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.