MYSIMS AGENTS REVIEW (Wii)
I admit, I was sceptical about MySims: Agents the moment I saw the case. “Oh great,” I thought, “I need to review an obviously terrible game.” Well, first impressions aren’t always correct. My scepticism continued until about 15 minutes after I’d fired up the game. From that point on, my inner child (never very far from the surface) came out to see what was up. Below are his findings, which I found strewn about the room when I regained consciousness; they were written on sheets of toilet paper in yellow crayon. MySims: Agents was gone, and so were my pants.
Pros
Once you get beyond its goofy exterior that most kids will appreciate, even an adult can have fun with this game. Even men. Even MANLY men. The game plays like a point-and-click Sierra game without the pointing and clicking; you walk around and find things, not for using on other things but for solving heinous crimes. You can run, jump, and even use your trusty agent’s tools (like a crowbar) to bring mysteries to their conclusion. Apart from investigating, you’ll also participate in some surprisingly fun minigames when you hack computers ‘n’ such. In short, the gameplay is smooth and offers a variety of activities that should be more than enough to keep the player interested.
While the story arcs themselves aren’t very imaginative and wouldn’t appeal to many gamers who have already hit puberty, the dialogue contains all sorts of surprises for every age group. Most of it is simple and silly enough to appeal to kids, but a few more complex jokes are thrown in that could draw an unexpected chuckle from the lips of an older gamer. The real comedy gold is in the hilarious situations characters occasionally find themselves in, usually involving the nefarious plans of the game’s villains. It’s these parts of the plot that are truly innovative, even if the main story looks dull from a broader perspective.
The thing that keeps my interested in this game is definitely the level of customization available. You can make your agent look a number of different ways (like Isaac from Dead Space!!!1!), and you collect new clothes and other accessories as you progress. Aside from this, you can also customize your multi-level hideout with a huge selection of paint and furniture. The amount of stuff you get for customization’s sake is pretty impressive, and I took great pleasure in watching Agent Isaac decorating his hideout with cow-patterned wallpaper.
Cons
This is a rather small and unnecessary part of the game, but it bugs me. Dispatch missions. Your agent can recruit other agents to carry out missions for you, and their chance of success relies on their skills. Unfortunately, no matter how good they are you’re going to get a number of annoying text messages about their progress even if you’re busy with other things. If you don’t check them, you run the risk of not being able to instruct your bonehead employees on how to do their job. If I dispatch someone else to do a job that I could do myself, I should be able to tell him to not talk to me until the job is done. If he fails, suicide. It’s that simple… Or at least it SHOULD be.
Stop Texting me!! These roaming charges are killing me!!
One of the high points of this game is somewhat crippled by loading screens; specifically the wardrobe. So you want to change how your character looks, eh? Well, be prepared for a loading screen whenever you want to switch between the 5 sections of your wardrobe. One thing is for sure, the frequent wait times will prevent you from wanting to fiddle with your agent’s looks as much as you would otherwise… And with all the new accessories you’ll be getting throughout the game, there’s a LOT of fiddling to be done.
Here’s the deal
This game is much more of a gem than I expected. Even though it’s clearly a game for the younger generation, certain aspects still enchanted me enough to steal away several hours of my life. Kids will have a blast as long as they can hang in there when the investigations start getting tougher, and older gamers will come due to curiosity, become interested by the solid gameplay and snappy dialogue, and stay for the wide range of options for customizing their agents and headquarters. If you give MySims: Agents a chance, you won’t be disappointed. Mike D. 7/10
