DS Review: Sims 2

Sims 2 for DS...what a disappointment.

Having owned Sims 2 for PC in the past, I know how the game is supposed to be played and work. So when I saw there was a DS version, I thought "Fantastic! I'll finally be able to play it again!" (My laptop has overheating issues now with anything involving the dvd drive, rendering almost all my PC games unplayable on this machine. Sigh.) Oh, if only. I knew there had to be a catch.

Right about here, you can take EVERYTHING you know about Sims 2 and throw it out the window. You do NOT own a house...nor even a plot of land to build a customizable house on. You aren't living a character's life where you raise a family and cultivate relationships. (Wasn't that the entire POINT of Sims 2 in the first place?) No, no, no...

They may as well have titled this Sims 2: Hotel Manager. In this game, you're driving along, and your car busts down in the middle of this run-down town in the middle of nowhere called Strangetown. (This is about the ONLY similarity to the PC game I found in the whole game, as there is a neighborhood on the PC version with that name.) For some reason unbeknownst to us players, WE are left in charge of running this hotel. Why? Because we showed up, that's why!

Most of the characters you'll run across and keep in your hotel are pretty much just filler material. Anyone who insists on staying up in your penthouse suite = BAD NEWS. You'll encounter the leader of the local Mafia as one of these characters, a goth girl who starts a cult in your hotel's basement and brainwashes all your other patrons, and an out of control robot who's hellbent on destroying everything and overtaking mankind. Beating these foes isn't particularly difficult - I managed to play through the whole game while multitasking numerous instant messages online. I'd say maybe it's better for a younger crowd for its simplicity, but MAN, what kind of messed up messages would it be sending to the kids?!

Oh, I almost forgot the best part. Did I mention there's aliens? Oh yeah. There's aliens. They constantly try and overtake your town to. If you get too close without vanquishing them, they'll abduct you and anal probe you. (Well okay...the anal probe thing is more of just my imagination. But they DO abduct you, and drop you off back in your manager suite, and you walk funny for a few minutes afterwards. Anal probe is implied, methinks.) It's more humorous than it is scary.

So that covers the bad guys, pretty much, without giving everything away. There's also add-ons to build onto your hotel; several restaurants, a jazz lounge where you can make music, a gym (serves no real purpose), a casino, and an art gallery where you can create your own masterpieces on the walls. (I'd of been more impressed if I could make sculptures, too.) They're interesting, I suppose, but nothing too awe-inspiring.

Overall, it's not really a bad game... It's just not what one expects when purchasing Sims 2. So, with this in mind, and rating it for exactly what it is - a highly stereotyping hotel-managing game - I'll give this game 6 1/2 Rattinators. Why Rattinators? When you play the game, you'll see soon enough.

DS Review: The Wild West

I'll admit, when I saw the title of this game, I inwardly squealed with delight. A DS game based on the old west?? It must be a dream come true! (I've always been a geek for most things western - must come from growing up on a small horse ranch.) I didn't pay much attention to the fact that on the cover, there's very obviously an alligator in cowboy regalia... why is there an alligator dressed like this? I don't know! Well, I do now. I purchased the game without bothering looking much further into it than the title alone. Big, big mistake...

Unless you're into mindless shooters, this probably isn't going to be the game for you. I've never been one to be very interested in those, so there you go. The controls are difficult and glitchy, the sound effects and music are enough to cause you to turn the sound off all the way during gameplay (which is also bad, since then you can't hear when you're being shot at), and did I mention that everyone in the game are ANIMALS? Yes. The two main characters you can pick between to play are a wolf and a cat. But they're like anthropomorphic (sp?) animals; in other words, animals made to try and look like humans. The way they went about it just screamed out "furries" to me, and that was enough to put me off of the game in and of itself right from the get-go. Every level seems to be a variation of the same thing; shooting at more animals dressed up like people who also have guns. PETA would probably have a field day with this one if they knew of its existence. I was expecting something more along the lines of a hardcore Oregon Trail.

Granted, I didn't give this game very much time before I deemed it unplayable, at least for myself. If anyone else has a different opinion of the game, please, share it with me! Because I just don't understand how this one could possibly be enjoyable.

I give The Wild West a rating of 1/2 of a pistol out of 10.