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The Sims Bustin' Out Review for GameCube
Posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2004 @ 12:51:38 am E.S.TEver since The Sims was released in 2000, the series has remained a top seller by offering the same gameplay with shallow changes—like new furniture or customization options—in the form of expansion packs. Though The Sims: Bustin’ Out is console-based and features some new gameplay additions, it’s essentially a four-year old game in a new package. It’s like one of my fellow staffer, Kent, said: it all boils down to preference. If you liked the previous Sims installments, you’ll like Bustin’ Out. If you didn’t like them, you won’t like this one either.
Bustin’ Out is made up of two modes of play: “Bust Out” and “Free Play.” In Bust Out, your sim will move up in life, making a name for himself and completing goals like “get Mimi to pull your finger” and "move out of mom's house" all the while. A vague story about the land-grabbing fiend Malcolm is present, but it doesn’t really affect gameplay. The other mode, Free Play, is what The Sims series is famous for. You create a character, build a house, and live an open-ended life. Both modes are fun and offer stimulation for different types of gamers; if you need something to drive you, or maybe just some structured gameplay, you’ll probably want to go with Bust Out. But for those of you who would like to set your own goals—or have any at all—Free Play is for you.
Unfortunately, completing these goals if often made very hard by your overly needy sim. It seems that every instant he’s in need of something, whether it be food, hygiene, or fun. Micro-managing his life gets tedious after a short amount of time and takes the game’s fun level down considerably. After a while, a potentially fun experience is turned into a routine one and it’s well…as boring as your life. Kinda defeats the purpose, eh?
These Sims are living it up.
No matter which mode you pick, though, you’re allowed to make your own decisions about everything. There’s no linear plot driving you here. You can go into whatever profession you choose—jock, criminal, and mad scientist are a few choices provided in the game—or you can decide to not get a job at all. You decide where you want to live, what your sim looks like, if you want to bathe, the works. It’s this level of customization that makes Bustin’ Out, as well as all the other Sims, so fun. True, the game's Bust Out mode has goals to accompany each location, but players aren’t required to complete them. In fact, I think the goals are a very good addition to the series. They give incentive to keep playing the game, because each time you complete a goal you unlock new gameplay options, items, or locations.
One of Bustin’ Out best traits is its humor. The game made me laugh out loud many times and I even spewed soda all over my carpet once…I still can’t get those stains out. Such social interactions as ‘burp in face’ and ‘pull my finger’ are outright hilarious, but characters like Malcolm Landgrabb—who’s dressed up like a plantation owner/pimp in a white tuxedo/top hat combo and does the Deion Sanders high-step everywhere he goes—are even funnier. Even if the game does get tedious after a while, the overall funny-ness and outrageousness of the game should make amends.
For the most part, the controller works for Bustin’ Out. Controlling the game is a simple point-and-click affair, and it works rather well. However, in parts of the game where you can’t point and click, i.e. pause menus and the buy/build screens, the control scheme really goes to crap. Buying new items for your sim quickly turns to a frustrating affair, and you’ll find yourself trying to avoid the whole process after a time. Building things is even more frustrating, as walls are hard to place in their desired positions and items tend to refuse to go where you put them. Even after two console installments, it's still apparent that The Sims was made for the PC.
Graphically, Bustin’ Out fares pretty well. Character models, while very simple, are detailed and well animated, and environments are well textured and responsive. The game runs at a constant sixty frames per second, and the color palette is detailed and varied. I do wish, however, that the game included more than one camera perspective. Sometimes things are just hard too see with the isometric camera angle, no matter how far in or out you’re zoomed. Speaking of hard to see, you might want to buy some glasses before playing Bustin’ Out. Every icon in the game is almost impossible to differentiate—for my eyes, at least—from every other icon. I sometimes have headaches from trying to figure out where the hell the ‘buy/build’ icon is.
This looks like fun.
There isn’t much to speak of in Bustin’ Out’s sound department. Unless your sim turns on the stereo or jukebox, there isn’t any music, and there’s almost no voice acting at all. I’m not sure if you’d mind though, since sims speak jibberish anyway. Sound effects are decent; there’s nothing fabulous here, but each object has a plausible audio representation. Really, sound doesn’t matter as much in this particular game as it does in others. If you truly like the game, chances are you’ll be so engrossed in it you won’t even notice the sound.
A multi-player mode is present in Bustin’ Out, but it’s nothing to write home to mom about. Your and a buddy’s sim live simultaneously in one environment, free to perform every interaction available in the single-player mode. While it sounds entertaining in theory, problems do arise. The diagonal screen separating the two players limits gameplay considerably, and is really a pain when you need to move objects around or build onto a house. If you own both the GCN and GBA versions of the game, you can take the sim from your GC and put him on the GBA, as to earn new skills, interactions, and simoleans. If you don’t already have the GBA version of the game, though, this is no reason to purchase it, as such a small addition to the game doesn’t warrant a thirty dollar purchase.
Overall, The Sims: Bustin’ Out is an enjoyable game…if you’re a fan of the series. By the way, if you're interested in buying this game, be sure to invest in a new memory card, as this sucker takes 161 blocks. Though it has new gameplay aspects, like goals and some new customization options, this is just another soldier added to Maxis's army of expansion packs. Review By: Stealth52 - 1437 Reads
The Sims Bustin' Out Review Scores for GC :
| Gameplay |
| 7 |
| Graphics |
| 7.5 |
| Sound |
| 6 |
| Replay |
| 9 |
| Overall |
| 7.5 |
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