If you can tolerate the collection gameplay, which occasionally gets a bit repetitive, the game actually offers a surprisingly varied experience reminiscent of games such as Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, or the Seasons expansion pack for The Sims 2 PC.
All of those games were relaxing, leisurely experiences for players of all ages, and they let you interact with a colorful, nonthreatening world to accomplish your goals when you cared to. In Castaway, you'll basically always have at least a few different easy tasks on your plate to accomplish, as well as some slightly longer-term goals for which you'll need to collect a few more resources or make a few more discoveries to complete.
Your sims do suffer from their physical needs, but they're generally easy to maintain. Likewise, some of the more advanced crafting recipes require your characters to develop higher skill levels in vocational areas such as body strength and mechanical skills, but these skills develop naturally as you continue to explore, harvest, build, and interact, so they're usually not a burden to deal with. Despite the loading-time issues, Castaway lets you recruit monkey butlers.
That has to count for something. Castaway also offers a fresh new visual look that features slimmer characters with a more-stylized look. They're not necessarily better than the typically more detailed, more colorful characters from previous games, but they're certainly new, and they still move with the kind of expressive animations you'd expect from a Sims game. The game also offers plenty of brand-new sound samples for the nonsensical "simlish" language the characters speak.
Better yet, the game features an all-new musical soundtrack that, unlike previous Sims console games, does not heavily recycle music from the PC versions, but instead uses new tropical-themed songs that are suitably lighthearted and cheerful. That's why it's a shame that the PS2 version of the game suffers from load times that randomly become very long, and that occasionally cause the game to hang indefinitely so that you lose all your progress. Having to stop what you're doing to save frequently while playing the PS2 version or risk losing all your progress breaks up the game's otherwise leisurely pace.
It's a shame that the PS2 version's technical issues detract from the game. Nevertheless, by offering new graphics, new sounds, new music, and a new way to play The Sims, Castaway offers a lively way to enjoy the series and those little gibberish-speaking characters that have made such a name for themselves--as long as you have enough patience to spend a good chunk of time hunting and gathering.
When your Sims find themselves stranded on an unexplored island paradise, you must help them to build a new life. Upvote 3 Leave Blank. The Good Open-ended gameplay offers leisurely experience Decent variety of different tasks to accomplish All-new graphics and sound Monkey butlers The Bad PS2 version suffers from randomly long load times and occasional lockups You do have to spend a good chunk of time gathering resources.
About the Author. Andrew Park. More GameSpot Reviews. By using the direct control style in this game, many popular features, such as buying items and going to school, are eliminated right away. Also, the island structure forces you to follow a certain path of gameplay, unlike the freedom available of the preceding Sims games. The worst of it all is the fact that you cannot expand your family and produce children by meeting computer-generated Sims, a highlight of The Sims.
The graphics are as good, if not better, as the PC version. You can actually see individual leaves on trees, the hairs on a chimp, and the body parts of your Sim. Considering that this is a portable gaming system, this is definitely a huge feat. The only qualm I have with the graphics is the fact I cannot zoom in during character creation, because the small screen makes it hard to distinguish some changes in the face.
The sound quality is also very good. The sound effects are also very realistic; you can hear the water splash when you fish, for example. This is perhaps the best aspect of the game.
Is it worth the long loading time? The playtime will be very long because you have to keep harvesting supplies to progress through the game. Is this game replayable? I say no. Making more items with a couple of extra point values is not worth it after the final island is reached. Besides getting characters with new looks and a change in occupation and personality, the beginning will always be the same. You have to achieve the same goals in the same order like you did the first time.
You have many better things to do than play The Sims 2: Castaway again. This game is kind of fun, but not enough to keep. The best option is to borrow the game from someone who wasted their money buying their own copy. Log In Sign Up. Keep me logged in on this device Forgot your username or password? Don't have an account? Sign up for free!
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