The Sims
Console yourself with Sims for PS2.
By Libe Goad

PLATFORM: PS2

PUBLISHER: EA Games

DEVELOPER: Edge of Reality

GENRE: Strategy

ESRB: Teen

SCORE:

Tie off your arm--EA has dolled out another dose of addictive life simulation. That’s right, fellow junkies, The Sims has made its way to PlayStation 2.

If you’ve played the best-selling game for PC, maneuvering through the gameplay’s basics will be as natural as brushing teeth. If you’ve been living with C.H.U.D.s and have yet to experience the Sims lifestyle, you’re not out of luck.

The Sims asks you to create mini-people and then straps you with the job of keeping them happy and productive. As you lead them through life’s big moments, you must keep them employed, fed, socialized, entertained, rested and toilet-trained. If any of these needs are not met, your sim turns cranky, which affects all parts of her life. The more balanced her life, the better she performs at work, at home and on the social scene.

For those of you who already paid your dues with the PC version, The Sims for PS2 offers a few twists that will freshen up the gameplay like a roll of electronic Mentos, namely the Get A Life and Two-Player modes.

The Get A Life mode takes all of the goodness of regular Sims gameplay and rolls it up in an appropriately vague, yet amusing storyline. Your simulated person starts out in Mom’s house, a loving, cantankerous figure, who wants her offspring off the couch and out of the house. Not only does Mom’s house serve as a well-designed tutorial for newbies, a nice way to add some structure into your sim’s day.

In fact, the entire Get A Life mode adds a nice structure to the entire game.
Each level contains several objectives--move ahead in your career, make ‘x’ number of friends, repair items in house—and once they’re complete you move onto better digs. So for instance, once you fix mom’s house, find a job and borrow 800 bucks, you’re ready to bid farewell to mommy and move on. Afterwards, you land in the Reality Bites house, a fixer-upper owned by the daughter of rich land owner Malcolm Landgrabb. Once you complete your objectives there, you move up the ladder through the four more houses and eventually can kick it in style at the swank Last Simoleon pad.

The two-player mode is another addition to The Sims, though it must be unlocked and is partially hidden in the menu (in the Get A Life “Bonus” section). The competitive mode pits you and a pal against each other in a variety of social games, i.e. The Museum (Get Your Con On), The Frat House (The Popularity Contest) and The Motel (Bash N’ Smash). continued >