What differentiates Life Stories the most from both the original The Sims, it’s imaginatively titled sequel, and all those overflowing soulless pet expansion packs, is its concentration on a goal-based narrative – a narrative in its loosest form, yes, but a narrative nonetheless. Following the lives of either Riley Harlow, a young woman returning home to the suburb of 'Four Corners' to start a new life, or Vincent Moore, a successful 'Bitville' businessman and an unlucky in love bachelor; the main 'Story Mode' of Life Stories does away with all the large scale constructive freedom and micromanagement fans of The Sims are accustomed to – instead, constricting the player’s experience to one resembling that more of the console Sims titles; playing along a unforgiving narrative with dolls, shrouded by a contrived imagination working overtime within the epic confines of a shoe box.
"Hello, operator? Just thought you'd like to know I have no shirt on. Okay, bye now."
There are no multiple endless neighbourhoods, no large scale home lots to eventually occupy, no exhaustive catalogues of household wares to decorate with, and no more than four members to a family – in the span of twelve chapters apiece for each character, the tutorial-like narratives of Life Stories can only go so far, leaving the player with something to be desired; especially if they have already played the core Sims titles to within an inch of their lives.
While diluting The Sims formula in theory sounds like a sure fire way of pulling in those who felt the franchise was too complicated to try out in the first place, Life Stories can only go to demonstrate to that same crowd how fundamentally dull it all is. There are still the usual day-to-day needs, wants, aspirations, and relationships of your Sim to attend to, and even the option of allowing them the freedom of self-autonomy, to a degree – but with no sense of long-lasting interaction or choice to the proceedings on the screen, and only a forced arbitrary 'story' related meaning to actions that have already been done, and done better, in previous entries in the franchise; one can't help but think of Life Stories as an audience gaining exercise in futility.
"PULL MY FINGER, OR ELSE"
Evidently, streamlining The Sims experience for small doses is the whole idea behind this spin-off series in the making in the first place - but that's not to say it's without its glaring faults as a standalone game. Find the local residents and neighbours annoying? Too bad, as there ain’t anyone else around in the miniscule neighbourhood, of the quite literal in meaning, 'Four Corners'. Think the neighbourhood could do with a bit more elbow room? Tough luck, as there’s nowhere else to move into and nowhere else to go. Find that the available love interests are not quite your type? Sorry, but depressed single beggars can't be choosers. Don’t want to play as Riley, and would rather help Vincent out of his lovelorn pickle? Tough Sim cheese, as you have to first play through Riley’s story to gain access to Mr. Moore's.
Fortunately, and perhaps in light of the lacking story modes, developer Maxis had the foresight to also include a ‘Free Play’ mode – in essence, the chance for the player to try out something more akin to the traditional Sims experience, albeit one hampered down by the same design and technology issues as the main modes of Life Stories' play. Downloadable extras are already available on EA's websites, but with no features to swap or interconnect one's creations with the main Sims titles, Free Play quickly becomes a substantially shallow and lonely experience.
"Remember that time I called you with no shirt on? Your mother didn’t like it, but hey, here we all are now"
Hailed as being ‘Laptop Friendly’, the system requirements of Life Stories could be seen as the one main positive caveat in its honour. Smoothly running on both low-end PCs and laptops, the ability to play a more or less current generation Sims title, either on the go or with a strict budget rig in mind, is certainly a tempting one - but it does come at a cost. Environments, as stated before, are grossly downsized, to the point where there are basically only four homes to choose from in the otherwise pixelated 'suburb' of Four Corners, while the natural ambience and sound effects feel even more repetitious than ever - even if there is the choice to use custom mp3s as a soundtrack. On the other hand, one can play the whole game in a window while also instant messaging, so that must count for something.
Like an unengaging soap opera wrapped in the unintelligible and ear molesting language of Simlish, Life Stories achieves its goal of simplifying the Sims formula for the sake of story – but it is this very ‘difference’ that makes one wonder whether it was worth bothering developing or playing in the first place; especially at a regular retail price. There's always the dated, but far deeper and cheaper likes of the original Sims product line to get one's low-end computer micromanagement on the go. As for the narratives, EA and Maxis would be wise to leave that holy grail of game development to the individual.
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