The MySims Games, Ranked From Worst T Best

What do you get if you cross the evergreen appeal of The Sims franchise, with an envious mid-2000s EA executive bent on ensnaring a portion of the Animal Crossing audience? You get MySims, a curious little experiment that saw the familiar gormless avatars morph into cutesy chibi characters. Still not speaking any recognisable dialect, of course.

MySims lasted for four years on the Wii, and dabbled in a variety of genres across a whopping six mainline games. They sold decently, but not well enough to avoid being consigned to ‘cult classic’ status – until 2024. The Cozy Bundle brings these cuddly folk to a new generation on Switch; so what better time than to dig deep and rank the series’ offerings?

A quick note: this list ranks only the mainline console MySims games developed by EA themselves. The handheld DS ports, which were almost exclusively of middling to poor quality, were outsourced to various third parties.

6

MySims Party

All The Frustration Of Mario Party, Without Any Of The Fun

Only three games in, EA elected to slam the button typically reserved for when you truly run out of ideas: the one marked ‘make a party game spinoff.’ It didn’t pan out. MySims Party is a cheap, scarcely functional knockoff of several superior outings in the genre, and scores the bottom spot very comfortably.

There’s a half-hearted attempt to tie the clunky minigames into the usual MySims format: you’re presented with a derelict town that can only be spruced up by participating in ‘festivals’. However, beyond selecting where each building goes, that’s where your involvement in the customisation ends. The hub feels sterile, empty, and like a total afterthought.

The minigames themselves are diabolical and mostly reliant on waggling the Wiimote, which the game struggles to even register most of the time (prepare for sore arms). Strumming guitars, flipping pancakes, hauling luggage – it’s all bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Then there are the platforming modes, with their awful jump physics, and the fact that the late-game festivals demand a perfect performance against the unfair AI opponents to even roll the credits. Shred your invite to this party, stat.

5

MySims SkyHeroes

Won’t Be Making Top Gun Sweat Anytime Soon

SkyHeroes, the sixth and (to date) final entry in the MySims lineup, positively reeks of EA being in total dart throw mode. “Alright lads, we’ve done parties, racing, stealth, town-building, platforming – what’s left?” And then one terrified suit from the back of the room gingerly raises their hand: “…violent aerial dogfighting, sir?”

So what we have here, against all conventional wisdom and in direct contravention of the series’ bubblegum origins, is a post-apocalyptic skybound shooter. We are not making this up. Your adorable tyke is put behind the joystick of a World War 2 plane, armed with machine guns, missiles, and more besides. Their task? Well, blast everyone they see out of the sky, naturally.

Sure, there’s amusement to be found in the Simlish death wails of Morcubus’ troops being caught in your crossfire. Once that novelty wears off, though, SkyHeroes has little to offer. You’ll be doing the same two mission types (shoot stuff and fly through rings) for the entire duration, and most players will pack it in from boredom long before the finale.

4

MySims Racing

Because Literally Everyone Else Was Doing It

It’s a time-honoured maxim of the videogame world: ‘If thou art a series on the Nintendo Wii, thou shalt rip off Mario Kart.’ And EA answered the call, in the form of MySims Racing – a passable kart game that tries to innovate in a few fiddly ways, but never rises above mediocrity.

Yet again, your Sim stumbles upon a down-on-its-luck hamlet that’s in need of revitalisation. The key this time, of course, is racing; so it’s off to the tracks to bring in folks from cities far and wide.

Unlike Party, there’s no hub in MySims Racing. You merely select the next stage off an overworld map. This helps the pacing flow a little better.

You can tweak your vehicle to within an inch of its life, using blueprints scattered across the tracks. This is a neat idea, but leads to some frustration when a crucial engine or wheel blueprint might be hidden in some ridiculous out-of-bounds location. Moreover, the vehicle handling is loose, and there’s an annoying focus on mission-based ‘challenges’ as opposed to actual races.

3

MySims

The Original, But Not The Best

Now we’re getting into the good stuff. Before they started delving into the acrid realms of party game territory, EA knew to keep the Sims focus where it belonged: on constructing towns populated by little people who thrive or perish by your hand. The original 2007 MySims wasn’t a masterclass in its field, but it had buckets of whimsy to compensate.

Mayor Rosalyn, of [INSERT WHATEVER DAFT NAME YOU GIVE YOUR TOWN HERE], is chuffed to see you arrive; since all the citizens have packed up and left. By plonking down some swanky buildings, planting greenery, and getting some businesses up and running, you’ll be able to breathe new life into [INSERT WHATEVER DAFT NAME YOU GIVE YOUR TOWN HERE].

There’s a disarming amount of freedom in MySims 1. You can plant whatever types of trees you want (apples? Nah, how about 8-balls) and choose the commercial Sims that are allowed to set up shop. Gino’s pizzeria, Vincent’s museum, Terry’s toy shop, etc. – these all change the character of the village and affect which ‘Townie Sims’ arrive. Gathering Essences out in the wild to fulfill people’s needs is a fun gameplay loop, as is constructing furniture by hand in your workshop.

2

MySims Agents

EPF (Elite Plumbob Force)

MySims Agents is frequently nominated by many in the fanbase as the best thing the series put out, and it’s easy to see why. Successfully melding the creative freedom you expect from the Simverse with a more serious, story-driven campaign (in the way that SkyHeroes couldn’t), it’s a really solid pick.

You start off as a small-time detective, cracking cases that range from missing puppies to… stolen hairdressing equipment. Hardly Columbo affairs, are they? And yet a representative of the Sim Protection Agency comes calling one day, thrusting you into a conspiratorial web that spans the globe (and a parallel reality).

Agents is a fantastic blend of gameplay styles. You can wander your hometown freely, nattering with the locals either for fun or to gather intel on your latest caper.

Each room of the HQ can be fully customised, and the game takes on a management sim slant here, with you deciding which floor to assign each crew member to based on their attributes. Once that’s done, you can assemble teams and deploy them on dispatch missions.

Out in the field, you’ll be making use of an array of gadgets, solving puzzles, and completing action sequences to unravel the truth. One point off for that unresolved cliffhanger, though.

1

MySims Kingdom

Cheers Of The Kingdom

Kingdom was the game chosen to nestle alongside the OG MySims for the Switch’s Cozy Bundle; good choice, EA. Combining all the best bits of the MySims recipe book, and unceremoniously hacking off the bits that nobody wanted, this is a polished, engaging exploratory town-builder, with robust all-ages appeal.

Your Sim kicks off their miserable existence as a pig farmer in the employ of the no-nonsense Elmira Clamp. As is narrative tradition, they yearn for something more, and opportunity knocks when King Roland sends them off on a globetrotting spree. Joining you are Buddy, a clumsy screwup, and Lyndsay, the brains of the operation.

Kingdom takes the free-roaming that MySims 1 flirted with and centres its entire experience around it. From island to island, you never know what to expect: will it be a fairytale land of elves, a spooky swamp, or devoted entirely to the ego of thespian Trevor? You can tinker with each land as much as your heart desires, and even bring wind and water power to the less-developed burgs.

Rocking a meaty 15-20 hour runtime, and a laundry list of sidequests to tackle, Kingdom is the MySims experience to plump for.