Motivational therapyĬompleting these objectives adds new items to the shop, which is already bristling with pinball machines, model railways, three-piece suites and consumables covering every other conceivable angle, or new clothing sets for your custom Sim, and even new social interaction options. The idea is to prove yourself to the world and reclaim the town's possessions from the maniacal Malcolm Landgrabb, a greedy millionaire buying up everything in sight. The main Bust Out mode offers ten levels of increasingly arduous goals for your Sim, which range from improving your cooking by two levels and getting to know your flatmate, to gaining a promotion at work and inviting your mother over for tea. The central hook is that your Sims are now able to 'bust out' of the family home, set up camp with friends and climb the job ladder in seven different ways. To be fair on Maxis, The Sims Bustin' Out marks only the second time the Sims have ventured outside their PC strongholds to try and tickle console fans, and although this is effectively one of the regular PC expansion packs strapped onto the original console adaptation and sold for twice the price of one, it's still a pretty competitive package, offering countless hours of entertainment if you can stave off boredom for long enough. These folks are good for very little at all, and even if you can help them amass friends, fame and fortune, they'll never thank you, and you'll never be able to leave them to it.

It's like Jamie's Kitchen (for our foreign readers, that's a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a well-known TV chef hiring a bunch of reprobates to cook at his restaurant).

Oh, I know, welcome to the club, right? It's all well and good for a few hours, but after a while the daily grind of nursing hopeless cartoons through basic sanitation begins to lose its appeal. All the while the player is busy keeping those troublesome 'motive' meters in check feeding, watering and coddling little digi-men and women who would otherwise be left to stew in the ridiculousness of their own heavily customised appearance. This time The Sims are 'bustin' out', which means more locations, more jobs, and more social interaction options on the old drop-down menu. Unfortunately it keeps booking the same show. Thanks to the success of The Sims, Maxis can pretty much write its own ticket these days.

The sims bustin out iso