MySims Racing Review

It has been a while since we initially saw The Sims branch out onto the Wii, in the somewhat re-branded version of MySims. EA took quite the creative approach to making them a lot more Wii friendly. They've experienced a few outings since then, and now their latest adventure is in the field of racing.

Racing games associated with more recognised franchises, tend not to be very innovative. The first thing that MySims Racing has gone for, is it has not fallen into this same pitfall. Whether the formula is good enough to rival the competitors will be interesting. Is MySims Racing going to take that leading position or find itself just not able to keep up?

Upon arriving into the story mode of the game, players are greeted by an old mechanic called Ol' Gabby. The player is then able to create their Sim, and while you do pick whether the character is male or female, all customisable options remain the same for both genders. Moving onto cars, being able to customise three different vehicles--small, medium and large--is a rather nice addition. The player is given quite a range of options to begin with, and the variation is quite good initially.

Ol' Gabby explains the situation, that an ace racer and a friend of his Sir Charles vanished 10 years ago, when he went in a hot air balloon across the ocean and hasn't been seen since. In the mean time the town that had grown to be a racing phenomenon has since diminished into ruins, as all the racers have since left. To make matters worse an evil tycoon by the name of Morcubus is claiming rights to the tracks and wants to have them turned into landfills. This is where the player makes his entrance to try and prove himself, by entering the tournaments to encourage people back to the town. The story progresses with each new area unlocked in nice comic strip style interludes.

Here it becomes apparent where the Sims side of the gameplay comes into affect. Various towns folk that are selectable on an overhead map can be visited, each offering various challenges which range from collecting items, beating checkpoints, doing burning laps, obstacle courses and actual races. Completing challenges for a particular person fills their friendship hearts based on the players success via a medal system of bronze, silver and gold, the later filling the hearts the most. Each time you complete a challenge you are rewarded with parts for cars, and sometimes blueprints to improve the overall performance. Completing all challenges for a resident with a gold throughout will net players a special blueprint. For the most part obtaining gold medals can be quite difficult without upgrading anything, but earlier medals will be substantially easier to get once modifications to vehicles have been made. However, some medals can still seem quite improbable to get while others are far too easy.

Blueprints can also be obtained from various citizens and rivals for completing their tasks, as well as each track having a hidden blueprint placed usually on a shortcut to obtain during races. Blueprints and parts are made in the garage and require essences to actually make, for the most part the player won't ever need to worry about this as the game awards essences in abundance from completing challenges. The biggest problem with the use of the upgrade system is it has the potential to act as a player controlled difficulty setting as tweaking your car with new parts early on can give you an overwhelming advantage over the other racers.

Now let's get to the core reason to purchase the title, the actual racing. First thing to note is it's actually quite debatable how much racing there is in MySims Racing. If you classify "racing" as versing other opponents, there are actually only a few of these in challenges. Sweet spot starts are in the game, although are extremely easy to do as all the player has to do is rev the engine into a central part on a curved meter. Each racer has a boost meter as well, which can be filled by drifting, knocking other racers and getting air time off jumps. There are also picks up known as F-Energy scattered around the race tracks which add small amounts to the boost bar. Combo all the above together fills the boost bar extremely fast and when it reaches a certain point, it gives an extra speed boost when used.

Controls are quite fluid, and it doesn't take long to get right into the thick of things. It feels intuitive and the majority of similarities with other racing titles are in play. Tracks are quite inventive as well, with plenty of key racing lines and shortcuts to exploit. As well some of the later levels having more environmental obstacles. The other thing worth mentioning is power-ups, and while some of these feel like an after-thought not really relating to the whole MySims theme, most are quite stable, while others simply are not. One power-up in particular carries players across a section of track inside a UFO; this can potentially cause a loss for 1st place right at the end of the race when no one is anywhere near them. Some of the ideas for the power-ups are quite clever though - albeit extremely annoying. A dust cloud can invert the screen for anyone in front of the user, which can be disorientating. Another sends rabbits to cover the players screen with hearts, but it can effectively be prevented before it even does anything by shaking the controller as soon as the rabbit pops up.

Graphically the game is quite appealing, the MySims look is as overly cute as ever, and their cars tend to follow a similar pattern. The tracks themselves are quite varied in appearance and some are completely mad towards the later stages of the game. The music is also quite typical of the Sim's style, and their quirky language is a welcome addition to which no Sims game would be the same without.

The the 4 player split screen local multiplayer and Wi-Fi multiplayer, add a layer of re-playability to the game. The downfalls from power-ups can make the experience far more frustrating for everyone, as some of the more overpowered ones seem to fall into players hands all too often. That said, with 15 tracks and 14 racers to choose from, including the ability to use your own custom racer, there is a fair bit of a fun still to be had with the game.

7

Average

While MySims has taken an unusual approach to enter the kart racing genre, EA has done a fairly good job pulling it off. Alas, they haven't quite done enough to really send their rivals reeling. While it's a solid fun racing game, at times it loses that approach by seemingly dragging on the gameplay with challenges that become almost monotonous. The customisation being the Sims major selling point is quite fun and there are plenty of parts and pieces to unlock allowing for some rather weird concoctions. While the racing side is fun, there just isn't enough of it and some of those power ups can leave players with a rather cheated feeling. Those that really like the Sims and can't get enough of their antics will find this provides a lot of fun.