09.22.07
Instant Impressions: MySims (Wii)
After weeks of me non-stop blathering about it, MySims finally arrived. I have to admit, the game seemed a little too open-ended when I first heard about it, but it takes a very Animal Crossing-ish tack towards guiding the player into knowing what the goals are and what to do next. I got the distinct impression that this is exactly what is meant by the phrase “sandbox games”. And you know what? I found myself giggling and laughing pretty damn quickly. I’m hooked, in point of fact– there’s often not much in the way of truly innocent fun in gaming these days, and MySims fits the bill nicely to help cushion the non-stop “save the world from dire bloody peril” that I was looking at in the next couple months.
Just, well, one word of caution. The characters are inherently genderless– as in the only gender differentiation comes in clothing and voice options, and not in a checkbox that says “boy” or “girl”. You can have a character with a deep, masculine voice wearing a cute sundress, but that’s not the cautionary moment. No, what happened was when I was looking for “Happy essences” (“Happy” being one of the six elements that Sims can be attracted/discouraged by), and naturally the only way to get these is to be nice to other Sims. My avatar– dressed as close to Yukito (AIR) as I could– “was nice” to a fellow resident named Patrick. Yeah, he kissed him. MySims is now officially the HoYay!est game I have ever played.