April 9, 2005 - Welcome to the world of the Sims. Create and customize your Sim to fit your personality, and then take them out into the world. Choose from many different careers and work your way up the corporate ladder, to finally earn that dream house for all your hard work. As a Sim, your needs are paramount. Buy that new TV and watch it for hours, fill your stomach when you are hungry, or even satisfy your lust for love through socializing with neighbours or throwing parties to meet that special someone. Everything that you can do in reality can be done in the Sims.

Developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts, The Sims Bustin’ Out is the second generation of the series to come to the consoles. It makes an attempt to give players the experience that previous Sims titles on the PC have to offer, but it comes up short, and is really a step in the wrong direction. The Sims Bustin' Out doesn't offer anything revolutionary to the series and for those who do have a PC powerful enough, you would be better to pick up the Sims Mega Deluxe pack, or even the next-generation Sims 2.

The Sims Bustin' Out is similar to the classic Sims franchise for the PC, with the addition to being able to focus more on a single character and their daily life, as well as managing an entire family. Players start off with very little and have to work up to corporate ladder to buy new items and develop the house of your dreams. Your sim can change careers, buy new items, and unlock options, offering a lot of replayability, but you may not want to commit that kind of time as the gameplay can become stale very quickly. In Bustin Out’ you follow the life of a Sim, and guide them along the way. This means you are responsible for directing your Sim to do everything from taking out the trash and cleaning up messes, to turning on the TV, to getting up for work every morning. If you don’t mind giving monotonous repetitive orders every day, then you may just enjoy this repetition. Much like the Tamaguchi Pets children had years ago, or even the ever popular Pokemon series by Nintendo, The Sims Bustin’ Out gives players a character they can take care of, watch grow up, and help succeed in life. This addictive quality however is the games only saving grace.

Presentation is one aspect in which previous Sims titles have always succeeded. The manual is simplistic and easy to read, and the opening sequence is well-developed. Game menus are also pleasing to the eye. However, once you actually get into the game, the experience goes downhill, as the weak in-game graphics and even worse audio may just leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Visually, The Sims Bustin’ Out is surprisingly weak. With fairly powerful technology available on the Xbox, one would think that the graphics could have been significantly more detailed. Character models are really lacking, and while players get to choose from so many unique items and clothing, you’ll likely not even really notice it. Because of the camera perspective and lack of zooming, you can barely notice these details. In fact, the only time you’ll get an opportunity to take advantage of the character models are during a special event, such as a promotion at work. It should be noted that Sims Bustin’ Out does improve on the character models from the older Sims titles, but it’s not much of an enhancement. In Bustin’ Out, it seems that most of these models look identical. This leads to a detachment between player and Sim as your character resembles the ones that are computer controlled. In addition to characters, object detail is also further refined in the PC series. From wall hangings, to paintings, to even images displayed on the TV, Bustin’ Out fails to utilize the Xbox's capabilities, which is really quite disappointing.