The origin of today's batch of "real-life simulators" predates The Sims by about twenty years with a title called Little Computer People for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, which allowed you to guide a self-motivated character living in his own home. He owned a pet and performed a number of menial tasks such as sleeping, showering, watching television, and going to work. You were able to suggest what he should do and he would either listen or not listen depending on his desires and needs at the time.Truth be told, even though my family was ecstatic about the game at the time and what it would mean for Artificial Intelligence in future games (remember, we're talking about 1983 here), the game got on my nerves. The little bit of fun I gleaned from it were the Anagrams. Overall, I found the game pointless and frustrating, even if it was something to marvel at. And it was.

And so it was with The Sims. It was an excellent game. I personally enjoyed the home-construction aspects of the game, but I found its relative free-form pointlessness to be, well, pointless. The game was, again, a marvel of AI and it had quite a few other excellent qualities, but it wasn't my cup of tea. The grandiose scale of the game intimidated me. Things happened too fast and the days were too short to get a handle on what was going on. Maybe I just had attention deficiency, but I could not get into The Sims, for all it had to offer.

So, when I say I absolutely adore The Urbz for the Nintendo DS, I want you all to understand why. The Urbz - and I am not sure how this version matches up against the other console versions as I have not played them - offers a much more focused, semi-linear, semi-free-form version of The Sims. The casual observer would say that it is a watered-down version of The Sims, but I would disagree. It is The Sims taken in a different direction.

You do not build a house in this game, but you are able to rent from a variety of choices, and populate them with an assortment of objects, from the mundane to the absurd, in true Maxis style. As far as the DS features go - I think Maxis nailed it perfectly. This is what how I envision a dual screen game to be. The touch screen acts as your interface. Via the stylus, you are able to navigate through different screens that offer input about your character. At any time, you can browse the skill levels your Urb has attained, the jobs he has performed and the requirements for the next promotion - you can attain four promotions for each job minigame, and with each promotion the difficulty increases, but so does the reward, the objects he is carrying, and the goals he is currently working on.

The game offers a variety of minigames, most of which utilize the touch screen for input. Each job has five levels and there are certain character and job requirements before you can attain the next rank - but doing so is worthwhile as it nets you more cash in the long run. Overall, I found the minigames engaging and fun, which is important as they are a core aspect of the game - you need money just to pay rent and these various jobs are your chief method of obtaining "Simoleans." You can spend Simoleans in a variety of fashions - you can buy furniture as mentioned earlier, you can pay to take classes which will boost one of your skills, and you need cash to complete a variety of goals which are the crux of the game.

As for goals, these will change from game to game, especially if you change your affiliations - there are a couple of different factions at work in Miniopolis - referred to as rep groups - and you will subscribe to one at the beginning of the game as you answer questions to create your character. This will slightly affect the way other characters react to you, your dialog choices, and the way your goals unfold. The goals propel the story. You have a number of missions each with a multitude of multi-tiered goals to accomplish. These goals may include meeting someone at a certain time and at a certain place, or attaining a specific promotion level in a certain job, attaining a certain reputation with another Urb, or purchasing something. Some of these are quite easy, and some are rather involved - they will keep you busy.

There are a few flaws. For instance, much of this game involves interacting with people. You are given three dialogue choices and each character will have a certain reaction to your choice. They will respond with some blurb indicating their reaction and this will either increase or decrease (or, rarely, not affect) your overall reputation with them. Unfortunately, once you've learned how a certain person reacts to a certain dialogue choice, they will always respond the same way, and it becomes monotonous. Eventually, you will unlock more and more areas of the city and in doing so will open up more characters. In a way, this helps erode your memory of how certain characters react to certain dialogue choices as it is difficult to remember how every character reacts to every choice, though the game is a bit logical in how characters respond (for instance, a girl Urb who is an obvious shopper will respond positively to a dialogue choice about shopping, while a homeless Urb would respond negatively to a query about his home décor).

Speaking of erosion, this is another minor irritation - you have eight different motivations in the game, and these range from tiredness to comfort to hunger to excretion. If your motive level drops significantly for any of these, you will not be able to perform any action. Occasionally, this will happen at an inopportune time (i.e., just as you are about to meet someone at a certain time), and you will have to miss the appointment to go take care of your Urb's personal needs. In the beginning of the game, the erosion levels seem a bit devastating and you will find yourself running back and forth to the toilet and the eatery. And if your toilet gets stolen - well, good luck. It took about 30 game days for the toilet to show up in my shop.

Again, the designers give you a way to combat this - as you obtain more and more money, you can buy appliances and furniture that both increase your motivation levels quicker than the economy-price models and maintain them longer. A gold-plated toilet allows you a longer period of not going to the bathroom than the standard model, and a plasma TV will hold your boredom level at nil for far longer than the monochrome set. You can also purchase Xzizzles, and this is a minigame in itself - every time you increase your reputation with another Urb to 75%, they will reward you with an Xzizzle Bead. Three Xzizzles Beads can be turned in at a certain spot for extra abilities, most of which decrease motive erosion by a certain percentage. After a while, you will still be prompted to go the bathroom and such, but it will not conflict with your day to day activities as heavily as in the beginning of the game. These Xzizzles differ from rep group to rep group. Xzizzle Beads can also be found by searching certain areas of Miniopolis.

I truly enjoyed this game. It isn't everyone's cup of tea. The game is somewhere in between an engrossing graphic adventure and a hardcore Sims game. The linear storyline, inability to build your own house, and total lack of autonomy for the character under your control may turn diehard Sims fans away, while the number of mundane chores that are required to get through the game may repel those looking for a graphic adventure. To me, the game is a perfect mixture of both. It has a very engaging tongue-in-cheek storyline that advertises Maxis' brand of humor while engrossing you in a number of, when you come down to it, mundane every-day tasks. I always loved the concepts that The Sims and family employed, but always wished for more focus. The Urbz offers this focus with the sacrifice of a few aspects of the The Sims games, while offering it in an authentic Sims-like package and showcasing the innovative qualities of the Nintendo DS.

Nov 17, 2004 | 0 comments
Roger Helgeson