Note: This is part III of my write-up of EA Sims Bloggers Day. You can read Part I and Part II here.

We all love animals, right? Sure we do. Witness the success of all the various animal games out there. Neopets. Catz and Dogz. Nintendogs. Tamagotchis. Pokemon. If it’s cute and furry, then we want it. End of story.

So, the Sim franchise is the best selling franchise that EA have. It’s not that surprising. In the Sim world, you’re God. You can build - and you can destroy. That’s something that appears in every Sim game, from Sim City (unleash Godzilla, anyone?) to The Sims (I know you set one of your Sims on fire. Don’t lie to me.)

So what happens when you mix the Sims and animals together? You get SimAnimals, an upcoming EA game for the wii and DS that enables you to explore “the backyard and beyond”. Basically, you get given a plot of land and you’re supposed to get animals to move in and make friends with you. You manage to befriend the wildlife by treating them nicely - giving them food, shelter, water and all the rest of it, until they trust you. You can then use this trust to make them become friends with each other, leading to the unlikely scenerio of wolf cubs buddying up with squirrels. Eventually you get given more plots of land, each yours to look after.

Because this is the Sims, however, and it wouldn’t be right to just have everyone loving and friendly, you can also hurt the animals. Pick up a squirrel and drop it in front of a bear, and the bear will eat it. Torment an animal by throwing it around or taking away the things it wants and it will mistrust you and eventually fear you.

The graphics on the wii are surprisingly non-cute and cuddly. The team apparently did hundreds of hours of research with zoos and experts to ensure that the bears moved like bears and the beavers like beavers. Some facts are dropped in favour of accessibility, however. The creatures are from a variety of countries, but seem to live fairly harmoniously together. Badgers and hedgehogs from the UK rub shoulders with the bears and beavers of the USA. The door is left wide-open for sequels as well - it won’t be long before we hear news of a SimAnimals Tropical or Safari.

There is a strong environmental message, much like in SimCity Creator. Dam your stream in one plot, and the plots further down the stream will dry up. Eventually you will have to deal with pollution as well.

There’s a more subtle ecological message to the game too. Choose the route of fear and torment and your animals will leave, your plants will die, and you’ll be left with a wasteland. Zero options for fun and play there. Treat your animals nicely, however, and encourage the growth of rare plants and you’ll be given plenty of options, including changing the colour of your animals (pink and purple spots? red and black speed stripes? We didn’t see this, but it sounds fun.) or changing them back into a puppy/cub/hoglet.

Oh yeah. Animals get old. And die. Unless you grow the rare plants that make them young again…

If the wii version is not cuddly, the DS version more than makes up for it. The art is 2D as opposed to the 3D wii version, so everything has been made from scratch. The result is fantastic. The expressions of the animals, the little cartoony symbols, and the fact you can make the wind blow by - you guessed it.

The wii version lacks style in comparison. However, what we saw was a very rough version, only a few weeks into development. Even so, I still suspect the DS version will be superior - although that may be bias towards stylish cartoon graphics on my part.

There’s not a lot to criticise about SimAnimals. And I’m not saying that just because they gave us all gummi bears. Like all the Sims games, it’s a simple game that gives rise to very complex and varied results. Like all Sims games, you have to take some responsibility for your own fun. Because it’s for Nintendo systems, it’s a family game, but unlike My Sims they’ve steered away from potentially syrupy sweetness and stayed fairly challenging.

Plus it’s got animals in it. C’mon. You know this is going to sell.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Previews, Casual Gaming, Nintendo, Nintendo DS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.