring. Later on, you get to do stuff like become a super hero, but that gets very repetitive too.

There's also the fact that are lot of the tasks are simply too easy. I only had trouble with one task near the end, and that was only because of the tedium of finding the mechanical skill points needed to complete it. Even the final boss fight is relatively straightforward. However, although the game is easy, it will take you a long time to finish it, simply because the game draws itself out so much. For example, you might have a task that involves installing an atrium. You get some money to do so, only to realise you have to wait eight hours (in real time) for it to be built. This kind of thing happens a lot, so it ends up lasting quite a long time, which would be fine if it was fun, but it isn't, so it ends up feeling forced upon you.

While the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired, the sound is even worse. The music is very bland and forgettable, and very little stands out about it. The sound effects are just as forgettable and pointless. The characters seem to speak in their own language made up of strings of gibberish, which will soon get on your nerves. Really, if you want to play this game, I would recommend turning the sound off.

You can also interact with characters throughout the game. How you interact with them depends on what mood they are in at the time. They can be either happy, sad, loopy, angry or romantic. Though the actions you do are different, they all amount to the same thing: pressing the correct button (there are three) depending on what action they do. At first, it's a bit hit and miss, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be breezing through it in no time. The problem is that there's no variation whatsoever, so the only real reason for doing it is that you sometimes get a gourd, nuclear rod or money, and even then it's arguable whether the tedium you suffer is worthwhile.

I haven't even mentioned the new sanity system yet. In previous Sim games, they had separate characters such as hunger, thirst and cleanliness. In this game, they're all combined together, and the character will only tell you if they need something if they really, really need it. From there, your sanity will drop until it gets it, and if your sanity reaches zero you get abducted by aliens or arrested (yes, I realise how little sense that makes…)

However, through the boredom and repetitiveness of this game, there is a nice little bonus. As well as being able to build up your hotel with new rooms, this game also has a few interesting collectibles and easter eggs. You can collect a number of licence plates and discover some amusing scenes. One thing I particular like is how you tip a cow to make a milkshake. These make up for the boredom of the game a tiny bit.

It's a shame really, because this game had the potential to be really good: it had a nice concept and some quaint little secrets to find. However, when it came to the execution, it fell flat on its face. It's just too repetitive and easy to be much fun, and the myriad of flaws further hinder the game. I would recommend giving this game a miss, although it might be worth renting (well, perhaps) if you're a really big fan of the Sims. I wouldn't recommend that anyone buy this, though. This is one of those games that isn't good enough to enjoy much, but at the same time it isn't bad enough to rant about either.

Summary: Pros:
+ Adding rooms to the hotel is fun
+ A handful of secrets to discover
+ Decent graphics for a DS game
+ Bonus activities are decent fun…

Cons:
- …. well, for about five minutes, anyway.
- Repetitive and uninteresting missions
- Uninteresting character interactions
- Game is padded out in length too much
- Too easy
- Forgettable music
- Boring

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/06/09

Game Release: The Sims 2 (EU, 11/04/05)