This game is a business simulation, released 2005 for Windows, Playstation 2, and Xbox. I played it only a little bit, and the main reason I wrote about it at all is that at least back in August 2007 it was about the only game to have gameplay similar to The Sims. The reluctance of the industry to adopt this concept has always puzzled me.
2007-08-06
Apart from The Urbz, a console-only variation of the original game, Playboy: The Mansion seems, as of 2007, to be the only game based on The Sims. Otherwise, this game has practically been ignored by the industry. And this, once you look at it, is a rather strange fact.
Usually, if a game is highly successful or just brings something
substantially new, it will quickly spawn a number of clones and
look-alikes. I'm not even referring to the old classics like
Breakout or Tetris
here, which are usually simple in construction and therefore an
ideal practising ground for apprentice programmers. But the same
thing happened with Doom, a technically far
more complex game, with Myst, or with
Command & Conquer. But perhaps Will
Wright's creations were too revolutionary, perhaps they shocked the
industry, which tends to be rather conservative. Concepts from
SimCity were adapted, but somehow
hesitatingly, and usually combined with more conventional gameplay
elements: Sid Meier's Civilisation has been called a cross between
SimCity and a wargame, while Caesar was
based on the idea to create something like SimCity, but with more
gameplay.
But what about The Sims?
Now I wouldn't say that this hugely successful game has been completely without influence. Since it was released, there is a creeping tendency to flesh those little virtual characters out more, even in genres where it wasn't customary previously. The tourists in Beach Life, for example, are definitely individuals, with their own wishes and needs to be met. But that is an aspect that had been, rudimentary, present before, if you think about the walkers in the City Builder games or the NPCs in Simtower, who would grow impatient when they had to wait too long for the elevator. NO, on the whole The Sims have not created a revolution in gaming.
Playboy: The Mansion really was the first game that took the interface and many basic gameplay elements of The Sims 2, and used them for something different. Unlike the latter's open-ended sandbox gameplay, it does give the player quite specific goals, not only, as in every business simulation, to make ends meet, but also to churn out a Playboy magazine regularily. Each copy must have a centerfold, a title pic, an article, an essay, a location shot, and an interview, so there is lots of work involved.
