A pig herder becomes a dutiful wandolier in MySims Kingdom

This might be an obvious statement to make, but with The Sims games, I either enjoy them or I don’t. There’s no middle ground. I first got to play the original game for the PC long after everyone else did, sometime back during my late college days in 2004/2005 or so, and I enjoyed it for the most part, never getting really far with my house or job or relationships with the kooky and nosy neighbors that populated Sim Lane. Speaking of relationships, by the time I started playing this, my then-girlfriend, which we will call the Giraffe, also ate up the game, so much that she bought her own copy, and we would ooh and ahh over each other’s furniture pickings and race each other to upgrade our houses. It was light competitiveness, but it kept the game meaningful. However, I have not touched many iterations after the original.

Of the many spin-offs and iterations, I have played a tiny bit of The Sims 3 on my cell phone, The Sims Social on Facebook until I couldn’t really progress anymore without spending some hard-earned cash, and MySims Agents for the Nintendo DS. Of those three, surprisingly, I am more fond of the latter title, which is part of a sub-franchise of simulation games built around the idea of being kid-friendly and easier to get into. Granted, I rated the game a 4 out of 10, but I can’t fault it for being a more relaxing, sim-like experience. Sometimes you just want to fart around in a world without worrying that you’ll go hungry or set yourself aflame in the kitchen or aren’t making enough money at your job to pay for all that furniture you just ordered.

And so we come to MySims Kingdom. For the Nintendo Wii. Yeah, yeah…I know. On Grinding Down, there has not been a ton of Wii coverage, mostly because I never remember to turn it on and play the games I got for it, but on a recent trip to GameStop, with a buy-two-used-get-one-free deal hanging low overhead, I picked up Katamari Damacy (PS2!), Super Paper Mario (Wii), and…MySims Kingdom. For free. It was free.

To my shock, it’s not bad. I mean, it’s not great, either, but it’s not bad. Most notably, the writing is sharp and pretty funny. You start as a low pig farmer of whatever build you like, whether it’s a boy or girl. You then get thrown into a contest. After which, you are chosen by King Roland to become the new wandolier for the kingdom. It is a wandolier’s job to scour the many islands that make up the kingdom and help people remain happy. All previous wandoliers have passed away or retired, and many islands have fallen into disrepair. It’s a paper-thin story, but it at least gives you a reason to go around helping people with their problems instead of just asking like an overzealous creepo.

Pauly’s friends Buddy and Lyndsay help dish out sidequests, as well as some amusing, if downright silly dialogue. Like, that one time Buddy talked about growing some bacon in the ground, and a little later, while using a metal detector, I discovered a whole bunch of ground-bacon. There’s also a wizard that sometimes says ABBA-CADOOBIE when disappearing; as an Abba, I can get behind that.

I just finished all the tasks on the first island you can go to once you get your boat. This was a Western-themed place called Cowboy Junction. Here, Pauly the Wandolier helped restore an outdoors pizza cafe, a blacksmith, herd Roxie Road’s cows into place, and teach a misinterpreted bandit how to make friends. Aww. It’s all very relaxing–except for the Wii-mote motion parts, like chopping down trees or clinking rocks with a pickaxe in search of gems–and not at all difficult, though the grinding and Simlish can become grating after too long of a play session. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately (I really can’t tell anymore these days), I got this shortly before getting Borderlands 2, so I don’t know when I’ll be back, but when I need to cool my jets, paint some houses green, dig up bacon bits, and collect musical notes from trees, I know just the place.

Building a bland city and not blowing up

Yesterday, someone called in a bomb threat to the building I work at. Not for my company, mind you, but one of the ones we share working space with, and so a little before lunchtime hit we all had to evacuate the building. This was signaled by a blaring fire alarm, and not knowing what I know now, I just grabbed my cell phone and headed outside. I left my lunch in the fridge, as well as my Nintendo 3DS and car keys on my desk. At most, I figured we’d be back inside within fifteen minutes or so. I learned my lesson.

But then fifteen-plus cop cars showed up, and numerous officers of the law asked everyone to move away from the building. Like, not in the parking lot, but maybe in the parking lot across the street. The roadways coming in and leaving the area were closed down, and cars in the parking lot were restricted to remain there. Some people managed to drive out to freedom and a place to eat foodstuff, but others were left standing across the street, huddled like cows, chewing grass and pondering life. Myself included, except I did what I always do, going solo and finding a tree to sit under by myself while I waited this whole “fire alarm” out in general curiosity.

After a while, as we are all wont to do, I began playing around on my phone to help pass time. Or at least distract me from my grumbling stomach. An hour had passed, and no one was still allowed near the building. Flashes of my lunch in the company kitchen tortured me constantly. Now, if you didn’t know, I don’t have an amazing phone–it’s the Verizon Reality–and I’m fine with that. My phone is a device I use in emergencies to call people, as well as text my wife that I made it to work in one piece. I have two full games downloaded on it: Final Fantasy and The Sims 3. So, I played a little more Final Fantasy, grinding my team of four up a whole level, but that eventually became stale. I began looking around the shop for something new, but nothing seemed interesting or worth the price.

