Similarities to The Sims wore thin in MySims and MySims Kingdom, the first two titles in the cute and colourful spin-off on the PC’s most popular gaming franchise. The new block-headed characters seemed to appeal to a younger audience, with simplistic construction options coming second to even more simple side quests and games. Inhibit the construction and simulation elements of MySims and the result is MySims Party, a collection of 50 mini games involving activities as exciting as luggage handling and ice-cream scooping.

Three game modes are presented right from the start, with ‘Ranking Mode’ being only a lacking leaderboard system for national and worldwide score comparisons. ‘Mini-game Mode’ gives access for one to four players to play out any unlocked games with a select few being available from the start. Most of these games will need to be unlocked in ‘Dream Festival Mode’, a single player story drawn out by tedious and lengthy dialogue from cheerful NPC’s sporting terrible in-game AI. Tutorial tips are given throughout the dialogue, and sometimes a little too late. Sims will rant on and on, repeating a lot of lines and ‘Simlish’ speak making the small parts of necessary information hidden within pages and pages of pointless speech.

Set in the same universe of MySims, new and familiar faces return in a town inhabited by the chubby LEGO looking characters unique to the series alongside Sims of a player’s creation. After struggling through the slow and cumbersome interface used for browsing through a wide variety of body and clothing combinations, statistics for Power, Speed, Stamina and Luck can be chosen to craft a truly unique Sim. Once unleashed unto the town, the inevitable and only option of participating in the towns festivities begins the stream of hit and miss mini games mostly hampered by boring premises and strenuously confusing controls.

The setting of the MySims town for most of the mini games really doesn’t open up to much potential for fun in short bursts of gameplay. Some of the games can be a bit of fun, taking the Sims into far out locations to fight ghosts or just go snowboarding, but others such as balancing books and building a bridge are as exciting as they sound.

None of the games require the Wii’s nunchuck with the entire game played using only the Wii remote. It’s a nice attempt to keep all the controls simple and open up easier multiplayer access, but they’re all still hampered by under developed controls that often make no sense and really should have used an analogue stick. Shaking the Wii remote to run fast can be painful enough, but attempting to move around with the directional pad at the same time is a cumbersome chore no one really wants to endure.

Town building is weakly implemented where a player can slowly unlock pieces of houses and monuments to place around a town but for no real reward. Characters will move in to town and walk around, ready to repeat the same lines of ridiculous dialogue over and over but none of it is without a bright and perky charm. The town is quite cute and colourful but any simulation aspects that were loosely present in previous MySims titles have been left out for a focus on the frustrating mini-games.

MySims may have some charm, but it translates horribly to a party based mini-game. There are quite a few games to play through, but even the potentially fun dancing and rhythm based games are poorly designed and difficult to handle. Anyone looking forward to the latest MySims installment will be sorely disappointed in this needless diversion from a decent series for a younger fan base on the Wii.