Pandemonium's Full Review: The Sims: Bustin Out for PlayStation 2
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to put your life inside a game and play it, this will come pretty close. The Sims Bustin' Out is a game based on the original award winning game The Sims for the PC. Now that the games have made the transfer over to the controls the question was, would they be as good and would you be able to do everything that the PC offered. The answer is almost. For those familiar with the series this game basically follows the same structure and "Bustin' Out" is more like an expansion game than a stand a lone game. This time around, not only do you take care of your Sim's daily needs, you can now "bust out" of your home and travel. You are now able to unlock different homes in this virtual world that you can either just visit and complete different goals or you can even move in these homes to advance the game. If you liked the first console installment "The Sims" then you should have no trouble enjoying this game even more. There is even a chance that you were not fond on the first game this one may turn you around to the other side.
Game Play:
First off, if you have never played a "Sim" based game they require a lot of patience to play. You start the game by making and customizing your Sim that you will control throughout the game. Your Sim is placed into a virtual world that you have complete control of what your Sim does on a day-to-day basis. When i say complete control I mean it as you control when he/she will eat, sleep, bathe, go to the restroom, what career to undertake, what friends they will have, where they live, when and who to marry, whether you want to try and have a baby, and more. This is all done in a twenty-four hour day just like in real life. As you advance the game you get the same feeling as in the real world that there is just not enough time in a day to get everything done. You need to manage your time well in order to fulfill all of your Sims needs and keep them happy. To some, this may not seem like a recipe for a good game however, it is surprisingly addicting and you will find yourself playing for hours and hours. This is in real time and virtual time.
Each Sim has different needs that need be looked after at all times and kept up in order for your Sim's overall happiness to be good. For example, your needs include hunger, tiredness, social fulfillment, personal hygiene, having fun, and different skills that you need for your career that you picked. As the virtual days roll by you will get tired and hungry so you need to eat throughout the day and get enough sleep before going to work. They will start to feel dirty and even have to go to the restroom which of course needs to be addressed as well. If you are not being social enough they will start to feel depressed even to the point where they won't be happy enough to play or work on their skills anymore until you fix it. As for the skills, different jobs require you to advance in different skills. Some of these include skill sin speech, mechanical, cooking, strength, and more. You will have to meet the criteria for each tier in your career path before you can get promoted. So you will need to take time out of your day to advance your skills as well as keeping them happy in their day-to-day needs.
Not only are you responsible for your Sim (and they can die if not managed correctly) you have the power to buy and improve your homes that you live in. There are a lot of different items you can buy and unlock throughout the game. Some are decorative as others are necessities. Each having their own use in the virtual world at keeping your Sim's happy. These items that you can buy have different stats that improve different needs that your Sims need. For example, buying a better bed will improve the quickness that a Sim rests while sleeping in it, or a better range will up their hunger meeter farther while they eat so they won't be hungry as often. You will begin to notice when you start buying better items as you upgrade a location that keeping your Sim's happiness becomes a bit easier. This is very important as I stated that it is hard to do everything you need to do in a day as the days go by pretty fast.
Your career that you pick will determine what path you take (what virtual homes you can move into) during the game. You can gain two promotions per career in each house that you move into. You can always change careers at anytime but, this may require you to move back to a house you have already lived in or move into a new one all together. You will also take a pay cut as you will start that career from the beginning and you will need to work your way through that careers promotions. That is not a bad thing as that is the way to unlock all of the items in the game and seems to be the ultimate goal in the game maxing out each and every career. As you gain promotions you, of course, get raises and unlock a new items. If you find yourself getting behind on certain aspects of your Sim's happiness you can always take a day off from work and concentrate that entire day on what you need to improve. Your work will call with a threat that if you miss to many days you will be fired. Don't worry as this should not be a problem as long as you go for a few days straight afterwords before you take the next day off. If you do happen to get fired you can look in the paper and get your job back. You will find yourself taking days off now-and-then as this really helps balance the time issue and how hard it can be to get everything you want done in a day.
