User Reviews (1 - 11 of 26)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Great game, but PSP hangs during play!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 42 / 45
Date: December 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I would love nothing more than to play this game, and I have really tried - about 6 hours total so far, but it's gotten to that point that it's almost too frustrating. The constant pauses to load data from the disk make this all but unplayable. The social games, which were a great idea, hang so badly that if you push a button while it's loading, it doesn't register and you LOSE the game! You literally can't make a move without 3-10 second hangs while the data loads, and sorry EA, you should have fixed that one. A game is only fun if it's not fighting with its platform.

What makes this sadder is how much FUN this game would have been. 5 stars all the way! The graphics are incredible, the story is fresh, and the game play inventive and addictive. Seriously, EA, what happened? Didn't you test this one out on the hardware?

Fun game, but loading times are annoying.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 32 / 34
Date: December 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Sims reminds me a lot of Bustin' Out for the GameBoy Advance, in that you have to figure out puzzles, play mini games, and make friends (and enemies). This time you're stuck in the Sims 2 suburb of Strangetown, and there's a lot of strangeness going on.

The graphics are very nice, and the game play itself is enjoyable, but I really feel like it's hampered by the frequent pauses to load data from the UMD. The loading screens between locations are not bad; but when you talk to someone, or play the mini-game chatting game, and each time the system has to access the UMD to load the voices and animations, it really makes the game feel choppy.

I really wanted to love the game, even knowing that it wasn't going to be free-form Sims as in the PC game. I do enjoy the gameplay, but overall I'd have to give it just three stars, due to the frustration of loading all the time.

Great Plot -- [Loading...] -- Into the game again -- Spontaneous Shutdown.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: May 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The Pros:
- Great Graphis. This game drew me in.

- Story lines are hilarious... but addicting, just the same.

- No more peeing/showering/sleeping 100 times per day.

- Talking with people had a purpose, other than maintaining relationships.

- No Point, Click, go action. Your sim will follow you... making game play easier (on PSP anyway).

- Lots of cool unlockables as you play more.. (Mind reading, meditation.. psytokenesis - sp?- )

- Lots of entertaining new actions.

- Eating is a little wierd at first. No more cleaning up after your guests, fixing lights, and eating food just because it will go bad when you're hungry. When you make food, it goes in your pocket.. and when you're ready for it, you just push select and pick what you want. You'll most likely have to go to the bathroom afterwards.

- No growing old. No babies. (You know you entered cheats anyway to prevent this :-) haha.) In prior sims games, I always found it a hastle to get anything done when you were always dying or something. And in the Sims Bustin out, I always seemed to generate some strange little kids... I think it was just too much. Even on the pc version-- after kids came into the picture-- studying and such-- making a mess-- accomplishing goals was difficult. Although, I did enjoy the goals more in the past sims games.

- Money is not as big of an issue in this game. I always had enough.. no need for cheats. And the ways I'd go about getting money entertained me. It wasn't just sitting around waiting for my sim to get back from work... just to see the money gone after feeding a family or anything. Call me selfish-- but I feel that was a good move.

The Cons:
- Loading... Forever. I got past this, but when I was trying to show someone how the game worked, I got aggrivated.. and the person lost interest. You are required to go to different rooms, houses, cities all the time in this game (not so much in other platforms.. until you advance to the next "level"). Each time you open a door, talk to someone.. have some sort of animated scene play-- you lag. You lag bad*.

- The load screens do say something other than "loading" .. and there is elevator music. None the less, this still annoys me...

- Spontaneous Shut down. I have completed 2 games prior to this game and have played other games on and off on my PSP. This is the ONLY game that made me think my $300 bit of technology was broken. This game will spontaneously SHUT OFF your PSP. Nothing will get saved. All you can do is start over. I was pissed after building up all my skills and then having the thing shut off in the middle of a LOADING screen while attempting to go into the next room.

- To avoid loosing everything, I had to visit the save screen after accomplishing anything (other than walking around). This screan lags a good 30 seconds or more each time. It's a pain. There's elevator music in the background during this time.

- My PC version froze a lot. Freezing has never happened to me on any modern gaming system... but-- I frooze a few times on PSP. This did not irritate me as much as the shut downs and loading times.

- No more "Dancing with" other sims to make friends or chatting in the hot tubs. You can only build a relationship by playing their CHAT GAME (?) .. which lags. In the hot tub, you can only WHOOHOO.. and from what I've seen you can only do this if you have whoohoo-ed outside of the hot tup prior (thus, a waste of time). I didn't gain any additional "secrets" or relationship points.

- No feeding your guests or dinner conversations.

- Talking to people 4 times to get a secret when the lag times are so bad is insane. You can get 3 secrets this way-- the fourth comes from talking-- which lags as well, but not as bad as the Chat games.

- The goals, although amusing... are not the most important. It's more like.. a big Mystery that you're uncovering as opposed to personal gain.

- Thus, your jobs are also .. amusing. Smashing zombies, line dancing, some cow dance, cleaning toilets.... Not like the sims 2 on PC where you became a doctor.. and other well paid positions.. No going through promotions to get to the top of your career..

I have played The Sims Bustin Out on PS2, The Urbz (PS2), and The Sims 2 on PC. I loved Bustin Out. The Urbz was a bit complicated, but I went with the flow. My PC frooze and crashed all the time while playing the Sims. Thus, I did not finish the game on my computer... actually-- I don't even remember the plot. I do remember the plots on PS2.

