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MySims Kingdom Review for Nintendo Wii

MySims Kingdom Review for Nintendo Wii

Last year’s MySims was a pretty fun title, especially for fans of the Sims franchise. It featured a fun construction element and really let players have a lot of freedom to create their own MySims experience. However, the game suffered from technical glitches, obnoxiously long loading screens, and an overall lack of focus. This year’s MySims Kingdom seems to have addressed all of these issues and has some surprisingly fun and deep gameplay that can be quite addictive!

MySims Kingdom screenshot

The storyline in MySims Kingdom revolves around your self-made character’s debut as the MySims Kingdom’s new Wandalier. For the uninitiated, a Wandalier is someone in the MySims universe who can use a special type of construction-based magic. This magic allows the Wandalier to gather natural essences from the world around them to use as material for their construction. These materials can range from wood from a tree and mined iron to pineapples plucked from a bush and fish caught from the ocean. Once the Wandalier has gathered the necessary elements, they will be able to harness a special “Mana” power to transform the items into construction elements.

Your character’s role as the new MySims Kingdom Wandalier will be to run around the different provinces and villages in the Kingdom building new things for citizens and fixing old, broken equipment. Each place has a different theme, and you’ll find yourself travelling to exotic settings that range from a dusty desert filled with cowboys to a lush volcanic island. You’ll be able to unlock more settings as you go along, and there is definitely plenty to explore in all these exciting settings.

Although running around and building things might sound like a boring premise for a game, MySims is actually quite exciting. Construction during the initial levels is very simplistic and generally consists of building simple structures like houses, bridges, and staircases. Each structure will have a certain amount of material it needs as well as specific features you must include for the structure to be “complete.” For instance, when building a house you may need to have a certain amount of “design” elements, including windows, plants, and other decorations for the house to be considered complete.

MySims Kingdom screenshot

After building these simple items, you will be able to begin building simple machines. Utilizing construction tools like gears, rods, and pipes, you will be able to create moving machines. There are generally no templates for these machines, and you will have to use your own creativity to engineer your creations effectively. As you play through the different levels, the machines and structures you will have to build become more complex, and the game’s difficulty becomes surprisingly intense.

One thing that really surprised me about this title was the amount of things to explore in each level. Although each level has a fairly linear set of goals, if you take some time to search around the stage, you’ll find plenty of treasure chests as well as bonus construction objectives and elements. While you could feasibly complete this game in 10-12 hours, if you take the time to unlock everything, you can extend your gameplay time quite a bit.

MySims Kingdom screenshot

Graphics in MySims are crisp and colorful and really bring the cutesy attitude of the game to life. The character animations are quite smooth, and the different environments look whimsical and fun. However, the visuals are lacking quite a bit of detail, and although environments have a nice basic look to them, there is quite a bit to be desired here in terms of detail. But overall, this is one of the better-looking Wii games I have seen in awhile, and I am happy to see that it is free of the shuddering and texturing issues that plague so many Wii releases.

The sound in this title is also very good. Each themed level has corresponding music that plays in the background is quite pleasant to listen to. The game even has a menu option that allows you to view the background tune’s artist and song title, in case you are really digging the groove. The voiceover in MySims is extremely cute and, as you might expect, is entirely in the faux-language of Simlish. As is the case with all MySims games, the language is only barely intelligible, but makes for some laughs and helps you really get into the world of the game.

MySims Kingdom screenshot

Controls in MySims Kingdom are extremely tight and utilize the Wii-Mote and Nunchuk combination. You will use the Nunchuk’s thumbstick to move around and the Wii-mote’s pointer to select different objects. The camera is also fully controllable via the D-pad. But the real surprise with the controls comes with the incorporation of the game’s motion controls, which are very tight and somehow manage to be really fun to play with.

The motion controls for this title come in to play when your character needs to gather elements. So, if you need to gather wood elements from a tree, you can move your Wii-mote back and forth like an axe to chip wood away from the tree. Alternately, if you need a mineral from under the ground, you can point your Wii-mote like a shovel and “dig” the minerals up. The motion controls in MySims Kingdom are implemented perfectly, and this title is really a representation of how Wii titles should implement motion control functionality.

Overall, I really loved MySims Kingdom. There was plenty here to explore and build, and while the story might have been on the forgettable side, I really enjoyed the focused Sim-style gameplay. This title brings together the creative energy of The Sims franchise and channels it into a cute little construction-based title that ends up being anything but. MySims is a big adventure in a small package, and if you are a fan of the Sims, or any other casual title, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.0 Graphics
Cutesy graphics are vibrant and colorful, but environments are a tad on the bland side. 4.4 Control
Controls are easy to use, and the motion enhancements are surprisingly fun! 4.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Different level themes are pleasant to listen to, and Simlish voiceovers are as cute as ever. 4.3

Play Value
The game’s progress is very linear, but there is plenty of room to explore in each of the game’s numerous levels.

4.2 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Epic Storyline: Players must join forces with our other MySims to restore King Roland’s kingdom to its former glory.
  • New faces and familiar friends: Meet new MySims – like King Roland – and catch up with old friends like Ginny and Buddy who have both made delightful career changes!
  • Travel to New Lands: Traverse the vast and varied lands of the kingdom – each with its own unique theme – to discover all the unique things to do in each area, while you help the local citizens there.
  • New building options: In addition to houses and furniture, you can now build many more contraptions that will help you finish your epic quest for the King.

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