Until I saw a game labeled FREE. It’s called Little Big City, and it’s basically the mobile version of CityVille, a game I played diligently for a month or so, but faded away from like all Facebook games. Like FarmVille, you click on things and wait for them to finish doing what they are doing. Every action is accounted for, and when you run out of energy actions, you have to wait until the bar grows again to do more. This doesn’t take terribly long, so one is constantly tapping and seeing results. It’s not the most amazing little game, but it definitely helped distract me from the cop cars zooming back and forth by or trying to listen in on their cryptic radio chatter. I planted a lot of blueberries, built some homes, played a “match two” mini-game after raising a park, and also created some city staples, such as a flower shop and bakery. Gone are the annoying parts of having to bother real-life friends for things like construction beams or lightning bolts, as Little Big City just gives you a handful of AI neighbors to help and poke when the time calls for it.

I do, however, have a major complaint, and yes, I am going to complain about a free game, so if you’re not into that thing, well…see ya. In Little Big City, you always have something to do. A list of missions is clickable on the side, and these exist to give you guidance, as well as reward you for doing big things, like constructing a City Hall. However, if you built a City Hall before you received the mission to build a City Hall…you’re boned. You either have to build a second one–which, as a city planner, makes no sense–or bulldoze the one you already built for a measly amount of cash and rebuild to complete the mission and earn the EXP and monetary reward tied to it. It’s madness, and it happened a lot. Like, I already made six plots for farming and then immediately after was tasked with making six plots. It’s like they knew. But whatever. Not everything can be retroactive, I guess.

That said, Little Big City did the job though and kept me going until we were finally allowed back into the building–somewhen around the 2:30 pm mark–and then I had to monster my lunch in a matter of minutes and get right back to work. Next time someone threatens to blow up the building I’m working in, I’m definitely grabbing my lunch, Nintendo 3DS, and car keys before getting the bleep out of Dodge.

Greeting somewhat warmly The Sims 3 on my Verizon cell phone

I can’t go into the specifics, but over the weekend I was fretting and waiting and worrying and trying very hard to pass the time in a mildly distracting way, but all I had was my cell phone and football on in the background. Ew, ball-foots. So, yeah, sports wasn’t helping, nor was watching the crazies around me. There was a very weak WiFi connection available, limiting the time I could fiddle around on Twitter and Facebook to a minimal. Yet probably enough time to download a mobile game…

…which I’ve never done before in my life.

I have a Verzion Reality cell phone, and that’s exactly what it is–a cell phone. I use it to make calls, text my wife that I made it safely to work, update Twitter rarely, and sometimes take pictures. Other than that, I don’t use it much as a piece of entertainment or gaming device. In fact, the Verizon Reality doesn’t even come with any free games. There’s three trial games for Tetris, Pac-Man, and Oregon Trail, as well as Dice…which just has you shaking the phone and rolling dice around. Exciting. But yeah, I perused the list curiously to see what was available and found myself surprised at some of the titles–Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, and Guitar Hero to name a few. How bizarre that tiny iterations of these big blockbusters exist on such an underpowered piece of equipment.

I ended up putting all my chips on The Sims 3, figuring it was the genre best suited to filling voids of time and performing mindless actions. It was $9.99. The only Sims game I ever played was the very first one, way back when, and I had a good time with it during college. My neighbors were my roommates, and I had a family, as well as a bad habit of setting myself on fire in the kitchen. I know that since The Sims released there’s been about 9,723 more editions, but that’s okay…they all play about the same, right? Sort of.

The Sims 3 mobile version plays vertically, with a mouse arrow stuck in the middle of the screen. You then slide the screen left, right, up, and down until the arrow is on whatever you desire (stove, shower, bed, your neighbor’s uncouth wife) and then tap on it to bring up a list of options (quick snack, shower, nap, seduce her and steal all her jewelry when she’s asleep, respectively). Honestly, it takes a bit of getting used to, and I do worry about not being able to get Sim Pauly over to the bathroom quick enough when he’s got to read a novel.

You start out as a jobless Sim in a modest home with a tad bit of money. It’s up to you to then form your Sim’s life. I gave mine such traits as shy and calm, and I plan to be that way as long as possible. As you play, Wishes pop up randomly–these are kind of like in-game Achievements in that they are specific tasks (example: sleep in another Sim’s bed). There are 75 in all to do…which definitely adds to the time-wasting quality here.

At this point, I spent all my money on a coffee pot and better kitchen table. Now my fridge is broken, and I don’t have the cash money to buy a repair kit. So I did some fishing (caught two catfish!), and applied for a job at the local quickmarket. Haven’t shown up yet to work. My neighbors think I’m a bit creepy. And , just like me, Sim Pauly seems to never not be hungry. Greaaaaaat…

Oh, and here’s what the game looks like if you were as curious as I was:

But yeah, I don’t foresee myself playing this a lot in my free time. I have the Nintendo DS for handheld gaming, but if I’m ever stuck somewhere and need to desperately get my mind off one thing and onto another, this should do the trick just fine. Also, I’m gonna try my bestest to set Sim Pauly on fire in the kitchen, in honor of nostalgia, as well as an excuse to blog about it on Grinding Down.