You begin the game at your mothers house and will be given a set of goals that you need to complete in order to move out and advance the game. The goals start off simple as you just need to make your first meal or get your first job. This is more like a small tutorial than anything else. As the game advances your goals become more difficult and time consuming to complete. by completing these goals you will unlock different social interactions, better items that you can purchase, and some that just give you cash. Some goals will require some investigating as you will need to travel about the virtual world to locations you have unlocked. You do not need to complete every goal except the two promotion goals at each location to advance the game. However, completing the various goals will make your Sim's life much easier when you use what you unlock. Also, as you move into your new locations you will have to controll another Sim that lives there. This adding the the depth of the game and some of these new Sims that the game gives you to control are not so easy. They have a mind of their own and depending on their personality they may need constant overseeing. The good thing is though, if you get your new Sim off to work you also get their pay as well. The bad thing is, some of these Sims are extremely hard to work with. For example, one of them really likes working out and if your not careful that is all that they will be doing. They seem to forget to eat or bathe and just work out until they pass out. Another is not very friendly and is always whining about not having any friends. Getting them happy with their social life is all but impossible as they are always fighting with others when you are not telling them what to say. I just gave up when this happened and let them go about their business mostly. I manly used them to clean and do things for me giving me more time in the day to keep my Sim happy. You can take on the challenge and try and keep them happy if you want but, it is hard. Other Sims you get control are easier to keep happy and makes the game a little more fun. One warning though, if you decide to fall in love and get married fairly early in the game it will make the game that much harder as well. You instantly take control of your new husband/wife when you marry and then you will have three Sims to control at times. I did this and it was extremely hard to keep everyone happy. Your husband/wife are not as difficult as some Sims but, you spend a lot of time on them taking time away from your main Sim making the game much longer. Of course, it is up to the person playing the game and what kind of challenge you want. Just watch out for having kids or you get another to take of as well.
Interacting with other Sims and upgrading a location is where you will probably have the most fun. Some of the conversation options that you will unlock as you play are flat out hilarius. Being able to watch two Sims get jealous of another and "slap it out" with one another or doing a magic trick for another are quirky and just funny. The building feature is also well put together and easy to navigate through. Even though the locations are pre-built for you, you have the power to change anything you want. Of course this depends on how much money you have. You can sell just about anything you want and change the rooms to your liking. Or you can just leave the basics structure of the locations a lone and just upgrade what they have to better suite your Sims. There is a limit in the "Bustin' Out" out mode that each location has that you can spend to upgrade. There is a meter that shows you how close you are at reaching this limit. As you move to different location this meter will give you much more leeway and you will be able to improve on a location more and more. The "free" mode will give you no limits at all.
In all, the game play is extremely addicting and well done. There really is not much of a story-line in the game as your mail goal is just keeping your Sims happy as you complete the various goals. The only story really is the little tidbits you get from the other Sim's about completing your goals at that location. The locations themselves have a little story to them as they all vary quite a bit with the personalities of the Sims that live there. Of course, this not really what the game is about and as you play you kind of make up your own story as to who your friends are and you use the interaction commands.
Controls:
The overall controls and menus, although fairly complex, are easy to navigate and use. You will use the X button more than anything as it confirms your actions. Click a place on the ground and your Sim will travel there. Hit the X button on an object and your Sim will use what ever it is you clicked on. For example, clicking on the fridge will bring up a small menu giving you a few choices like "have a snack" or "prepare dinner". Then you click on what option you want and it will be done. Or if you click on a shower your Sim will just go and take one. You can also give multiple commands at once and the commands will stack. Your Sim will do each one in the order you stacked them in. This is very helpful especially in later stages of the game when you are controlling more than one Sim at a time. Your triangle button is used to cancel orders given to your Sims and the circle button is your control over your visual aspect of the game. You can take the walls down so you can see everything easier or just take down the walls of the room your Sim is currently in. Whatever preference you may have will work fine as this is also done well.
