The Sims 2 series has always had trouble adjusting itself to home consoles. The massive amount of information that has to be stored in each game makes it difficult for the developers to give gamers a chance to experience the content in the pc versions. The Sims 2: Castaways attempts to re-envision the sims genre by placing you on a deserted island where you will have to create everything from scratch. Will The Sims 2: Castaways disappoint, or will it take you on the adventure of a lifetime? You will start off by creating your sim. The creation tools are limited this time, which is disappointing, considering that building a sim was one of the most entertaining aspects of previous games in the series. This will become unimportant as you play the game though, since your clothes will begin to tear as you travel through brush on the island. Luckily, you can make clothes by gathering items on the island and the amount of clothes you can create are more plentiful than the clothes you choose from at the start of the game. When you begin playing for the first time, the tutorial will tell you your basic survival needs. The tutorial is nice, but it doesn't give you enough information. Even the instruction manual fails at delivering enough information. Despite being very confused from the start, you will eventually start to realize that collecting will be the key to your sims survival. For instance, getting some decent clothing will require you to collect a certain amount of leaves or vines from the island and you will have to collect even more items when you start to build more important things like a house, or a raft. Collecting items is not too difficult, but it becomes monotonous and tiresome. To truly enjoy the game, you will have to force your self through the hours of gathering. The Sims 2: Castaways is one of those games that just gets better as you progress, giving the player a sense of accomplishment when they complete tasks. You will start to find your shipwrecked crewmates, and discover more plants constantly as the game begins to hit it's stride. The downside is, that it becomes pretty hectic when you have so much to keep track of, which was one of the main concerns in the sims 2: Pets. On a technical level, the Sims 2: Castaways doesn't look too bad. The glitches are gone, which is a great technical achievement compared to the other the other games on consoles. The long load times return though. It takes about 12 seconds to load as you go to each area instead of 60 seconds. Overall, The Sims 2:Castaways is a great survival game, but it just takes a little bit too long to reach it's stride.
When I played this, I'll admit, my first thoughts were, "I wanna like this, but theres just nothing to like." And there isn't, at first. The first hour or so of the game is dullsville. You have no idea what you... Read Full Review
Most console versions of The Sims so far have been abit of a letdown that didn't capture the essence of the PC versions. But Castaway has broken the mould and made a non-PC actually good port of a Sims game. The plot ... Read Full Review
