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Cool enough...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 30
Date: January 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is what I've been waiting for. I'm a huge fan of the Sims. I had most of the original Sims and most of Sims2. I liked those games - for a while. After you've done all the new stuff and had a couple of kids, the fun just kind of died. I have always always said that if there were some sort of directed story to the Sims that I had to play out, I'd like that so much more.

When EA came out with the Sims Stories, I was excited because that had finally happened. The first 2 titles just didn't excite me much, so I passed. They announced Castaway and I couldn't wait. It was released first on platforms, but I *hate* Sims platform games. The graphics aren't as nice and the gameplay is always lacking. So, I waited for the PC version.

It's very fun and very *new* as far as Sims go. There are familiar elements, but also great new twists. I highly recommend this title to people who, like me, love the Sims but have lost interest over the years. It's totally renewed my Sims playing.

The *only* drawback, and it's kept me from playing all the way through, is loooooooooooooong load times. At first I thought it was my computer, but since I have a great graphics card and tons of memory and ram, I thought maybe it wasn't me after all. After a bit of searching, it seems that lots of people are frustrated with the long load times between scenes. It plays out basically as follows: Game loads, objective pointed out, load new scene for up to 5 minutes, play 30 seconds, then on to a new scene taking up to another 5 minutes. If I'd have known that before I originally posted my review, it would have gotten less stars.

Anyway, enjoy!

Completely different from the other SIMS2 games! It's simply FANTASTIC!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: February 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Are you a die hard SIMS fan? We are here at my house. Not a tile comes out that we don't have.

We were waiting for Castaway Stories because it's so different from the other SIMS games. This game is FANTASTIC!!! There are palm trees, beaches, monkeys, coconuts, bananas, you can swim, you can dig for treasure on the beach, you build things, you get to spear fish (ok so you might not like spear fishing but it's cool to watch the SIMS do it), there's a jungle, there are ancient ruins to explore and even a native or 2 to make friends with, or marry!!! This game is graphically amazing!

Castaway Stories is a simply, a MUST, for the SIMS fanatic!

So much fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you are a fan of Sims you will love this game. There is an actual story line to follow and you meet goals pretty quickly so you don't get bored. There is also a free play mode. I think this is one of my favorite Sims games so far and recommend it to anyone who likes Sims. My only complaint is that you can't build as many lots in this one as in the other games.

Add this to your must have list

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a stand alone sims game that is not related to the Sims1 or Sims2. The story mode is the most fun I've had with a sims game in years. It consists of many puzzles to solve as you move thru the game. Some parts will have you scratching your head, but you won't have trouble solving the puzzles.

Many of the objects and some of the clothing in the game are based on the Sims 2 base game, so after completing the story mode, there is a free play neighborhood which allows you can add custom content to this area of the game.

The game play is limited in that you can't add lots to the game and there is no house bin, but you will enjoy this different Sims game. I highly recommend it.

Best Sims Story

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoyed playing this game. I completed the guided portion in two evenings. Unlike the first two, there is only one guided story to complete but you can chose if you want to play a male or female character. The story is the same for either character. This story was appealing and it held my interest for the whole time. I enjoyed the little mystery twist in this story which helped keep my interest up. I thought the guided stories in the first two Sim Stories were a bit lame.

The Castaway neighborhoods are interesting and a visual feast. The activities are fun. The objects and clothing are very interesting. The wild animals are a nice touch excpet for the fur on the Orangutan which is annoyingly bad. The fur on the leopard and hyaneas are quite well done.

This would be a fun game for an experienced Sim player. Someone new to the Sims might be a bit over whelmed since there is less hand holding with this game than the first Sim Story.

I did not experience any technical problems until I started adding other users. One I had just one user things went flawlessly. With the second user the game the game had moments were it seemed to hang or the images got "jumpy". When I exited the game, the problems had cleared up.

Great game, new fun adventures, buggy registration...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 20
Date: January 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Got the game yesterday from Gamestop (it was the only copy they had) since Best Buy was sold out and I've had a bad experience with Amazon not sending Rock Band because it was not available when they say it was going to be so I drove to the store during my lunch time to pick it up. The game came in its standard packaging - I dont know why it came in the packaging it came in since there's only one CD in there - I think it may be a DVD actually but I havent checked that yet - I wanted to play! Installed the game last night, everything went well then I got to the registration portion of the install, I tried to register it - first bug I ran across - it tells me that the key I have is incorrect. Whatever... the install went through fine but I was a little disappointed since I wanted the hints, tips, tricks that registering the game would offer. There's a way now that you can build yourself a profile but it only asks for your name. Weird... I havent completely explored the entire game yet. I tried the tutorial, and got that figured out in 5 minutes. I finally tried the real game (Single and Shipwrecked - something like that...) and it took me a little while to figure out how everything worked. My sim is shipwrecked in an island and I wake up and find out that I am alone and have to find a way to survive. So, there's coconuts to eat, a hatchet and machete to find - the machete will take some time to find because it is buried, my trunk to dig out and lots of other things. The game is definitely fun and if you've played Sims 2 before you will find many things to be quite familiar from that game. This is the only game I've bought outside of Sims 2 and so far I'm enjoying it. I am writing this now and I cannot wait to go home tonight and play some more. Some tips for you - do not forget to close your trunk before you go to sleep or else!; build up your cooking and mechanical skills, chop wood and find things to do around the island to make simoleans and finally, you can sell what you buy/barter to get what you need then sell it back to get something else if you dont have enough money to buy other stuff. I'm hoping to find out more tonight but so far, I am enjoying the game. Using the keystrokes to move and look at everything is a little weird and different but its not too bad at all.

