MySims Party Review (Wii)

MySims Party is the third game from the Sims spin -- off franchise. It’s also the first MySims game to not contain building as the main component of the gameplay as well as the first of two alternate games in the MySims franchise. All of your favorite characters return and new friends are introduced.

For people familiar with the MySims franchise you’ll know exactly what you’re looking at. The Sims characters in MySims are geared towards a younger audience. They’re all saccharin sweet with big heads and huge eyes. The world of MySims has been changed again, back to the more familiar land of the original MySims game. You now live on a single island with extra areas that will become unlocked as you progress through the game. The world, which you name at the beginning of your adventure, is marked with lots of vibrant colors. Green expanses of grassy areas and broken up by brilliantly colored flower beds and cobblestone pathways.

The interface, like in other games in the series, is very friendly. Every box is rounded off and looks like something out of a child’s playroom. You feel very welcome, like you couldn’t be hurt by anything.

The Sims still have not learned English, and it’s not likely they will anytime soon. The language of Simlish is still as unintelligible as ever and what they say will never make any sense to you. The familiar jingles heard throughout the MySims franchise return in a slightly remixed form and are always instantly recognizable. Each character has a distinctive voice and the various catch phrases they say will become ingrained in your memory.

MySims Party takes a departure from the already established formula of building objects in the world to progress through the story. You are no longer going around town trying to help people rebuild their broken down city. Now, instead, you are invited to join in the cities various festivals. Each of these festivals begins with the Master of Ceremonies Emcee Emi and her pet monkey Mitch telling you who is going to be your host for the upcoming festivities. All of the mini games in MySims party are based around a theme. Sometimes these themes make sense; sometimes the connection is a little shakier. For instance, many of the minigames during the Delicious Festival will be based on the use of food, but they will also throw in a random game that doesn’t pertain to eating at all.

Once you begin the game you are given the chance to create the Sim that you will guide through the story. This process has never been easy in the MySims games and is made even more tedious during MySims Party. To create your character you are given a template character which you can then edit by pointing to different locations on your Sim and hitting the A or B button. This will cycle through the available options, but takes about 2 seconds between the time you click on the area and the next option loads. This would have been made much more user friendly if when you click on an area, such as the head, you are given a drop down list that you can choose from rather than having to cycle through everything before making your final choice. You’ll also have the option of assigning points to four different statistics that the Sim will use to play the different events; power, speed, stamina, and luck.

Once your character has been created you’ll then waggle, wiggle and shake your way through 50 different minigames during these various celebrations. While there are 50 different mini-games to choose from they are less varied and many of them are variations on a theme. For instance in one mini-game you will be shooting different colored clay pigeons, and in another you’ll be shooting pumpkin heads. Each game is also assigned one or two statistics that your Sim will use during that game. Once the game is over that statistic is reduced by one point to a minimum of one.

The controls during minigames that are based on motion control are less enjoyable due to them not being as responsive as you would like them to be. Motions were often misinterpreted or just didn’t feel responsive enough to control your character effectively. The games based on classic style controls or even the pointer are more effective because the controls work well. Button presses are never misinterpreted, the pointer is very responsive and you’ll have no trouble pointing where you need to point to finish a game.

Pacing during the game is sluggish. Between every minigame you will be taken back to the town square where the Sim hosting the game will have to make some comment on what just happened. This is often repeated and drags the game’s pace down considerably. After they speak you then board a bus which takes you to an unknown destination where you play the different games that are available. Randomly between games you will be taken to an event where you can replenish lost stats by playing a random choose a card style game. This card can increase, or decrease the stat used during the previous minigame, restore all of your team’s stats or do nothing. This doesn’t happen at any predictable moment and could, rather easily, happen between every game adding even more time to an already slow pace of play.

You will also have to play festivals multiple times in order to progress through the story. Rather than a simple linear progression where once you complete a festival the next one unlocks you have to replay festivals multiple times before the next one will unlock. There is no rhyme or reason as to how or when these unlock. You must simply continue participating in different festivals before being able to proceed. Luckily, if you don’t want to play through the story mode and you just want to play the games they are all available from the beginning and do not need to be unlocked.

There is no online multiplayer in MySims Party, which would have made for some more interesting experiences if you can not get friends to come over and play multi-player. You can have up to four people playing locally on the same console. Online interaction is instead limited to online leaderboards where you can compare your scores during the festivals to other players around the world.

MySims Party is attempting to be a party game collection that people will turn to. The problem is there are better games that do the same thing already. The addition of teams of players and statistics is not enough to differentiate this title. Pace of play also needs to be increased to keep the game from dragging down. Fans of the MySims franchise may enjoy the game for a while, but the issues the game has will not keep people coming back for more after a few play sessions.

The MySims franchise has worked on the strength of the user interactions. Building various objects and creating things are what the franchise was built on. There is none of that in this game and it just feels like a cash-in and tacking a popular franchise onto a lackluster game.

Final Score: 2/5