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    The Urbz: Sims in the city; review
    Topic Started: Aug 26 2005, 01:22 PM (223 Views)
    Liam
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    King Dedede
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    The Urbz: Sims in the city Review.
    Publisher: EA games
    Developer: Griptonite Games

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    Synopsis
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    Daddy Bigbucks; a money grabbing old meiser plans to turn your hometown of Miniopolis in to nothing more than a heartless money making machine. When you; a small time janitor find out about his sinister plot he has you carted of to jail. After befriending the local police detective and being released from your cell you start of n your journey to bring down Daddy Bigbucks.

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    Review
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    The graphics do not, in any way challenge the DS's capabilities. In fact they are almost identical to the Game Boy Advance version of the game, although the DS version is a bit sharper.

    GBA version -
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    DS version -
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    Game animations look nice the first time you see them, especially the dancing areas but after you've seen them a couple of times they get a bit repetitive.

    The first thing you need to do when you start a new game is create your character by selecting a name, gender, outfit and rep group.
    The choice of clothes that you can use to kit out your alter ego is somewhat limited, being only 10 different clothes per gender. Despite this you can still make your character look pretty good: thumbsup:

    In the game it may be necessary to raise you stats to complete missions. You level up pretty much like an RPG; you have stats such as body, creativity and logic which can be raised by performing certain tasks or using certain items. Generally the process is long winded and the use of the same items makes it rather tedious.
    However there are some rewards to this process, as you raise your stats you can get promoted in your jobs which gives you more money and increase the difficulty level of the jobs.

    As with all Sims games you will need to look after your characters 'motives', which include hunger, energy, bladder, hygiene, fun and home. These motives can be filled by doing certain tasks. For example you would let your character eat to refill hunger and sleep to refill energy levels.
    The Motives deplete a little too quickly and if even one falls to low you character will refuse to do key tasks such as talking to people and doing various tasks.

    The story mode is solid enough, providing around 25 - 30 hours of play time. The DS version even has a few exclusive, it has an extra mission on the end; taking the mission total to 6 instead of 5. As well as the new mission there are a few DS exclusive mini games that make good use of the DS touch screen.
    Unfortunately, a large proportion of the story mode is spent doing the tedious tasks of stat raising and motive replenishing.

    The touch screen is used mainly for navigating menus, which is handy because you can use the menus on the bottom screen while playing the game on the top. As well as the menus some of the mini games are controlled by the touch screens.

    Overall The Urbz is a solid game with a fun story mode and some good ideas.
    Sadly, it is brought down by its repetitive stat and motive building, inability to showcase the DSs unique features and graphics that don't exactly flex the DSs technical muscle

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    Ratings
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    Graphics -- 6/10
    Everything is clear enough but the DS can do a LOT better.

    Gameplay -- 7/10
    Although the game is padded out by repetitive tasks the main story offers decent gameplay and the mini games are fun.

    Replay ability -- 6/10
    Although the story mode is only good for one play through the game does have a 'free play' mode at the end which increase replay ability a bit.

    Sound -- 5/10
    The soundtrack is short and most of the tunes will have you muting your DS in frustration but there are 1 or 2 Good'ns

    Overall -- 6.5/10
    The game offers a good amount of playtime but is somewhat flawed by its poor graphics and repetitiveness. Fans of the series will like this game but others should wait for the next installment.
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    street
    ChuChu
    Is this for GBA because if so it looks really good!
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    Liam
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    King Dedede
    No, it's for the NDS; I just had the GBA stuff in there for comparison.
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