Developer: The Sims Division
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Life simulation
Release date: October 22 2007
Platforms: PS2, Nintendo Wii, PSP and Nintendo DS.
ESRB: T - Teen
'The Sims 2 Castaway' is a spin off title from 'The Sims 2' but all the elements of a life simulation game still exist, though in new and interesting formats. The game includes features such as having to collect resources, create a tribe, find collectibles and most importantly, find a way to escape the island paradise you’ve been stranded on.
Gameplay and story
You start out by creating a crew of between one to six crew members and, in this game, the initial character creation is extremely poor with limited editing of a Sim’s face and very few clothing options. Something which is interesting though is the ability to select what your Sim’s industry was prior to the whole, boat crash thing, choosing from several career options including chef, ranger, mechanic and doctor. The job picked has an effect on what skills they start out with but, of course, these skills can be raised over time. After you’ve selected your crew you get to pick a starting crew member then watch as, through a series of photographs, the boat they were cruising on encounters a terrible storm that ultimately capsizes them all. When you awaken, as your chosen Sim, you find that you’ve washed up, alone, on a sandy beach. With nothing on your person except a sleeping mat, knife and toilet paper you’ll have to work out how you’re going to build a new life for yourself on this seemingly uninhabited island.
During the game you have an increasing number of objectives that start out simple and become more and more complicated with the overall end goal being to find your way off the island. In the meanwhile, whilst you figure out how to do that, you have to get used to your new island lifestyle and adapt to the many challenges it poses. Now, it’s very easy to criticize this game from the off because there are many prevalent issues that cannot be ignored but, despite this, I do sincerely love this game so don’t take my criticisms too harshly. Before we launch into the numerous issues with the game however let’s look at the actual gameplay.
Quite simply, the gameplay is very similar to the original Sims games in that you control a Sim and are responsible for his or her wellbeing by keeping their motives raised and giving them a home to live in. As you follow the objectives you’ll encounter your crew members, provided you made them at the beginning of the game, and from there you can build relations with them with the ultimate goal of forming a tribe and assigning everybody jobs. Skills are still present within the game only now they are increased in more obscure ways such as creating clothing from flowers, vines or leaves to raise your creativity skill or by harvesting ingredients for your cooking skill. Unlike previous games your motives, such as hunger, sleep and fun, are only discovered by doing certain things in the game, hygiene for example does not become an issue until you meet another Sim, which says a lot about the developers’ opinion on bathing. The ways in which you raise your motives in this game are admittedly quirky, inventive and resourceful and, away from the creature comforts of home, more of a challenge. Whilst later on you can construct yourself a functioning shower you start off by raising your hygiene motive using the old fashioned method; swimming in any bodies of water you come across. Initially, alone on the island, social can quickly become a problem for extroverted Sims but fear not for you can always create yourself an imaginary friend out of a coconut shell, berries and a whole lot of sand. Alternatively, you can always talk to the resident chimps or just track down your crew members and be done with it.
On the three islands you’re confined too you’re not going to have much trouble fashioning yourself a comfortable retreat as resources are varied and bountiful. As it turns out you washed up on possibly the best trio of islands in the whole Caribbean as the sea is full of clams and fish, the jungle is full of every single fruit, vegetable or nut you could possibly think of and there’s even the potential for chicken or boar meat, should you know where to look. Everything is very well integrated into the way you play and generally there are many things that can be done to continually enhance your island life. You begin, for example, by building a very simple fire pit and fire by collecting up washed up driftwood and once your fire is lit you’ll use it to cook food, keep warm and tell stories, when that fire eventually burns out, you can collect up the residual ash to be used for your own private farmland later on. Whilst you may start with just your sleeping roll beside your tiny fire pit you’ll eventually build up a complex mansion using harder to obtain resources such as metal ore and glass that was forged within the very heart of a volcano. No, really. Once you’ve got your basic survival down you can aim to live much more comfortably as is quite standard in a Sims game. Whilst house building and interior decoration is usually easy to muddle through when you have access to the build tool and a plethora of furniture items but here, on the island, you’ll have to make everything from scratch whether that’s the individual wall segments of your house or a pre-shaped layout that ranges from a scrubby little shack to a flamboyant wooden mansion.
