With The Sims 2 fast approaching, Maxis took the big and long overdue step of taking the franchise to the consoles this year. On the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube versions, the focus narrowed slightly from an omnipotent God of the PC Sims, where little people of the household were forced to do terrible things, to just a single person. No longer did gamers have to worry about juggling the needs of four household members at once; just improve your character and complete the various objectives—another new touch. Apparently, when Maxis said ‘consoles’, they meant more than just the big three next-gen systems. Just in time for Christmas, a portable life simulator comes to the GameBoy Advance with The Sims: Bustin’ Out.

After creating a Sim and customizing the gender, skin tones, outfit and hairstyle of what is basically a virtual avatar, players are thrown into the world of Sim Valley, where they share a farm with Uncle Hayseed. From here on out, the game becomes addictive as junk without the side effects. Goals are listed with several objectives being contained in each, and early on, the goals basically make the player become comfortable with the surroundings and with the gameplay schedule. Talking with people is key, but since Bustin’ Out is organized like a big, friendly neighborhood, finding chatting partners is much easier than the old PC days, where friends either drop in or have to be called up. Not only will choosing the friendly answers for each person help your personality profile and make you feel warm and bubbly inside, but also some objectives, jobs and extra money come from being well liked. If you really put the moves on right, you can invite another Sim to be a roommate, which is an interesting twist.

The first thing Sims veterans will notice about the portable port is how Maxis nailed every tenet of the franchise, shrinking down the elements but still keeping them in place. Micromanaging time and paying attention to your Sim’s emotions and needs is still the overall point. Simoleans, the official currency of Sim Valley, can be earned through numerous mini-games. Mowing Uncle Hayseed’s lawn for thirty seconds is the first job, and as players pick up more skills (through the traditional weightlifting, painting, cooking and repair routes) they can advance in their jobs to higher-paying, more difficult tasks. Several stores are available in Sim Valley for purchasing items of varying rarity and expense, which can be taken back to the current home location and placed around. Such a simple description does not properly illustrate how amazingly elegant The Sims: Bustin’ Out is. Daily operations get mixed up thanks to changing overall objectives, but the foundation of each day’s schedule still rotates around the basic principles of needing to eat, sleep, relax, go to the bathroom, socialize and earn money—not necessarily in that order. If one of the categories of personal health and emotional well being is too low, your Sim will complain mercilessly and be unable to carry on conversations or other tasks before the pressing need is addressed.

Originally, gamers will need to hoof it around the semi-large town, which gets annoying, especially because most of the goals revolve around talking and fetching. Townspeople can be located via telephone, but you still have to go walk the beat in order to find them and either take an item, give an item, or use suave charm to convince them to tell you the next step to a larger objective. Running with the B Button makes the process easier, but the addition of a fast scooter after the first few hours is still much appreciated, yet another example of how Maxis identifies problems and moves to solve them.

The second thing Sims fans will notice is the timing schedule of Bustin’ Out, which generally goes for a less hectic and slightly more realistic day. Getting food doesn’t take several hours anymore, and even with all the objectives bearing down on the player, the speed of the game still relaxes. Getting all the necessary social and money-grabbing opportunities to fit in one day is easy, and the game makes having a job even easier by scheduling different working hours for various mini-games. Mow Uncle Hayseed’s lawn in the morning, tend bar at night and sell trinkets you pick off the street to the recycling labs in the very early morning. Or be a professional bodybuilder, pizza deliverer or rock climber during the day. The Sims: Bustin’ Out offers a myriad of activities, but doesn’t press hard for players to complete them all, or any of them. Relationships gradually lower if you don’t talk to someone for a long time, but you can easily talk to six or seven good friends and increase the friendship status in a normal day. On the other hand, the whole concept of speeding up time (except when sleeping) has bee eliminated, so tedious tasks like learning skills must be stared at for several minutes, which is annoying. Still, the overall balance is very successful and has few downsides. Such a slow, enjoyable pace may seem like cheating to weathered veterans of The Sims, who see first the juggling of multiple family members erased, and then the juggling of too many pressing needs. But if you’re not serious about feeling challenged, Bustin’ Out is a highly pleasurable experience that provides a worthwhile and addictive escape from real world life management.

If one thing drops the jaw immediately, the graphics of The Sims: Bustin’ Out are simply incredible. Consider such an active small city, the amount of detail crammed in every tile and texture, and how large characters are, and it’s a miracle Bustin’ Out can run on the system at all. The isometric 3D view works wonders for the presentation; the game just wouldn’t be possible without that ‘Sims feel’ of a house with breakaway walls depending where you’re viewing from. Numerous objects fit inside the progressively more ornate houses, and each object has a completely individual look. Perhaps the single most impressive graphical achievement is the complex animations. Walking, running, standing around, eating and showering are just some of the actions Sims do in the course of a day, and each character has an individual style. For example, the Fonzie-like smooth Italian seller of stolen, exotic goods has a strut that has to be seen. If The Sims: Bustin’ Out doesn’t outright win the award for best looking GBA game of the year on the spot, it should at least be a heavy front-runner.

But what would The Sims be without that charming, repetitive elevator music and Simmish garbled talk? Bustin’ Out keeps both traditions alive. It has the same soundtrack of synthesized tunes as the PC and console brothers, and even has a few Sim phrases and sound effects for fun. No one will jump up and cheer at the audio, but such a cheesy presentation is central to the image The Sims has always tried to present from the beginning.

The downside of the new focus on objectives and goals, however, is that Bustin’ Out lacks the open-ended possibilities of the PC version. Unlike the original Sims, you can actually beat Bustin’ Out and consider the game finished. Of course, the objectives do not have time limits on them, but certain areas and furniture only open up after specific requirements have been met. You can still play around for hours on end, and the game readily encourages this. But playing straight through takes around eight to ten hours. Not a small number by any means, especially for a GBA game, but still… what seems like three years ago, I installed The Sims on my computer and occasionally return for a binge now and then. Some 200 hours I reckon I’ve wasted on my virtual houses, slaving over design and customization. The Sims: Bustin’ Out can’t come near to matching that, but for what it is, the package remains excellent. GameCube owners can also hook up their ‘Cube copies of The Sims with the GBA System Link and access several new minigames and a vacation area.

For new and old fans of the series, The Sims: Bustin’ Out is a wonderful combination of the core structure plus several expansion pack additions. Pets, vacations, new occupations and relationships (although nothing beyond being a roommate) are all included in a size small enough to travel, and Bustin’ Out makes for a great companion to road trips, holiday breaks and whatever other excuses exist to take the GameBoy Advance out and spend time molding a virtual being to good or demonic perfection.