The Sims Bustin' Out Interview
Producer Virginia McArthur busts out with her thoughts on The Sims and the game's second life on console.

If you haven’t heard of The Sims by now, we’ll just assume you’ve been trapped in Jacko's hyperbaric chamber for the past four years. Poor darlings. How much you have missed.

Since 1999, the Will Wright creation has turned into the glitterati of the gaming world. It didn’t take long for the celebrity franchise to multiply, now consisting of the original Sims and its seven expansion packs, an online multiplayer, a console version — and not to mention the undying devotion of game lasses the world over.

Bustin’ Out producer Virginia McArthur gives us the low-down on the second Sims title for console and a brief analysis behind The Sims far-reaching sass appeal.

What should Sims enthusiasts look forward to in the new game?

The number one reason--the ability to get out of the house. You can hop from place to place with ease as soon as you unlock the scooter on the console or finish the first mission on Game Boy Advance.

In the GBA version, you will be able to directly control your Sims. You don’t have to queue up interactions and wait for your Sim to complete them. You have control over their every move. So, when you unlock the scooter on the GBA – you get to drive it as well. Also, you actually go to work with your Sim in the GBA version. Sims play mini-games as their daily jobs. You can choose to hop from job to job to make cash or meet all the new non-playable characters (NPCs) in the world.

In the console version, new fade-away walls and closer zoom make it even easier to navigate around the world to quickly move from one new wacky object to the next. You can make exploding rocket gnomes or man-eating plants, the choice is all yours. Also, the new locations like the love-pad at Casa Caliente, the nudist colony at Pixel Acres, and the military camp at the Octagon make the adventures of your Sims even more interesting and challenging.

In designing The Sims for console, have you had to take into consideration any differences between PC gamers and console gamers?

Yes, we have! PC gamers tend to have a different style of gameplay, they get more involved with building their homes from scratch. We spent many months translating The Sims to the console and GBA style of gameplay. Console gamers want to get into the action and fast. So, we’ve given them level-based challenges and unlockable objects and social moves combined with The Sims core gameplay – keeping their Sims alive, and satisfying motives. This new goal-oriented yet open-ended gameplay gives players the best of both worlds.

How do you think The Sims Bustin’ Out will appeal to girls/women gamers?

[Bustin' Out] is still The Sims, so the core concept is still there. The Sims continues to appeal to girls/women gamers, because it has a bit of real life thrown in that makes it easy to pick up the fantasy and then role-play what you might not do in real life.

In Bustin' Out, we make the challenges of getting to new locations fun and quickly rewarding. I’ve found that girl gamers generally do not like to play for hours and hours before getting rewarded. So, with Bustin’ Out, players are rewarded early on and very often.

Also, in the Create-A-Sim portion of the game, we’ve provided lots of new clothing, hair, and face options for your Sims. I have to say, there are some very cool and unique new items and options. I was the producer for the clothes and shoes this year, so I made sure that we had a lot more shoe styles. We also had our Japanese office help us out on the clothing styles for a little international flavor.

Why do you think games like The Sims have steadily dominated the gaming retails market since the first came out--as in, how does the game appeal to our basic human needs, which in turn, makes it a hugely popular franchise?

We all have the need and desire to try on someone else’s shoes and experience other people’s lives – why do you think movies are so appealing? The Sims is an escape into another person’s life that can be so close to your own or so totally different sometimes that it is scary. Relationship building, getting a job, cleaning, decorating, getting up on time for work, and even the possible event of having children are all possible with the Sims. But unlike real life, you can choose not to get a job, clean the house, or maybe you want to steal another Sim’s boyfriend or burn your house down. You can also choose to follow a path to success by obtaining tons of Simoleons at the Mansion.

What’s great about The Sims is that the storyline is completely up to the imagination of the player. We created a sandbox that let’s users play with dolls and action figures as teens and adults, and they love it. So do I!

In your mind, what do you see for a franchise like the Sims in 20 years?

The sky's the limit. We are listening to our players and responding to their ideas. The games keep getting more customizable, letting players get more and more creative with their Sim world.