Something which I detest in games has made an appearance in this one and that’s the build limit, you may remember my fury at its presence in the console edition of ‘Zoo Tycoon’ but, for once, it’s not so bad in this game. A built limit restricts how much you can place down in any given area and is measured by a bar at the side, when the bar is full you can put nothing else down until you remove some things. Looking on the bright side of things, there are plenty of areas where the limit starts off as very low, it varies from section to section, allowing you to build your perfect mansion and, since it’s an island with very different content in each section, it’s quite understandable that you cannot put much down in a place consisting mostly of cliff face and jungle compared to a huge open plain with fruit frees and a pond around the outside of it.
An undeniable problem with the game revolves around one of the primary gameplay elements and that is the gathering of resources. At later stages this involves a lot of grinding as it takes a fair bit of time to find and gather all of the materials you require for higher tiered objects. Resources are often used up very quickly too; vines are used for almost everything so you’ll frequently be hacking away at them in the jungle, constantly trying to replenish your supply. There’s also, sadly, a lot of lag in this game and the loading screens tend to be long and frequent, often leaving you frustrated with the slow pace of the game. Whilst I personally can cope with the length of the loading screens the worst crimes of this game is most definitely the horrible lag which will cause delays in selecting actions, turning the camera and waiting for your Sim to do anything. If this is not already bad enough, the camera is terrible as it often gets stuck on the environment leaving you staring awkwardly at plants or the hills that border the edge of an area. When placing an item sometimes it will appear well away from the area of play, as though it were on the other side of the map, leaving you to guide it slowly back into the placement grid. The houses too suffer from the poor camera as, whilst you can lower the walls, it’s annoying to have to do that just to see partially into a home and, even with the walls lowered, you’re still stuck looking at the supporting beams.
Graphics and environments
When playing this game in 2014 I was unsurprised to find the graphics a little harsh around the edges with plenty of blurry moments and a fair bit of choppy, razor sharp edges on things like hair and the leaves of the trees. What I was surprised at was how little it bothered me as, despite the obviously inferior graphics, the game has gone to great lengths to keep everything rather picturesque. Having gotten over the initial jolt of a low-end 2007 PS2 game I began to appreciate the detail that had gone into the design of each individual resource whether it was cucumbers, chicken feathers or fish as they swam visibly beneath the surface of clear, tropical waters. Nothing is beyond recognition and even tiny objects like different shaped shells or messages in bottles that you can pick up on the beach are noticeable from a distance so the frustration of searching through poorly constructed environments is thankfully not present. That said, the Sims look terrible but it’s mostly because of the lack of customizability, particularly of their faces, that has annoyed me. No matter what you do to the lips of women, for example, they’ll always be stuck in a wide, toothy grin so in that sense you’ll have your work cut out for you making each Sim look unique especially when, after enough time on the island, all their hair will grow to an identical shaggy length. Thankfully, a variety of clothing designs and the ability to trim your hair and beard back helps you keep track of who is who.
The environments in general are nice and varied and the fact you can freely venture between all three islands, using a fast travel option on the map if it suits you, is really notable. Deep, dark caves, lush jungles, sandy beaches and interesting places like an ancient forge within a volcano or a crystal strewn cavern. It never feels as though areas are repeating on themselves and you’ll spend a good portion of time carefully selecting which place will be where you finally settle down and build your ultimate home.
Overall
At its very core 'The Sims 2 Castaway' introduces a really interesting concept of surviving, either alone or in a tribe of people, on tropical islands. Everything is very well integrated from the way you raise your skills to the way you satisfy your Sims motives and there’s lots of curious elements such as quick-time fishing and making furniture out of resources. Primarily, the game suffers from terrible lag and a painstakingly awkward camera with little annoyances such as grinding for materials and the inability to have proper romantic relationships not helping its case. I particularly like the inclusion of objectives and a sort of story mode with the option to just play at your own pace and relish the island life should you feel like it. Overall, this is a great simulation game that is very pleasant and original so you can look past its low-tech feel and poor construct then you’ll likely enjoy this deviation from the classic Sims game.
The Good:
- Variety of tasks and objectives
- Open ended gameplay
- Original survival premise makes for interesting gameplay
- Ability to build everything up from scratch is really rewarding.
- Very well intergrated way of raising skills and motives.
The Bad:
- Lots of time is spent on gathering resources.
- The camera often gets stuck on environment.
- Sims relationships are limited.
- Character creation is boring, Sims all look very similar.
- Build limit a little annoying.
Last thoughts: "I wish this game wasn't so blurry and with such a terrible camera because, truly, this is a really addictive game and there's nothing out there on the market like it."
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