MySims Agents

Dentface passed along to me a link to one of the artists that worked on concept art for MySims Agents.  You can check out the works of one Chaivat Charles Suwannaporn (really?) on their portfolio site, BreathingART.

few more pieces of art here!

I have so many games I need to catch up on that I’m falling behind, hence the ‘Late To The Party‘ tag.  I have just finished up the Wii version of MySims Agents and would like to share my impressions with you.  Instead of rambling on in many paragraphs about my opinions on the game, I’ll just keep it simple and list the highlights and a few faults I found:

What I enjoyed:

• The character designs were well thought out – especially the dogs.  I always cracked a smile when you try to converse with a canine friend.  Best of all the game will allow you to recruit them as an agent!

• The humor and ‘hidden’ connections to another game.  You can catch a Zelda reference (It’s dangerous to go alone, take this!) and The Sims references within the game.  There may be others, but these two I picked up right away.  Also, the personality of some of the characters cracks me up:  Dereck is a dumb jerk, the antics between Ol’ Gabby and Barney, and Yuki’s weird obsession of biting peoples faces off.
• The fact that you don’t essentially ‘build’ anything.  The original (I’ve yet to play MySims Kingdom yet) MySims game was all about constructing.  Thankfully this game went another direction and in my opinion worked out quite well.  You’re still able to ‘build’ rooms in the headquarter by dropping items, but that’s pretty much it.   Does it take away the whole meaning about Sims?  I can’t say to be honest.  Constructing houses never seemed to fit in the MySims series, I think it’s more focused on the actual characters.

• The many missions and it’s value in time.  When I play games, I try to explore every nook and cranny…This game is worth the money in my opinion as it took me about 12 hours of playtime to finish.
• The ‘Hacking’, ‘Repair’ & ‘Unlocking’ mini-games.  Who knew hacking could be as easy as tracing a line through a series of tunnels?  Same goes with picking locks!

What I didn’t like:

• The loading of the character’s appearance and costumes – the clothing has their own sections – street clothes, agent clothes, costumes, etc.  Each section requires an estimated 5 seconds of loading screen.  They should of focused more on this section of the game.  If I’m switching clothing, it doesn’t need to require loading for each section.  I got the point where I no longer wanted to change outfits.

• The constant back-pacing.  Yes, it is required but it feels dull – possibly due to no action.  You just run from point A to point B for the most part.
• The molecule mini-game.  Boy do I suck at science.  They were pretty simple at first, but near the end they started to suck my time away trying to figure them out!  The other mini-games were a breeze!
• The extra dispatch missions.  For most players, this should be in the ‘enjoyment’ section.  However, I did not play any of these during my regular missions.  In order to view the game’s proper ending, it requires you to complete all of the dispatch missions.  These things will take a long time, and once you complete the game you pretty much have nothing else to do.  I’d highly recommend you to complete as many of these as possible during the main game.

I have to be honest here…Is this game worth the $50 price tag?  Eh, length wise, you do get your moneys worth out of it.  But story-wise…well it was kind of lacking.  The game’s true ending – after you beat the dispatch missions – leave you going that’s it?  It felt empty and for the most part, felt unresolved… I was disappointed in the fact that possibly one of the most interesting characters – Morcubus – was hardly given any time throughout the game.  Hopefully if a sequel is made, it’ll focus more on his character.