The Sims Bustin' Out

"Same name, different game"

The Sims : Bustin' Out is taking a completely different spin from its PC cousin The Sims. The Sims was an innovative idea, but it lacked progress for the player. You can play the PC game for days and still leave feeling you have accomplished very little. Bustin' Out tries to add more direction and progress to their approach, and in some ways it worked.

But with progress, also comes the numerous boundaries and limited freedom. The PC game and the GBA game have two different approaches, and are two very different games.

Gameplay: 4/10
Sims: Bustin' Out basically involves you to complete missions to progress in a very linear and limited storyline. Whilst you are doing the missions, you are also interacting with other citizens, earning Simoleons ($) from mini-games and unlocking various areas of the city. There are also eight human needs for you to maintain and fulfill, but they serve as more of an annoyance rather than adding any flavour or realism to the game.

The missions and tasks in the game serve as more of duties rather than challenges. These tasks usually involve you earning skill points, Simoleons or a promotion. Sometimes, you may locate items/citizens across town (a real pain to locate the citizens spawned across a huge map, especially since the phones don't work half the time). These tasks aren't difficult to perform, but they do get very repetitive after a while. This will be a very common trend you see in the game: not challenging, but rather annoying.

The relationship meter with citizens works in an unoriginal and generic manner: choose flattering dialogue to add relationship points and select the same option until you achieved your goal. The dialogue is an unsuccessful attempt to add comedic personality to these stereotype characters. You will befriend these characters because the game requires you to, not because you care.

The game tries to provide you an amount of freedom, you may do certain tasks before another. But the freedom is limited, you can not progress with the storyline until you complete a task/mission; some characters will refuse to talk to you until you have completed the task. The exhausting trend continues.

Lastly, the eight mini-games don't add much. They drop a huge notch to your needs and you will get tired of each concept very soon. But you will need to play these mini-games over and over again until you earn enough money or promotion.

There are few other tiny things to keep you occupied (distracted is probably a better word). But the repetitive missions are first and foremost, which I think is a stab for the gameplay.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are pretty good, at least you can recognize one place from another. The colour schemes don't always work, but it is very colourful and easy on the eyes. Though I do find that the smaller the object, the less flattering they look; some of the smaller characters and pets in the game are hard to distinguish from each other.

In dialogue screen, we get a detailed head shot of the character we are talking to. Their face will show different expressions depending on their few emotions. And depending on their relationship with you, the background will also display various symbols.

The animation of the characters are impressive too. When your character uses the toilet, he/she will be seated reading newspaper. When your character grills burger, there will be some meat sizzling on the grill. It is also pretty hilarious when the larger characters bust a few moves on the dance floor.

You can tell that there is plenty of effort put into graphics and design. It doesn't exceed expectations, but it is not too shabby either.

Sound 7/10
The objects have clean and accurate sound effects for every action. Each building will usually provide a different background music. The music and sound effects, like the gameplay, eventually grew to be repetitive. But to say the very least, I didn't think it was terrible, it was just forgettable.

Replay: 3/10
Every single time you replay this game, you will end up getting the same linear storyline and the same missions. The gameplay wasn't impressive the first time around, and it isn't going to improve on the second time either. The only thing new is to play the opposite sex and get several very minor changes in dialogues and whatnot.

Unfortunately the overwhelming amount of items and locations in this game are only needed to complete tasks or to fulfill needs. The good thing is that in typical Sims fashion, you can choose to decorate your house with items. The bad thing is most parts of your house are untouchable. The ugly thing is that whenever you start a new mission, you are forced to redecorate a new and larger home.

I wished they would have expanded more on features rather than the missions. They haven't added enough details to the gameplay. The citizens or your house could have been a lot more interactive. Think of all the features that made The Sims a success, but that Bustin' Out lacked.

Overall: 5/10
The Sims was like a doll house, Bustin' Out is like a greasy cheeseburger, these are two different games aimed at two different audiences, so don't put your expectations from the PC games onto the GBA game. Although they added progress to Bustin' Out, they failed to add the edge and the features that got so many people captivated in The Sims.

If you look at Bustin' Out without "Sims" as its title, you will be disappointed to find it to only be a mediocre game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/04