Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Basically the same but with more!, December 22, 2003
I like many of the other reviewers that played the first Sims PS2 version until I was dreaming of Sims characters I'd played it so much. So I was really looking forward to Sims Bustin Out for my Gamecube.So far I love the game. Many of the things are similar to the other version, but this one has many more things you can do for careers and fun. The added option of the cars/scooters was a neat option although I'm not real sure for the Gamecube version they needed it since you don't control the vehicle only get in and go to whereever you want and it runs automatically, so it's more that you own one. One thing I love is that you can go visit other places in the game. It's much easier to get to know other Sims by visiting their homes. Also some of the other Sims have items that you might not have unlocked so there are items for fun that you can join in together to not only gain more friends but so your fun level is also effected. There is so much more that you can do with your Sims also such as Tell story/Kiss hand/etc. This game is great fun and you'll find yourself wrapped up in it for hours and replaying is a definite must because there are so many different careers you can accept and different roommates you can have and so many different jobs you can take to earn different bonus items/special items. Now for my complaints. Don't get me wrong these things DO NOT take away from my 5 stars I still LOVE this game!!! As I mentioned I have the Gamecube version, so I don't know about the other platforms, but this one my car was nothing more than something that took me somewhere. I wasn't able to drive or have control over it. I also have been unable to find a way to skip over the driving screen movie/image/whatever they call them. So it takes up a little bit of time. The ability to allow my Sims to run on their own for a period of time would have been nice too. I mean, I could set up a series of things I wanted them to do in order to accomplish goals such as building skills and you can't just let them run through. While you are at mom's house especially she will nag you and the pop ups keep you having to punch the A button. I'd have liked to turn off or have a button to run on their own. They have the ability to have their own free will, but it's not really that if it keeps asking you to press a button. Finally I'd have liked the same cheat code feature they had for the previous version so you could enter a cheat code. (But that's just me I love those Cheat codes!!) I'm editing this review to add that be sure to have a memory card for this game at least the 251 card. I bought the game online and guess I didn't get enough information so when it came I ended up having to go purchase another memory card. Even with that you might possibly want two if you intend of trying to save more than one game. I don't know much about memory cards but really this game requires a big save.
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This is my favorite game once again since the first one Sims! I can't wait for a 3rd console version:)
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Sims: Bustin' Out! Amazon.Com Review, December 28, 2004
A Kid's Review
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Hello, and welcome to my review of The Sims: Bustin' Out! I have recently purchased this game, which is also my first Sims game (second if you count the awful SimCity3000) and, although many kids my age describe it as "incredbly kool u will luv it," whatever that means, I must say that this game is incredibly cool; you will love it. Let's begin with some of the things that make the game so incredible.
The first thing that I will talk about is the Story Mode; entitled "Bust Out" in the game. Here you attempt to complete a large amount of goals to keep you busy. Or, if you're like me, as long as you make sure that you feed your Sim and keep him or her clean and happy, you can stay at Mom's house all the time and make all your money via the Great Big Adventure Japanese Arcade Cabinet (unlocked by connecting a Game Boy Advance to the GameCube and turning on the GBA). Explore tons of new locations like Dudley's Trailer, the slob's home, Mimi's Place, the cranky yet playful female's abode, Clubb Rubb, the hit dance club, and the Casa Caliente, the house of romance, in this gigantic GCN title.
Now, let's talk about creating Sims. The female's customization is very limited and even the largest female body size is set to go with America's unnaturally thin standards of beauty. Also, most of the females' clothes available show way too much skin. The male customization is very good, however, and even though they are still unnaturally thin, the accesories and clothing rock.
Now, for free play mode. I have only attempted this "family creator" once before, and gave up when my best attempt ended up looking like a man in drag. However, you can create adult and kid Sims and make the adults fall in love with one of the four Tutti boys or the four Tutti girls.
Now, onto the subject of decorating the houses. The tools are very easy to use and you can have your house looking like something out of a Martha Stewart catalog, something out of her prison cell, or anything you wish quick as a flash. Wall in your yards leaving a couple of easy entances and install burglar alarms on the outdoor walls to keep those cat burglars out of your house for good!
