E3 2007: Hands-on with MySims

7:35 PM on 07.12.2007   |   Colette Bennett

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My descriptive powers are not advanced enough to properly explain to you how cute MySims is, but I am going to attempt it. Imagine going to sleep and finding yourself in a dream where you are hurtling through space. As you go flying past stars and planets, you realize the stars are made of crystallized sugar and the planets are tremendous malted milk balls. Tiny creatures float between the stars which kiss your face as you go by and their kisses taste of white chocolate strawberries. While this is all taking place, an army of singing bunnies who are encased in candy jumpsuits fly out and serenade you while feeding you Pop Rocks until you explode into a jittering burst of light and raw sugar particles and forget your human form ever existed.

Anyway, you get the idea. I had the good fortune of checking out MySims on both Wii and DS today at the EA press event. Animal Crossing fans should flip for this one, especially if they are fans of portable sim games. In MySims, you move to a town that's fallen by the wayside and it's your job to bring it back to life again. Why it would be your job and not the mayor's is never made clear, but the game is too engaging to really care about such matters. The game puts high priority on personal interactions, allowing you to choose who you want to live in your town and making you work to get them there. Of course, if think someone is weird, you can just treat them like crap and they won't move to your town. I wish that worked in real life on internet stalkers.

Both the DS and Wii versions come out on Sept 18th. There isn't a ton of online interaction, although you can send goodies to your friends through the DS WiFi system. The Wii version also lets you take the customization to a further degree by letting you design the entire town and build your own house piece by piece. If you get bored with all this creating, you can go out in town and play minigames like fishing and skydiving to make money. Anyway, don't blame me if you buy it for your girlfriend and end up stealing it. It's ok, you're still manly.