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The Sims 2: Castaway is an offshoot title of the main Sims 2 game (I own the GameCube copy). Castaway itself is the stripped-down console port of an existing Sims 2 expansion pack called "Castaway Stories". Due to the fact modern consoles can not run actual expansion packs, game developers are forced to create entirely new games set in the world of main one, the Sims series and Guitar Hero II to be precise targets of this. While not bad for them, it squeezes the cash from us, because no one except for a complete retard (eg: me) would shell out $50 bucks for an expansion pack for a console game, because all it ever is is the same game with a few new added bells and whistles. In some games, things are lost. In console version of the Sims 2, there were 2 play modes: a story/career mode featuring your created sim (and your mate's sim if you did 2 player) going through completing objectives to fill his/her life meter because if they don't, they'll become some drugged-up parent in the suburbs wondering "WTF just happened?!", and a free-play mode reminiscent of the first Sims game for the consoles (my console at the time was a PS2). I didn't see it coming, but retrospectively it was to be expected, but all the children were somehow missing from the Sims 2, both in story and free-play mode. Well, that brought out the acne-ridden Hulk so to speak and I was about ready to twirl a tank Super Mario-style into Maxis' head offices, but luckily someone slipped a sedative into my Mountain Dew Code Red and I calmed town.
Anyway, the Sims 2: Pets did the same thing, only with story-mode and free-play clumsily mixed together. If you took care of your cat/dog/sim/thing then more people moved into the neighborhood (including Hilary Duff and her pampered pooch, whom by brother locked in a room by herself while the dog destroyed the Duff Mansion just for the fun of it). Now the Sims 2: Castaway throws free-play totally out of the window in-favour of a psydo-story driven game. Your sim, in my case my character, boy genius Gavin DeMilo, is on a boat with as many as six people on it. Everyone gets totally sloshed and starts singing kareoke (by the looks on their faces, it looks as if Gavin attempted "Bohemian Rhapsody" all by his lonesome without accompaniment). The good ship Simplicity shakes about and while fishing, they all fall off of the boat (for some reason, your fishing rod is not in your inventory at the game's start, making you to have to build one from bamboo and vines). Gav washes up on the first island, called Shipwreck Island, and begins foraging for himself, befriending chimps who gather for him and making shelter and inventing useful items like torches and axes and girls made out of sand (they won't nag for you to come to their mother's unless you build one).
In time, you can build a one-man raft to travel to Airplane Island, the second island were your crew (if there is any) resides. You assemble a rag-tag tribe of sorts and all of them can pick from 4 tribe duties: cook, fish, forage for supplies, and forage for food.
....
And that's it. That's as far as I've gotten.
SO, let's talk about the Sims movie, shall we?
As I told you before, Fox Studios has bought the rights to a film based on Will Wright's brainchild, the Sims, with John Davis producing and ol' who-cares directing. According to my sources, the film will be a drama. The main character finds out that Pleasantville, the first neighborhood on the Sims 2, is actually part of a massively played video game. The game also features characters from the Sims titles, including the Goth and Newbie familes, and Don Lathario from the Sims 2. While it doesn't seem interesting, I like to see that a game-movie finally has them realize they're in a game.
FINAL SCORE:
The Sims 2: Castaway (Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PC [titled Castaway Stories and is an expansion pack])
Pros: In-jokes to previous games, fun dialouge, unique idea (came out before the Lost video game), good music
Cons: Difficult camera angles, annoying NPCs, crazy goals.
Score:
7.5 Out Of 10
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