Your R2 and L2 switches control between your Sims that you are controlling and the L1 and R2 controls the overall speed of the game. By holding the L1 down you can pause the game and by holding the R2 down you speed up time. There is a setting in the options that you can use that if you just hit the R2 it will continue with that speed so you don't have to hold it down to speed up time. This is very handy and a great option as if you don't use it you may find your finger getting tired constantly holding the R2 down to speed the game up. Since all of the Sims walk very slow you will want to have this option on. The only time I turned it off was when I was throwing a party and had mayhem in my virtual home.
Graphics:
Overall the graphics for the PlayStation 2 are above average. Each Sim is slightly less boxed as the previous Sim game and this goes for most of the objects throughout the game as well. That being said, they are still pretty jagged and boxed and the closer you view your Sims and objects the more this stands out. If you view the game from a further distance this is not so obvious making the overall game look much better. Some of the objects and animations look quite a lot better than others which was surprising to me. For example, when your socializing with other Sims and you choose the "dance" or "magic trick" options they look more like robots going through the motions than people. However, if you chose to slap or get into a fight with another the animations look much more smooth. Still, most of these are pretty funny and will have you "giggling" watching them for the first time. As for the objects, for the most part look pretty good there are just some here and their are of less quality than others. The thing I liked the most about the graphics was the lighting. Going through to night and having your lights go on and off showing all of the shadows look really good. This is especially true if you have candles in your home or even outside shinning into the windows. They did the lighting effects very well and is what really makes the graphics stand out. Still a much improvement over the last game installment there still could have been a little more effort in just smoothing things out a little more.
Sound/Music:
The sound effects throughout the game are done well and there a lot of different sounds you will here as you play. The different sounds you will here like the refrigerator being shut or your Sim turning on the TV and changing channels are done really good and are well thought out. The only complaint I have is, there are some background sounds that you will here way to often. For example, one location is the Goth Manner which is haunted. The first couple of days hearing the spooky sounds and the ghosts going through the home will have you laughing. However, as the nights go on you will really wish you could turn this off since it never changes, same time every night, and never changes in anyway. This is also true for another location (Dudley's Trailer) where you will wolves in the background all the time and this will start to grow tiresome. Still, if you can get past this, your Sim's playing pool, dancing to different music stations, turning on a squeaky faucet, or snoring in their sleep are done very well and should have you getting over the background noises.
The menu music is your basic "hip" music and plays pretty good. It is to bad it is the same music plays every time you open a menu. Again, this will get very old and have you wishing you could have an option to change songs. You can however just turn it off if you wish and this is an option that I used.
Online & Multi-Player:
There is an on line feature in the game called "Online Weekend" mode. This allows you to visit other Sims online and trade items. I have not yet tried this myself so I am not sure how it really works. At least the game has this feature and lets you take the game on the Internet. The two-player co-op mode lets you play either mode of the game with a friend at the same time. There is nothing different about the game itself playing in this mode but, playing a Sim's game with someone else is pretty fun.
Conclusion:
If you someone that has played a lot of the previous Sim installments, either on the PC or console, I see no reason why you would not at least enjoy this title for what it is. It does offer enough new things to do and see throughout and should keep a Sim fan happy as usual. Myself, who has been a fan of the series, have started to grow a little tired with the series and this game did not wake me up. The core-play of the series is still intact and done well, I just think this series is in need of more of a overhaul rather than then just small ad-ons. Being able to travel to different locations in a virtual 3-D environment is a great idea, I just feel was not involved in the game as much as it could have been. You could actually complete this game without ever leaving the location you are in (except to just move when you have been promoted enough in that location). The side missions you can do that do involve you to travel to different locals are not required even though they will unlock different things. Since this game is based on "bustin' out" I just feel you should have had to do more of this and it should have played a much bigger role than it does. And if you were to finish this game I doubt you would be putting it in for any reason anytime soon. Maybe a long time down the road just for a little fun but, that's it.
Thank you for reading.
If you have any questions about this game just let me know.
Take your Sim everywhere in the first portable version of The Sims. For the first time in any Sims game,use the Control Pad to have direct control of ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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