The Sims Carnival Bumper Blast

The Sims franchise is branching out and while not utilizing the most innovative of ideas, The Sims Carnival does give the arcade-style games a decidedly Sims twist on the action.

If you have ever played the game Ricochet, or games similar, you have all the knowledge you will need to play this title. You have a level (there are 12 stages with 120 levels overall) populated with groups of sims, each sporting a color code. The idea is to hit all the sims in the level with a ball. Doing so awards you with a score that is tallied in Simoleans. Some of the sims encountered may be undecided, meaning they have no color code, and it might not be until a nearby sim is hit for that undecided to change to a color.

While the game is billed as a blaster-type arcade game, it is more like tag. You have so many shots available to complete a level. As you shoot a sim, that sim becomes the source of your next shot – to planning your shots in advance (much like one would in a game of pool) to line up subsequent angles of approach is important to completing the levels. Each level has a meter on the side and that meter will show the clearance mark for that particular level.

To add to the strategy, you can only tag sims of the same color (each has a rotating color wheel). Tagging a sim of another color only passes the ball.

The game includes some special materials in terms of blockers. There are blue blockers (shoot them once to break them and earn and simolean), green blockers (shoot them three times to break them and earn twice the simoleans), purple blockers (only break when hit with magic fire), steel blockers (won’t break when shot), and rotators (each time they are hit they rotate 90 degrees). In addition, there are 12 boosts in the game that run the gamut from increasing shot distance to areas of effect to lob shots and magnetic attraction. If you truly dislike Mrs. Crumplebottom (an annoying elderly Sim from the franchise), there is a booster that specifically address her – it removes her and all blockers from the game.

Of course, as you tag the sims, they are bounced by the shot and thus you may have to shoot on the fly to get the right angle for the shot. There can be several different color groups in a given level, so you may have to pass the ball to another sim of another color to work through the level. A running tally of your score is kept and should you complete a level (whether at 100% tagged or not) you can choose to move to the next level or repeat the same level and try for a better score.

There are a couple of ways to play – quick mode (any unlocked level can be played) or the campaign.

All in all, this is a game that employs a tiny amount of strategy, is accessible for players of all ages and will not demand a huge time investment. Once, though, during the hours playing the game, there was a system crash – the infamous blue screen of death. It is not certain whether the game generated the crash or there was another conflict within the system at the time. (Another program was running in the background, Instant Messenger, and that may have created the conflict as the game does advocate closing all other programs when it is running.)

The system requirements are kept relatively low for this title – a Pentium-3 1 GHz processor with 256 megs of RAM, a 3D video card and 54 megs of hard-drive space. And yes, the game will run on Vista.

The sound is pure Sims and the graphics will not challenge a machine. The physics seem well conceived and the action of the ball intersecting and rebounding off walls is well done.

But this is hardly an innovative game and may only appeal to those who are Sims fanatics. For those who seek the rebound arcade action with stronger graphics and more creativity, stick with Ricochet.

Gameplay: 6.5
Easy to access but that the game monopolizes a machine, or wants to, is not a good sign – especially when the gaming machine more than exceeds the minimum specs for the machine.  

Graphics: 6.3
Even at the highest graphical setting, this game simply does not have the visual pop that it could have. It is fine, but the Sims-style graphics are more fitting to the original franchise than even Sims 2, which are crisper overall.  

Sound: 5.8
A sims’ musical theme runs through the background. It’s fine, but if you turn down the sound, you won’t be missing much.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium

Concept: 7.0
Nice to see the franchise trying new challenges and this game is certain to have a broad range appeal.

Overall: 6.5
Easy to jump into and play, not a brain tester or even reflexive in any sense, this is a game that – with a little thought – should be conquered in short order. As for replay value, you can always try to beat previous scores, but there is little incentive to do so. This might appeal to die-hard Sims fans, but others looking for an arcade challenge with eye candy will likely pass.