In typical EA fashion, they immediately began to plot new ways to whore out their cash cow. So, they ported the game to consoles with fresh, 3D graphics and made even more money. Then they did it again with The Sims: Bustin’ Out<\/em>, which I’m not going to make fun of because it was sort of awesome. Riding high from that, they decided that the franchise wasn’t vacuuming money out of people’s pockets fast enough, so they decided to spin the series off.<\/p> They chose to move the game from the weird Edward Scissorhands<\/em> depiction of suburbia and into the urban jungle where everyone listens to the Black Eyed Peas and the partying never stops. The result was The Urbz: Sims in the City<\/em>, and if this is the first time in years you’ve heard the title mentioned, I’m not surprised.<\/p> If you’re unfamiliar with The Sims<\/em>, that’s weird, but okay. It’s essentially a virtual dollhouse. You build or buy homes for your hapless little people, drop them into it, then dictate their life until they get rich or you get bored.<\/p> Urbz<\/em> is not that, for some reason. Boy howdy, it is definitely not about being the personal God of the whiniest people to ever inhabit a mansion. You’re given an apartment, but it’s largely vestigial. You spend all your time traveling to different neighborhoods, all of which have the amenities needed to keep your Sim’s stats topped, so you never need to go home. Then you unlock a pet and there’s even less reason to go back to your apartment because it pisses everywhere. There’s no room stat, so there’s no reason to clean up after it because your avatar is perfectly content living in a lake of urine. But, again, why slosh through an apartment full of your useless pet’s elimination when you can just sleep in someone else’s bed?<\/p> That’s the closest it really comes to being The Sims<\/em> because the rest of the game is about being a poser. Apparently, in this city, the most important thing is to become popular because some guy named Darius told you to. To do this, you have to go and make friends with everyone, kind of like the most boring part of The Sims<\/em>. Except it tells you what social interactions are going to succeed 100% of the time, so you just spam them until someone likes you. So, actually more boring than the most boring part of The Sims<\/em>. That’s impressive.<\/p> You get to create your avatar, but don’t spend too long in the character creator because it’s just going to end up looking the same as every other character in a particular neighborhood. Yeah, to make friends you have to dress like them. You have to act like them. Do the same skateboard tricks everyone else is doing. Only once you’re popular enough can you get into the VIP area to party with the rest of the beautiful people and dance like you’re part of some sort of cult ritual.<\/p> Eventually, the neighborhood villain shows up and starts lighting people on fire. I don’t think they’re supposed to do that, but one area had a taunt where they throw firecrackers at the feet of another Sim, and that Sim just went up in an inferno. It might have just been emergent gameplay, but I can’t help but feel The Urbz<\/em> is threatening me. If I go missing, check the disc case, you might find my burnt teeth in there.<\/p> The Urbz<\/em> isn’t fun to play to begin with, but then there are problems layered over top of it. The pathfinding, which has always been a little sketchy for the series, is at its worse here. In particular, whenever the VIP club opens in the evening, everyone attempts to pile in at once. And then, after they get through the door, they just start dancing, blocking everyone waiting from getting in. It makes you wish you could put a rug and a fireplace in the club and just burn all the gyrating doppelgangers in one neon blaze. Thin out the herd. They all look the same; they’re practically born expendable.<\/p> The graphics also look horrible. I don’t know what it is about console Sims<\/em> titles of that era, but they always had this weird haze to them. But never mind that, they changed the art style, and it looks rough. I guess you could argue it has more personality to it, but that kind of clashes with the game’s complete absence of individuality.<\/p> It’s not all bad ideas, however. Skill-building and jobs are now done with mini-games rather than watching a progress bar fill, and…that’s all I can think of. The Black Eyed Peas are in it if you like their music circa 2004! I don’t, but you might!<\/p> ![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/v1cdn.jbsgame.com\/Screen_TheUrbz01.jpeg?ssl=1\")
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