So, the plot themes were carried over. (Whole new plot). Crazy plot... but entertaining. I was always wondering what crazy thing was next. Sometimes I had no idea what I was supposed to do-- so I had to go around and talk to people (ehem.. lag) a bit....

I wish the instructions would have explained how to use some of the props in the beginning because they took me awhile to understand. And given the lag times, I hate how different stores have different items-- travling around ... it takes FOREVER. I combated this set back by making lots of money and obtaining all of my skills in the beginning--- and buying 2 of almost everything in the store.

Overall--
I'm addicted to this game. The PC was cool because I could add my own music-- I added a few of my own clothes and furniture.. but not so much. Given that this game is on the PSP and you could purchase memory sticks that will allow you to use the same feature (on a smaller scale) -- I don't see why it's not being used...

The game is fun and the plots are amusing.. unexpected.

I don't see myself picking this up again once I have finished it. I've been playing this game for quite some time now. I'm at the 4th location-- I believe it's the last-- if not, there should be one more. (I think* again... don't quote me here). I'm not jumping to pick up the game again... I might go back to it eventually-- and when I do finish the game.. I highly doubt I'll be returning to this one...

Great game, bad bad bad implementation

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

From a gameplay standpoint I love this game, it's nearly perfect. I've played The Sims2 on PC and found that to get a bit tiresome after a while, with the PSP version its really refreshing to have a great story, mini-games, and sub-plots. I found it much more enjoyable especially for a casual gamer, or one who can only dedicate a half hour here and there towards the game. In that respect it was exactly what I was looking for.

On the implementation side, seriously, Maxis, did you try and play the game on the hardware, or did you just use your emulators? Trying to play this game on the PSP is an exercise in frustration the likes of which you've not seen before. The game is constantly thrashing the disk loading this or that, so that it pauses every time you try and do nearly anything, it is almost unplayable. The fantastic storyline, and mini-adventures kept me going through out these glitches, but only just barely.

The sad thing is that were this a PC game, you know there'd be a patch on the way, but this being the PSP, this games technology is likely to suck forever.

Recommendation: Don't buy unless you're willing to put up with serious, serious aggravation.

Unplayable

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love the sims. Always had, ever since the first sims came out on PC. Naturally, I was excited to get this version, and take the sims with me anywhere! Boy, was I wrong. This is nothing like the old sims we all know and love.

First off, I never ran into anything 'simmy' about it. Like someone else said, it's basically a 1st person rpg. No house building, etc.

Secondly, the loading times are the worst I've ever seen on any system ever. The disc is constantly thrashing in the PSP, and it seems like nothing pre-loads. Even going up to talk to a person makes it hang for a good 2-3 seconds. Then you go into a house, another 2-3 seconds. Then, you open a door, 2-3 second hang. It goes on and on. The game could have been mediocre, but the implimentation was horrible. Trust me, I can wait for something to load, I'm not just annoyed becuase it's an occasional thing. It's all the time and it's rediculous. It shouldn't have even been allowed to be on the psp. Ebay, here I come!

Loading time takes up most of your playtime

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The storyline sounds fun. The game has great potential, but I probably won't finish it until a year from now. The load time sucks. You can actually hear the UMD churning away with every game move you make. Loading time frustrates you & you end up turning the game off. EA either didn't care or was in such a rush to get this game out that the consumers were forgotten. They know the SIMS games have an excellent rep, so we all would buy it. There's no excuse for this lapse in detail.

Very poor port to PSP

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is sure to wear out your PSP drive and your patience. Not only is it so painfully slow to load each and every interaction, the program will crash every 2 to 4 hours. What a wasted effort...good potential but a terribly flawed product. Any software or quality person involved in this release should be hanging their head - awful!

Grind, Grind, Grind, CRASH!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game had so much potential. Great story, great graphics. It would have been a fun, portable version of "The Sims 2" that was much more faithful to the original PC version than the versions for DS and GBA.

Unfortunately, the horrific load times and crash-proneness ruined that. Any time you do ANYTHING in this game, the game has to load from the disk. And load, and load. So you're sitting there listening to it grind and looking at a spinning hourglass.

The funny thing is that there's only really about 5-6 hours worth of game here, but it takes at least three times that because of all the loading.

Even worse is its tendency to crash. While I was playing, the game crashed several times, requiring me to restart my PSP and go back to a save file. Worst of all, it consistently crashed on the game's finale.

I'm glad I just rented this one. It's defintely not worth what they're charging for it.

Too much time waiting to play and some crashing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you don't mind [pause...] waiting for the data [pause...] to download [pause...] while playing [pause...], then this is the game for you [pause...]. The game also crashes often. If you decide to play, make sure you SAVE A LOT. Overall, I like the idea of having my favorite game on the PSP but I think that it needs improvement.

Sims 2 for the PSP is great, but can be annoying

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love this game, but it has some annoying parts to it. When you get scared, your sanity meter goes down, and it happens a lot. When you go to different neighborhoods, all your "emergencies" go down. In some parts you have to go from one neighborhood to another and everything goes down quickly.
I love the story line, all the interactions, the different facial features that aren't incorporated in the regular SIMS 2 for the PC.
I highly recommend this game for the PSP.
I bought this game for my 13 year old daughter who dictated this review to me.

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions