The MySims series started out as a cutesy, cartoony version of the Sims series for PC and Wii that would let a younger generation of gamer take a crack at the building and customisation of the Sims without asking them to navigate sexual relationships and simulated job grinds. From there, the series experimented with a more structured kind of game – like MySims Racing or MySims Kingdom – that had elements of other game genres around to direct gameplay objectives. However, it was still mostly a free-roaming game without much direction.

Now we have MySims Agents, an evolution in the MySims series toward a serious adventure game. Sure, it’s still cutesy and cartoony – and about 85% of the cast is made up of Sims we’ve seen in other MySims game – but this is a game on a mission. And the mission is to become a secret agent.

What Is It?
MySims Agents is an adventure game for the Wii following the rise of a gumshoe detective to world-class agent as he works to recover the stolen Nightmare Crown. Players take the role of this young detective and progress through a series of mostly-linear levels to find clues, interview people and ultimately get to the bottom of the bigger mystery. Most of the gameplay is centered around gadgets that the player levels up over time – like evolving a basic magnifying glass to a high-tech footprint sensor – as well as the leveling of companion detectives that the main character can recruit.

What We Saw
I sat down for about an hour’s worth of fiddling at EA Redwood Shores. The save I was playing on was toward the end of the game, so a lot of stuff was unlocked and gadgets were already leveled up.

How Far Along Is It?
MySims Agents is due out in September just before the mega-October rush. The build looked solid to me, although my hands-on time was limited to certain areas and puzzles because they were 100% finished.

What Needs Improvement?
Mind The Puzzle-Platform Ratio: A lot of Agents involves solving agent-y puzzles like lock-picking or hacking a computer. However, there are some platforming sections where the player has to guide the Agent through a jumping puzzle or across balance beams. Depending on how the ratio of puzzles-to-platforming stacks up, these sections will either blend in seamlessly with the secret agent theme or leave the player grumbling in frustration about how James Bond never got mobbed by butterflies and fell off a cliff.

What Should Stay The Same?
Adventure Gameplay: Part of the problem with the adventure-flavored MySims Kingdom was that there just wasn’t enough structure to the story. It was hard to care about what the King wanted when there were endless possibilities for rearranging your house décor and endless numbers of Sims that wanted you to build junk for them. MySims Agent zeros in on the story and while it still that “Hey, let’s go rearrange furniture in your secret headquarters” gameplay, there seems to be enough structure to the game to propel you out into the world to start solving mysteries instead of aimless wandering around to provoke local wildlife.

Fixed Camera: MySims Agent has a fixed camera that the player cannot control. This works well with the gameplay, because it allows the level developer to hide things from the player that they have to do detective work to find. It also makes Build mode less tedious because the Agent has to stand on a specific spot to enter build mode so that the camera can fix itself in the best possible angle for seeing the building area – a definite improvement over MySims Kingdom.

Smooth Sim Integration: A big part of any Sim game is working on inter-Sim relationships. This element makes its way into Agents through the recruitment system and the special side missions system. As the player goes through the game and meets all different kinds of Sims, he or she can recruit Sims as secret agent operatives. Recruiting a Sim moves them into the Agent’s headquarters and the Agent can send them out to do side missions for other Sims, which improves the Agent’s relationship with those Sims. While on these special missions, your Agent can carry on with main story missions and receive updates (or pleas for advice) from your other Agents in the field via text message. So it’s almost like you’re playing two games at once and that way, you can reap twice the benefits. Depending on who you recruit and how you train them, you can have a crack team of investigative Sims – or a bunch of bums that clutter up your basement.

Masks: There’re a lot of hidden things in every level like bonus outfits or special items – but the big ticket items are always masks. Each mask a Sim finds has special abilities attached to it, like charisma or athleticism, and hanging the masks on a particular floor of the Agent’s HQ trains all Sims that live on that floor in those skills. This is a neat way to customise your crack team of investigators because different missions require different combinations of skills. You can of course pick and choose different Sims from different floors to go on special side missions or take with you on main story missions – but sending an entire floor of Agents to do your bidding is both convenient and cool.

Final Thoughts
I’m looking forward to MySims Agents because I want to see MySims series evolve into solid adventure games. Between the collectibles and the unlockable hard puzzles, there’s enough content here to move MySims away from the stigma of “baby’s first god-complex game” and toward a series that appeals to everybody. During my demo, one of the MySims development team guys compared the series to The Muppets, saying that it’d be ideal to have a franchise of characters that you could use to tell any kind of story – or in this case, populate any kind of game. I’d be down with that; and I really hope Agents can lead the charge.

The MySims franchise generates more spinoffs than the Law & Order series, but Racing seems to be one of the good ones.

The game features many recurring characters from the original cutesy life simulation on the Wii, such as Dr. F and Chef Gino. Like MySims and MySims Kingdom, Racing is organized around Sim towns that require the player’s help to beef things up and make everybody happy. But instead of building things, going on quests or bolstering the local economy by buying stuff, this game asks the player to win races and complete racing challenges to help the local population thrive.

And that would be why it’s called MySims Racing.

What Is It?
MySims Racing is a go kart game for the Wii and DS that supports four player versus (on single or multiple cards for DS). Players can use the Wiimote -Nunchuck control setup, sideways Wiimote, GameCube controller or Wii Wheel to play the game.

What We Saw
I spent a little under an hour with the game in an EA representative’s posh apartment. Don’t give me that look – it was strictly business.

How Far Along Is It?
The build looked near-final. The game is coming out June 16.

What Needs Improvement?
Divorce the Sims: This game isn’t about being a life sim, it’s about racing. So why does EA need to keep it married to the MySims franchise? If anything, that alienates gamers that might otherwise get into the game for the sheer fun of racing.

Who Just Shot At Me?: There are so many Sims on the racing track at one time that’s it’s hard to tell who just shot you with whatever “power up” (the Sims don’t have “weapons”). Unlike Mario Kart or even the old school Diddy Kong Racing on Nintendo 64, the MySims’ vocal gibberish isn’t enough to tell the NPCs apart. You’d actually have to look behind you to see who shot you with down on the D-pad, but it’s risky and the tracks are so long, you probably couldn’t be sure which Sim to hate.

Cluttered tracks: MySims Racing relies on three different types of crystal from MySims as currency to pay for upgrades to you customizable kart. Between the different crystals plus the present boxes that contain power ups and the different obstacles and the boost platforms, the tracks can get cluttered very quickly – especially when other racers start dropping traps.

What Should Stay the Same?
Kart customization: Using the currency that you pick up from different tracks, you can change pretty much everything on your kart from the engine to the body. Different parts affect the handling, top speed and weight of the kart, while special parts obtained from completing challenges can give you bonuses to handling, speed or weight.

Frenetic Pace: To me, what separates a kart game from a “serious” racing game is the pace. In a real racing game, the pace is steady; so if you happen to spin out and hit a wall, it’s very hard to get back in the top three. In a decent kart game, the pace is frenetic such that you could still come back and win it even if you caught purple shell in the final lap. Frenetic pacing keeps kart racing fun even when you’re constantly getting nailed by vindictive AI – a lesson Mario Kart Wii seems to forget.

Familiar territory: If you’ve ever played a kart game, you will not need much of an explanation to play MySims Racing. The karts control exactly like you’d expect them to (A to go, B to drift or break, C to deploy pickups, etc.), the courses scale from basic to elaborate at a steady rate and the gameplay is a mix of being the fastest and getting lucky with the power ups. The game feels more like Mario Kart 64 than Mario Kart Wii did – and that’s saying something.

Final Thoughts
I’m on the fence about the motion controls in the game. Some of it’s basic, like jerking the Wiimote upward to perform a jump, but then there’s the elaborate stuff that could be getting into “tacked-on” territory. Like when you hit a wall or when a certain power up is inflicted on you, the game requires uses playing with the Wiimote-Nunchuck combo to shake the Wiimote to “clear” the screen. When I saw someone else doing it, it looked stupid, but when I did it, I barely noticed it. However, it got awfully annoying when the same screen-blocking power up hit me three times in a row.

The bottom line for me is that this is a game that does everything it promises to do and doesn’t make any silly pretentions toward reinventing the go kart racing wheel. I would gladly buy this game for a child and probably play it with them, too. Thought I wouldn’t be caught dead playing it alone – I’ve got a reputation to maintain and there are no classic Nintendo characters to justify my Wiimote flailing.