Published: Tuesday, 12th February, 2008 12:00
The Sims: Castaway Stories
By Narin Bahar
Comments (0)
Print Article
The Sims: Castaway Stories. Picture courtesy of Maxis.
As anyone who watches Lost knows, washing up on a tropical island is only the beginning of your troubles.
From finding shelter and foraging for food to dealing with the dangers of wild animals and the pesky other inhabitants of your new home, even Ray Mears'd be hard pressed to do it all with a smile on his face.
But now Maxis have taken the well-worn, and yet still enduring, plot device as the basis for the latest foray into their oh so addictive brand of Sims gaming. So you get to prove that you can out-Mears the man himself, without actually having to brave the great outdoors - or even your front garden.
There are two modes - a story mode (although to be fair, the term should be used loosely) and the usual freeform mode - which sees you explore, find resources and then build and craft things from them and interact with other strandees as island life unfolds.
Jobs in the game are replaced with survival options: you can tell your Sims to work as hunters, gatherers, or crafters and they will go out and find food and resources to enable them to buy the usual things which will make your tree house feel like a home from home, all while ensuring that your Sim's mood meter doesn't dip leaving them to perish.
While you'd think that having such a clearly defined environment would make this game feel quite limited, oddly the opposite felt true and by a few hours in I was happily fashioning harpoons out of bamboo, planting edible foliage, weaving my own clothes and giggling slightly at being able to train a monkey butler to ensure the camp was kept tidy.
Once you've set up your home base, then you have two choices - whether to continue living the simple life or venturing out to explore and see if you can find your way back to civilisation - and no, I didn't see any mysterious smoke, polar bears, or hidden hatches during my recces of the island.
The third title in the Sims Stories series, Castaway Stories aptly goes back to simpler times, stripping away the game engine of The Sims, Sims 2, and the plethora of add ons that left your PC a wheezing shell by the time you'd installed all the relevant bits. I tested this on a humble low spec laptop and it worked brilliantly - and without the irritating loading screens which blight the game on other platforms. It is also original enough to ensure it's utterly addictive.
Four stars out of five.
* The Sims: Castaway Stories, £19.99 PC
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Stumbleupon
