The Sims 2 (Game Boy Advance) Review

Due to the lack of PC-esque player input (I.E a mouse), the core elements have had to be changed for this GBA iteration, and all other consoles versions to boot. That means no more God-like manipulation but rather direct control is issued over your character of choice. Now this may already be putting some of you off but try to keep an open mind for the time being (we're going to smash the game for just reasons later on, anyway). When you begin the game your are offered the chance to customize your very own Sim, however those of you used to extreme makeovers and the like will be sad to hear that the whole idea plays a very limited part in the game overall. The selection of clothes and hair styles/colours is very limited and unfortunately you're going to find yourself looking worse than next to every other NPC in the game.

Are we really so vain as to judge this game by the appearance of its main character, though? Of course not, we love Mario after all and he's an overweight plumber with a moustache! Right then, you've got yourself a residual self image, now you need a sense of purpose in life. Rather than the free-for-all approach taken by other classic Sims games, the Sims 2 pits you in a rather specific scenario complete with tasks and the like. Certainly there is a degree of freedom available in the way you complete these tasks and when you do so and so forth, but not quite as much as before.

The plot here is simple enough; you are part of a revolutionary new reality TV show (shock, horror, puke and all that). The show takes place in Strange Town, strange mainly because it isn't actually a real town but rather one concocted entirely out of fiction; a factor which in fact unbeknownst to the other residents, how very cunning we're sure you'll agree! Basically your character is plonked head-first into Strange Town and must try to boost ratings for the show by completing a variety of tasks (Episodes) whilst constantly appearing to be living a normal life, buying furniture, urinating and all the rest of it. This is all well and good on paper (or HTML) but in reality (or rather fiction...) it's a wholly different story as the result of one major omission. It's not fun to play!

Okay, that's a bit harsh but it's basically true, most previous Sims games have had a similar problem in that after a while everything begins to feel rather samey. It's the prime reasons so many expansion packs have been released. However the problem here is that the Sims 2 isn't fun to play even to begin with, let alone after a few hours.

What's more when you do start notching up points with different characters it makes absolutely no difference to the game at all. There is no need to do it at all, and yet it's a major feature of the game, it makes no sense. On top of this each of the missions you are assigned are hardly awe-inspiring either and some are just plain irritating. An early example is a simple collection task, you must find yourself a briefcase (for various reasons) but you are given next to no cue on where this could be, cue lots of aimless wandering around. Sure the searchable areas are pretty large but with no apparent direction it's a fairly mute point anyway.