MySims Agents Wii Review

MySims may be a young series, but that hasn’t stopped it becoming a big brand for EA. It all started with town building and since then, there’s been kart racing and a mini game collection. Its most recent foray, MySims Agents is a concoction of the adventure, puzzle and platform genres. With all this took into consideration, you certainly can’t knock the fledging series for variety.

MySims Agents has you taking charge of an agent as you attempt to thwart the plans of the dastardly Morcubus, solving cases along the way in the hope of getting closer to the evil mastermind. With its Japanese style super deformed aesthetics and jolly sense of humour, the usual MySims charm is prevalent throughout, to the extent that it could warm even the iciest of hearts.

Cases usually involve you chatting with suspects and witnesses, slowly building your case to unmask the culprit. It’s a fun process, all thanks to a great cast of characters and the jovial tone of much of the dialogue. The sense of humour will appeal to not only the game’s primary young target audience, but also to many of us older lot too, which means during such exposition, even parents (or any other adult playing the game for that matter) are welcomed by its warm embrace.

Each case is interspersed with a number of fun puzzle based mini games, which will get kids minds working and not rotting like many outsiders will believe due to misinformed and lazy journalism from a host of outsider sources (oh, sorry I got a bit lost there, on we go). Hacking has you guiding a cursor through a narrow maze, staying on the highlighted path, stray off it and you’ll quickly lose time. Repairing has you fiddling around with the inner workings of machinery and such, rotating and slotting in components in the correct places to get the parts working again. Forensics tasks you with connecting atoms to each other, with the tricky part being that each one only allows for a limited number of connections. Finally there’s lock-picking, which has you moving tumblers to gain access to the lock.

The cases are enjoyable to solve, even though culprits are blatantly obvious on occasion, the primary fun comes from discovering enough clever evidence to convict the suspect. It’s completely scripted and more freeform cases, that would have allowed you to solve them in a variety of ways, would have been welcome. A bigger problem is that each case is generally structured in much the same way: you follow footprints, chat to people and play mini games. It’s not always in that order but it can leave the game feeling a bit repetitive, though when the limited game mechanics are beginning to feel like a bit of a drudge, the entertaining conversations do a good job of retaining interest.

MySims Agents also has a healthy level of customization. Your agent’s appearance can be chosen and your HQ can be decorated with a lick of paint and the placement of objects. It all feels a bit limited at first, but simply progressing through the game will reward you with new options, as will exploring the stages and sending your employed agents out on missions.

The latter aspect has you recruiting agents, placing them on floors within your HQ and then sending them out. Whilst you don’t have any direct involvement in such missions, your agents will stay in contact with you, keeping you up to date on their situations and occasionally asking for your input on certain matters. The success of your agent or agents is largely dependent on their skills, so for example it’s no good sending out a team of nature lovers on a sports orientated mission.

MySims Agents may be lacking in variety, but is nonetheless a well made kids game and one that should have plenty of appeal for younger gamers. As far as adults go, from my perspective the game can feel a little simplistic and limited, but still never less than enjoyable, whilst the light hearted dialogue never feels too juvenile for some older gamers to have a good old laugh at. Ultimately a good game is a good game regardless of its target audience and MySims Agents, whilst flawed in areas, is certainly a good game.