New & Entertaining

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: February 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I got the wii version of this game for my brother and began looking for a PC version. Being an avid player of SIMS2 I was weary of trying SIMS Stories, but it turned out very well.

What's the difference between the wii and PC version? The wii game has a game version only, while the PC version has two ways of playing. The wii version is more of a challenge as far as difficulty of play. The PC version is more guided, yet still entertaining. In the wii version you get to pick your whole crew, find them during the game and you can switch which player you are. In the PC version, when you play the game, you pick your character and the rest are automatically put in the game, you can only play yourself unless you adopt or marry another character from the game. After playing the PC version all the way through, you will most likely never play again as it is more or less the same each time.

On the PC version you also have the choice of playing like you would in any other SIMS game and selecting a tropical lot to live on, then building, buying, working and interacting with the locals.

A Must for a true SIMS fan

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've been a Sims fan since the original Sims City. I owned The Sims and all the expansion packs and currently own and actively play Sims2 and all the expansion packs. However since the life stories came out, I've been leery to buy them for fear that it would be boring since I am so familiar with their concept. However after buying Castaway Stories, I was proven wrong. It is ran very similar to Sims 2, so if you're familiar with that, you'll understand how to play this game. The guided game play, where you play out the life story of a character, is challenging and entertaining. My only problem with it is that the story itself moved a little slow and I got impatient waiting to see where my character would wind up.

Over all a GREAT game and I've already played many hours of it. I recommend this product FULLY to anyone who is just getting started in the SIMS world and the seasoned player who's looking for a new challenge.

I run a DELL Inspiron 1501 laptop and the game ran VERY smoothly and quickly even while I had other tasks going in the background. This truly IS a great game for laptops. :)

Great game- could even be longer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game is really fun. I love the graphics and story mode. This is the best Sims Story so far. The only negative was the story mode didn't last long enough. I like to try and accomplish goals with an agenda. Free play is fun but I like the structured play better. It was fun to design the huts. It is a little different from the traditional decorations and furnishings in past sims, since this is island themed and you live in a hut or outside. You gather resources instead of making money like other games. The story mode is a little adult oriented because your main goals are to build a raft and find a mate but it is fun and entertaining. It even has a little mystery suspense side to it. There is also only one story mode so it is not like past Sims games were the girl's story is different than the guys story. As with all Sims it takes a while to load, but I'm used to that I guess. If it was faster and longer it would be one of the best games ever made. It is really worth the price since it has just about everything the full version Sims games have and a great story mode. It is also a lot better than Sims Story Pets which had lots of design flaws and froze up a lot. Besides freezing for a second or two after loading a couple of times this game is flawless.

Tell Me A Story

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I was thrilled when I saw that Sims was going to make a Sims game with directed story. I couldn't agree more with M. Robbins. I too owned all the Sims1 and most Sims2 games and have spent countless hours downloading custom content for each and while I'd have a great time creating my families and making and decorating new houses once I got to actually running their lives I'd get bored. What it boils down to is they go to work and come home and have to keep themselves and their house and their relationships well tended and after awhile it just became boring drudgery, much like real life at times. With Castaways you get a whole new experience while having the familiar layout and format of the Sims brand. My FAVORITE part of the Life Stories series is the fact that we have translations of some stuff. No more one picture thought bubble to give you nothing more interesting than the gist of the category of interest at a particular time. We get actual sentences IN ENGLISH. Don't get me wrong, I love Simlish [and its still there in Castaways]but its really nice to finally see exactly what our hero/heroine is thinking/feeling at a particular moment. I like having a direction to go and the anticipation of how it will all work out. Perhaps I'm just not the most creative person on the planet, but I found most of my families' stories turning out about the same. They found a mate, got married, got jobs, had kids, lost or changed jobs, got old and eventually died. ho hum. Heck, I found myself throwing in an affair of one sexual orientation or another more often than not just to spice it up somehow! So yeah, thrilled with Castaways. I'm having a great time exploring my new island home.

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