The Sims 2: Castaway

THE BAD:
No way to check to see if one Sim has a romantic relationship with another Sim.

Few romantic socials.

There is no Woohoo.

The game has a couple of serious bugs.

SUMMARY:
The Sims 2 Castaway is quite a bit different from the other Sims games, since it has a very different premise, which is that your Sim is shipwrecked on a deserted island.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1z74cuSGXk


When you start the game you are able to create from one to six Sims, personally I think that one should have some crew mates, since otherwise you are going to be alone when you play. The game then shows you some scenes where you are on a small boat in which there is a storm and you and your companions are ship wrecked.

After you have created your Sims crew, but before you actually begin playing you get this cut scene which shows you being shipwrecked.



When you begin the game it is after you are shipwrecked and you wake up to find your self alone on a deserted beach.


Once you wake up you will soon find that you are hungry and there are coconuts available if you look on the ground for one.


So the first thing that you need to do is survive and once you run out of the coconuts on the ground there are coconuts trees to climb.


You eventually find that you are not totally alone on the island and you make friends with one of the chimps.



When you get tired of coconuts and bananas you need to make a spear, so that you can catch fish.


You still need to find your crewmates assuming that you have any, but except for your chimp friends you are alone on the island. So you build a raft to go to the next island.

After you have made it to the next island you finally find one of your lost crew members.



The story is not a straight linear sort of story line instead there are a variety of goals that do not have to be completed in a strict order. There are some objectives that need to be completed before another in a particular sequence becomes available, but many of them can be completed without being in a particular order.

When you being playing you get a little tutorial help and you find out what your goals are by finding books at various points during your adventures around the islands. The first book that you will find is Moneywell's Big Book of Survival and like the title suggests it leads you to essential tasks involving survival, but it also has some final objectives which involve leaving the islands and being rescued.

As you explore the first island you discover that you are alone on the island except for some Chimps, so you craft a raft and travel to the next island where you find some of your lost crew, and as one of the goals you need to explore this island.

Your second book expounds upon the basics and leads you further in the story without being linear about it, the third book guides your exploration and gives you some fun goals to complete.

Later you find there is another island that is somewhat farther off and you make yourself a canoe to get there and there you find the rest of your crew.

The final three books have you exploring the rest of the islands and making life comfortable for a long term stay.

At the end of the story line your Sims are rescued, but one can return to the islands and then free play for as long as desired.

When one is rescued there is a short cut scene and after the cut scene there is a choice of returning to the islands or not. If you don't return to the islands that is it, which is fine I think.

Game Play is straight forward as one just goes up to any object that one can interact with and presses the X button where upon one or more action choices are presented. The other controls are well thought out also, especially since bringing up the Tool/Food Menu which you are frequently needing to do just requires pressing Circle.

This game doesn't have a Classic Mode as it is Direct Mode always, unlike in previous Sims games where one could choose between Classic Mode and Direct Mode. Which makes it simple, but I missed having the Classic Mode sometimes, since there is no way to stack actions in the game. When it comes to interacting with one's fellow Sims, it was sometimes a bit difficult as they would frequently walk off and not stay and interact with you. I really found myself longing for how it was in Sims 2 when you used Direct Mode to Socialize and they would not go anywhere, instead I had to move along with them as best as I could. It took a bit of getting used to, and then I managed easy enough once I had.

The graphics in the game are well defined and have good detail. Most of the objects that one sees are plants that a Sim can interact with and all of the plants look very realistic. Since the locations in the game are islands naturally there are beaches and water. Sims can swim in the water out to a certain point, and the water looks very realistic, as do the beaches. Also there are rocks and cliffs and such and while most of them are just background they have good detail as well. One can build dwellings and make items and these objects have a good amount of detail as well. The Sims in the game are well defined and also look realistic in my opinion. Load times are acceptable, as I didn't notice any really long load times.

Your Sims start with the clothing that one chooses in the beginning, but as time goes this clothing will become tattered and torn and one of the fun things one can do eventually is to create clothing and jewelry. At first the clothing is not all that nice, but later in the game one can create very nice clothing and I had a lot of fun making clothing for my Sims.

When it comes to the music in the game there is an excellent selection among the different types of music offered. There are 5 Pop tracks, 6 Reggae tracks, 5 Surf tracks, 6 World tracks, and 4 Big Band tracks. My own favourites are the Surf Music tracks and I would listen to them for the most part, but I liked most of the rest of the tracks that one can choose from. Also the various tracks are real music that you might have heard in some cases.

I thought it was particularly nice that in the Options menu one can unselect any of the tracks that one doesn't like to listen to as well as being able to select a particular Station {music type} on the radio. The Radio is not accessible until it is found, so for the first part of the game there is only the ambient sounds and the sound effects in the game, which are good, but nothing special. When the game is loading or paused though you get some very nice rhythm and drums sounds, but you don't get to listen to those tracks on the radio, which I thought was too bad as I really liked these tracks.

Also in the options section there are separate volume settings for ambient sounds, sound effects, voice, and music, which I liked. I set the volume for the ambient sounds and sound effects kind of low and the music volume relatively high.


There are a few things that I didn't like about the game.

One is that there is no way to check to see if one Sim has a romantic relationship with another Sim so it is hard to tell if a particular Sim is going to get jealous of another Sim.

Another aspect of the game that I found disapointing was that there are rather few romantic socials and they are not particularly good in my opinion. One aspect I find especially disapointing is that there is no Woohoo like there is in Sims 2.

Lastly I have found that the game has a couple of serious bugs. One that is important to watch out for is that if your Sim uses the Map to travel from one location to one of the others every once in a while you will not be able to switch from one Sim to another and you won't be able to use the Start button to get to the menus, at which point the only solution is to restart the game, so it is very important that one saves before using the Map to Travel.

One of the other bugs which sometimes occurs is that an item like a stove will become unusable to a bug where the game has this item in use even though no Sim is in fact using it. There is no solution to this bug if the game was saved after the bug occurred.

Another bug that I have found is that a Sim will become invisible and in this case there is a solution which is as follows, have a Sim go to one of the other locations and then call the invisible Sim using the conch shell. When the Sim that was called arrives they are back to normal visibility.


To me this game has excellent replay value, since I have played this game several times so far. I think Sims 2 Castaway is fun to play again and again.

Even with the disapointing lack when it comes to the romantic socials and the several bugs that I found, I found this Sims game to be excellent and worth buying.