Now, for the other Sims. They seem to have a fairly wide variety of likeable Sims to befriend, although that annoying Vaugn Braugn won't let the SimDay go by without knocking on my door three times and staying for hours until he eventually leaves. He's not the only bad Sim, though. Oh, no. There are three bad Sims to keep out. The first one, the cat burglar, can only be stopped by burglar alarms. The second one, the social worker, will come and take your baby away if it cries for over a SimHour (One minute in real time) twice. Forget greeting her and opening the door; she barges in and takes it! The third and final Bad Sim, the Reaper, will restart you back at your last save point or delete your save file (I'm not sure which) if your Sim's hunger drops too low or they get severely burned/electrocuted by cooking/fixing appliances with low experience. To prevent: Simply keep your Sim well fed and make sure that they have at least one skill point in that job.
Now, for content. For some sexual material, don't buy this for anyone nine and under. Parents, don't worry. The reproductive cycle is not shown. Your spousal Sim will simply ask you if you want a kid after a passionate kiss. Say yes, and the screen goes black fo a second, then there is a tiny baby Sim living with you. It'll take three days to raise it to a kid. Three social worker-free days. After that, all you have to worry about is making sure that the kid gets good grades, or else, hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to military school we go!
Now, is this game right for <person>? This game takes a lot of patience and planning, so impatient people who leap before they look are out. The game also requires you to deal with things, so kids who like to scream at things that they're angry about will be yelling curses at the "Game Over" Reaper or the Social Worker for weeks.
Pros
Excellent radio music. The Smooth Jazz station is the best in my opinion.
Being able to fine-tune your Sim's personality is cool.
Great graphics.
Excellent gameplay.
Controls can be learned in ten minutes with the help of the manual.
Mosaics on all nudity. This is a must for when you accidentally scroll into the bathroom and see Mama Sim in the tub.
Cons
Takes up 161 blocks of memory (a standard $20.00 card only has 251, and third-party cards cause defects).
Eats up your time before you can say "Simoleon!"
Friendships decrease quickly; try to call everyone once per day to make sure that you maintain a steady relationship.
Takes a ton of patience.
All in all, five stars! To get the most of your SimTime, I reccomend buying a Memory Card 251, the official Prima Bustin' Out strategy guide, and perhaps a GBA-GCN link cable and the GBA version of the game.
Game rated T for Teen (13+) by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) for Crude Humor, Mild Violence, and Mature Sexual Themes.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A way to spend many hours, September 25, 2004
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply put, this is a great game. The Sims Bustin' Out picks up in a general sense from where The Sims console game left off where Mom married Malcom, the richest sim in town. This time, Malcom and Mom have split up and Malcom is being mean-spirited and is taking things back from all of the sims in town. It is your job to recover these items for your friends and help them in their revenge to force Malcom to eat a few servings of humble pie.
The game provides many locales of which my favorites were Shiny Things Labs, Club Rubb and Casa Caliente because they offered the more unique experiences. Being able to promote through all of the career paths without losing status is unique amongst the various The Sims games. However after going through the first few career paths, the challenge fades because you'll have enough learned skills and friends to progress through the remaining careers and unlock object tasks without much effort. One improvement would have been to have a few career-dependent tasks that were not tied to a getting a promotion. I like the expanded social interactions this game includes and the fact that you have to make friends to learn them. This serves as an encouragement for not ignoring the social aspect of making friends in this game.
The Gamecube version of Bustin' Out interacts with the gameboy version of Bustin' Out. You can transfer your sime from the Gamecube into the Gameboy and play with as well as advance skills of your sim and then transfer your sim back to the Gamecube. This offers a bit more variety of game play as well as being able to carry your sim around with you.
There are a few places where fights occur, however this game does not rely on killing to progress through the plot. Sims can die but this is generally from inexperience rather than malice.
The only significant problem I encountered was during my first game. My saved game started to have problems that would lockup the system and these became more frequent over time. Working with tech support at Electronic Arts, the most likely cause was that I was using third-party memory cards and they weren't able to reliably save/reload the games huge 161-block save file and over time the saved game became corrupted. I restarted using a Nintendo-branded memory card and have not had this problem since.
(Nintendo Gamecube verison reviewed)
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