The Sims Bustin' Out (GameCube) Review

The best way to describe The Sims be it any of the PC versions or Bustin' Out on the GameCube, is tedious. Make a list of all the things you hate doing in life: cooking dinner, cleaning the toilet, watering the garden, keeping the kids entertained, making your bed, going to work and even carting yourself to the toilet as and when such an action is called for- all the best things about human existence in the developed world. Videogames try their best to get out of this reality and deliver something that can let you escape this world, The Sims puts you back in the world and includes the added joy of poor bladder control, bliss.

We find it hugely insulting when people who play The Sims call themselves gamers. As far as we are concerned, this is not a game. This is the tedium of life shoved onto a disk and represented in a load of polygons on a TV screen and somewhat unsurprisingly it is not any more fun. The main selling point of previous Sims titles has been the ability to start your own virtual life and control your Sim through thick a thin as some sort of perverted god. The main game mode is much like it has always been, but this time with a nice new twist; ladies and gentleman, welcome to Bustin' Out. You start off at home with your mum, you have to look at the daily newspaper every morning until you find a job you want then you have to ensure that said Sim is washed well, fed well and kept happy all the time, and you also have to ensure that the stupid bloody 'thing' doesn't wet itself. Oh the social embarrassment of standing their cracking a joke to break the ice when rather than bursting out with laughter you burst out something rather uncouth.

We may laugh, but the deep lying physiological effects of wetting yourself in the company of strangers must be quite damaging. When you are in your job and have worked out how to get your Sim's bladder under control, you can start to work your way up the ladder of employment. The better you do at work the better the pay packet will be. With more money you can move into a new home, get better things to fill it with, live a happier life and perhaps even afford to put a toilet next to every room, bonza!

The basic aim of Bustin’ Out is a simple one. All you technically have to do is keep your Sim happy. The bottom left hand corner of the screen shows your Sims level of happiness. If it is all green then you are doing a great job, but if it starts to go red you need to make some lifestyle changes to ensure your Sim doesn’t suffer from a breakdown. Happiness is spilt down into various categories. Hunger, hygiene, energy, socialising, comfort, bladder, fun and how much you like your surroundings. By viewing a panel you can see how happy your Sim is in each of these categories and try and ensure that all is well and good. Hungry Sim, get him to rustle up something to eat, dirty Sim, get her to take a shower or bath, Sim that doesn’t like the room he is in, get a better taste in décor.

Simply doing all of the above is enough of a task. Say your Sim has a 9 to 5 job, you will have to get up at about 5am. From here you need to have a shower, go to the toilet, wash your hands, cook some breakfast, socialise, watch some TV, tidy up a bit, make sure your Sim is as happy as can be, go to work, come back from work, go to the toilet before you wet yourself, have a shower, watch some TV, cook dinner, eat dinner, wash up dinner, take out the trash, call up some mates and invite them around, call in the fire brigade when you set the kitchen on fire and burn your husband to death, mourn the death of your husband, sell his grave for some extra cash, go to the toilet, watch some TV, send your friends home, go to bed and sleep. Not enough hours in the day and that's before you look to improve yourself.

You might just wonder why you did burn the kitchen down whilst making dinner. The reason is simple, Mr or Mrs Sim hasn't been reading up on his or her cooking skills. Reading the cookbook will increase your skills in that area making you capable of rustling up something edible. The same goes for numerous attributes like creativity, charisma, body, mechanics and logic. How to improve them is fairly obvious. To become more creative you can do some painting or whack out a tune or two on the piano, a few more charisma points can be gained by looking at yourself in the mirror. The more points the have the more employable you are and yes your Sim will get even happier.

Back to the overall boredom of this title and we come to one of our major problems with this game: you have to sit there all the time and watch. Even when your Sim is sitting on the toilet or watering the plants you have to supervise, you watch over them whilst they sleep, sit their whilst they get robbed and stare about with a look of total boredom whilst they work their ass off all day. It really is a very boring experience and oddly one that you will quite happily come back to again and again and again. What is even more annoying is Busin’ Out’s grasp of time, or lack of it therein. There is no excuse for someone to urinate for fifteen minutes, or take two hours to get from the hot tub to the School Bus. Nor should they stand their wetting themselves for the best part of seven minutes. For a game that calls itself a ‘life simulator’ there is a definite lack of ‘life’ to be had by your Sim. What we can’t grasp is why everyone can sit about and play this game, ourselves included. As we mentioned at the top of this review we hate it with a passion. The moments of excitement aren’t exactly massive and so you will resort to chaos and sadistic methods of entertainment. Some of the bets fun to be had can be found in making your Sim miserable.

When in a husband wife situation get said wife to flirt with a random (preferably disfigured and obese) neighbour in front of her significant other. Then make him go and cook dinner whilst they stand flirting in the corner of the room. Make him do all the nasty jobs about the house whilst his wife builds up a passionate relationship with the random stranger. When the time is right get her to propose to him and as a grim finale forbid the now heartbroken man to stand their and wet himself at the wedding of his former wife. Evil? Certainly! Fun? Very much so. Outside of controlling your Sim’s life you can also control the environment in which they live. You are given all the tools you need to start up your very own series of Changing Rooms and you can even introduce the now infamous taste in décor. Dress a room however you like, romantic, slut nest, classy, hippy, funky or normal, the choice is yours and building your perfect home is a very rewarding task. Over time you might just be able to afford to move to a bigger place and start up a family. There are certain rewarding aspects to be found in Bustin’ Out but they are drowned in a sea of tedium and poor bladder control and it is this in the end that makes us want to curl up in a ball and scream ‘No more!’