Note: This is part II of my write-up of EA Sims Bloggers Day. You can read Part I here.

If you’ve played the original MySims, you will know the characters already. Family-friendly, cute voiced, and stylised - the MySims took the super popular Sims franchise and gave it a Nintendo spin.

MySims Kingdom takes the core gameplay from MySims - that of building things - and uses it within an RPG-styled storyline. Unlike the original game, you follow a series of quests, meeting up with many recognisable faces and unlocking various new lands as you go. These lands are themed - one is a wild west frontier, another is a mystical fantasy land. Tim LeTourneau, the Executive Producer, compared the design to that of Disneyland.
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A couple years ago I could be quoted as saying RPG’s were the best video games around with detailed characters, in-depth storylines, and beautiful cinemas. However, it seems most video game companies today pride themselves on having beautifully rendered cinemas in their games. There are video game companies that don’t use cut scenes like Valve but other popular companies like Square-Enix use them constantly. It’s entertaining to look at a video game from a Playstation game and compare the graphics to a new generation console’s output to judge the quality’s improvement. There appears to be a growing trend with video games, RPG’s in particular, with large amounts of cut scenes and limited game play.

The question I pose to you is, “Is too much money and time going to graphical presentation that could be going into other more tangible aspects?”

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