News

• MySims Kingdom
• Reviewed on: Nintendo Wii
• Also available for: Nintendo DS
• 
  
• The Good: More story-driven than MySims. Funny and cute. Mini-games integrated into the overall game play.
• The Bad: Building is still the biggest game-play drag
• The Verdict: Funny and cute game distances itself from The Sims

Last year's MySims was a Nintendo Wii spinoff of EA's cash cow PC franchise The Sims, that was not only designed to spread The Sims to the console crowd, but to appeal to a younger audience as well. Follow-up MySims Kingdom takes the series even further away from its open-ended life simulation roots by adding a more linear story and more role-playing and problem-solving elements.

The Sims – Fantasy style

In MySims Kingdom, the vibe is more Animal Crossing than anything resembling the Sims PC games. Instead of a life simulation that grapples with “grown-up” issues like working, having a social life, fending off boredom and depression, eating enough, finding a life partner and starting a family, MySims Kingdom is a story-driven adventure that takes place in a cartoonish fantasy land presided over by the jovial, cupcake-loving King Roland.

After choosing an avatar and decking him or her out with customizable hair, skin tone and clothing, you'll jump into the story to learn that you're the latest Wandolier, wielders of magic sceptres that are capable of conjuring objects out of thin air. At King Roland's request, you'll travel the kingdom and help out the other Sims by using your magic to build houses, repair bridges and machines, and anything else that needs doing.

In order to acquire the necessary building materials, you'll have to collect Essences to unlock scrolls. For example, collecting 25 metal essences unlocks the Small Gear scroll, which allows you to use gears to power machines. Essences are collected by playing different mini-games, such as shaking trees to get fruit essences or chopping them down to get wood essences, mining rocks with a pickaxe to get metal essences, treasure finding with a beeping metal detector and shovel, or fishing by casting the rod with the Wii remote.

Two of the more amusing ways to harvest essences are simply by interacting with the other Sims in the game. You can be “mean” to people through naughty acts like stomping on their foot, laughing at them or smacking them to earn sad essences, or be nice to them by giving them a hug or telling a joke to earn happy essences.

Build for a purpose

When you're ready to build a structure, you'll enter a special mode where you can place scenery such as walls, a roof, chimney, doors, windows, shrubbery and interior furniture, LEGO-style. There's a template to follow, but the game also affords the player some room to be creative.

Like MySims, the building part is still the thing that drags down game play. Having to place objects just so in the template in order for the structure to register as “complete” can be a bit tricky. On the positive side, however, players get to build some fun structures like machines with pulley systems and a giant look-out hill for a fussy cat. Also, building in MySims Kingdom is more of a means to an end because it advances the next part of the story, as opposed to MySims where players were basically just trying to satisfy Sims' demands for tables, chairs and other often mundane items to fill up their homes with.

Cuteness abounds

The delightful character interactions help keep MySims Kingdom fresh. You can talk to other Sims and hear them respond in their unique and surprisingly expressive Sims gibberish language. Another cute touch is that the Sims will interact with the environment, including items you've added to it. Build a set of drawers, for example, and a character will start rummaging through them, perhaps even turning up a trinket that you can keep.

Thanks to little touches like these and a cute and engaging aesthetic, MySims Kingdom is an accessible adventure-slash-building sim perfectly suited for a younger audience that perhaps isn't quite ready to dive into the classic (and significantly more complicated) Sims franchise on PC.

Dishing on the DS

In case you're curious, the DS version of MySims Kingdom ($29.99) is a very different game from its console cousin. It uses a 2-dimensional top-down perspective with different characters and setting, and a story that concerns having to rebuild the town because someone has stolen most of the buildings and furniture and most of the Sims have moved away. Players must still use essences to build structures and objects, but they're collected by sucking them out of the scenery with a gadget instead of playing mini-games. The DS version isn't as compelling as its console counterpart thanks to graphics that lack the same cuteness factor, large areas of land that the player must backtrack through, and goals that aren't always clear.