It's pretty unusual, to say the least, to play a Sims game without any actual Sims in it. Sim Animals features no human characters whatsoever. Yet somehow it's immediately recognisable as coming from the same stable as Will Wright's incredibly successful creation.
The way you manipulate the game world from the outside, interact with its residents, the intuitive and simple controls - all classic Sims staples. And the animals you're dealing with certainly have personalities that are true to the series, acting in a slightly exaggerated way that makes them feel real but gives them human-like characteristics. Every creature has its own foibles, and that's part of what makes Sim Animals such a joy to experience.
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Doctor Do-Lots There's more than a whiff of Viva Piņata about the central concept - taking a disused plot of land and beautifying it to attract animal visitors, who you then have to try and keep happy by feeding, petting and pairing them off. Yet in gameplay terms it's very different. The theme of "touching the world", as EA's in-house development team put it, is key. You can manipulate the environment and its inhabitants in far more ways than Rare's pocket paradise. For example, tap a tree with the stylus to make it drop its fruit, or blow into the mic to spread the seeds from a dandelion across the land, creating a field of flowers to attract bees who can make honey. And what do bears like to eat?
There's no messy fiddling with menus, either. Various icons tell you what each animal is thinking, so you'll know whether they're hungry, tired or ill. If you have more than one of a particular type of animal, you'll be able to recognise them from slight adjustments to their appearance. One might have a white stripe on its tail, another you'll think about naming 'Patch' after the distinctive marking on their ear. It's about flora as well as fauna too. Rare plants can make your animals look different again, and will sometimes affect behaviour.
With this being a family game, Viva Piņata's preoccupation with mating and death is replaced by cuddles and cartoon fights, while the game offers two main modes - an open sandbox play mode, and one which is more goal-based. With an in-game encyclopedia adding a little bit of educational value, this has the potential to be absolutely massive. And from what we've seen of the game so far, that success could very well be deserved.
