MySims

MySims, previously known by the working title The Sims Wii, is a game developed and published by Electronic Arts as a spinoff to The Sims franchise. It was released for the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows, and mobile phones. The art style and gameplay is heavily inspired by Nintendo franchises such as Animal Crossing. This is the first game in the MySims series and is followed by MySims Kingdom, MySims Party, MySims Racing, MySims Agents, and MySims SkyHeroes.

Apart from creating a custom Mii-like character, players may also modify their houses and build furniture and appliances using a selection of building blocks. This gives the player more building options, allowing them to create objects by using blueprints, a change from the usual virtual catalog found in The Sims. There are 80 characters with whom the player may interact with in the Wii version (30 characters in the Nintendo DS version), such as a mad scientist, a magician, a librarian, a pizza chef, and a Sim Fu teacher. Some of these characters may ask the player to build things for them. As with previous Sim games, meeting people and forming relationships is a major gameplay focus. Becoming a Sim's best friend will earn the player either a special blueprint not available any other way in the game, or an outfit for their wardrobe. Players can also earn blueprints by performing tasks for Commercial Sims (sims who have their own businesses). Typically this involves building around 5-10 items for Sims, depending on the Star Level (rated 1-5) of the player's town and the essences they have access to. A feature to MySims is "Essences". They can be found in various locations in town or by interacting with Sims or objects. Essences are used for a number of things including paint for the walls of houses, construction of items, as well as decoration for the items

Compared to previous Sims titles, MySims has a more anime-inspired look, with character designs. This was Emmy Toyonaga's idea; in Official Nintendo Magazine she remarked: "Well, Mario and other Nintendo characters are pretty short and stubby. Also, being Japanese, I'm used to the mindset that fun games should have shorter, stubbier characters. So these characters kind of came naturally." In Nintendo Power, designer Robin Hunicke said that the character designs also imply youthfulness, and that the aesthetic was chosen for world-wide appeal, while referring to the lesser sales of previous Sims games in Japan compared to other territories. According to Official Nintendo Magazine one of the sims in MySims, Chaz McFreely, is based on their then editor, Chandra Nair.

StoryEdit The Player comes to a town, which the Player names, and helps Mayor Rosalyn P. Marshall bring it back to life. The Player builds his/her own house and builds his/her own workshop. You start out working for the mayor, and furnishing the town hall. Next the player fixes up the town flower shop. After doing so, Chef Gino arrives at the hotel. You build him a restaurant and soon, your town reaches the next star level, which unlocks more Sims to move in and more blueprints to use. From there on, you are given the liberty to create and design your town however you like as well as the furniture you build for your citizens to use. FeaturesEdit MySims is similar to the original Sims franchise, but many things have been changed in this game. The inhabitants are now blocky, anime-style figures, instead of realistic humans, but still have their gibberish language. Unlike "The Sims", the characters in MySims don't have any needs like having to eat, or sleep. Another feature in this is to build virtually anything in the game, unlike The Sims where you can only build a house, and decorate it. SequelsEdit Main articles: MySims Kingdom, MySims Party, MySims Racing, MySims Agents, and MySims SkyHeroes Five sequels have currently been released for MySims. MySims Kingdom was released October 28, 2008 and MySims Party was released on the 9th of March 2009. MySims Racing was also released on June 12, 2009. Also, MySims Agents came out September 29 of 2009. MySims SkyHeroes came out September 28th, 2010. Reception Edit MySims has received fairly mixed, but generally decent reviews. It is known for having colorful graphics, and cheery and fun gameplay, but criticized for having too much focus on construction and collecting essences. IGN said that "The problem is that nearly all of the objectives revolve around the same two tasks: the collection of essences and the construction of houses, buildings and items. All of the Sim management and social interaction elements of the previous games – well, you're not going to find much of that in the streamlined Wii affair". Gamespot praised the Wii game for the construction being intuitive and flexible and for the presentation being cheery and clean. It was also criticized for having longer than usual load times. Its Nintendo DS counterpart is regarded as virtually an all new game in design; However, reception of its control scheme varied greatly.