Introduction

Do what now?

In the mid-2000s, the Nintendo Wii and DS were both A Big New Deal. EA wanted to jump on that bandwagon. They wanted to jump on it hard. I imagine that the decision-making process went something like this:

- These new Nintendo machines ~~are for babbies and casuals~~ appeal to a wide audience, including a lot of younger gamers and families.
- Therefore we should make our new Nintendo-exclusive franchise cheerful, simple, colorful, and E-for-everyone-rated.
- Hey, don't we have a franchise like that already?
- Sort of?
- Close enough!

Shortly thereafter the market was flooded with MySims games for both platforms in nearly every non-violent game genre, starting with the original MySims, in which you moved adorable blockheaded mascots into your magical town and then made them furniture out of colored blocks until the repetition drove you mad.

(Get used to those blockheaded mascots, by the way. All the games draw from the same largish cast of MySims. I'll mention their roles in other games whenever it seems appropriate.)

MySims Agents is a surprisingly well-written and funny light platformer/puzzler/point-and-click adventure. Generally considered to be the strongest entry in the franchise (despite a few obviously cut corners) Agents was released in 2009 on both the Wii and the DS. The versions are fairly dissimilar and have different plots and gameplay mechanics; we'll be playing the Wii version, because it's my favorite.

So it's like The Sims?

Not really, no.

Some things will definitely feel familiar--interactions, Simlish, plumb-bobs--but the games don't have that much in common, despite the MySims games theoretically being a spinoff of The Sims. No houses full of goonSims here, alas.

There are a few crossovers and references, which I'll talk about when we get there.

What will we do in this LP?

We'll play wisecracking special agents going on secret missions to save the world from EVIL! We'll help the downtrodden! We'll solve crimes! We'll fall off things! A lot! We'll even recruit a crack team of junior agents and send them on their own special missions and then laugh when they fail to complete the simplest tasks!

We'll also constantly change clothes, restyle our hair, and redecorate our fancy HQ, as I intend to find and show off all the extras salted away in hidden chests.

This will be a lightly-narrative screenshot LP with occasional bursts of italics to denote stuff I made up.

Please keep any spoilers behind spoiler tags. Also, don't be creepy.

- Cover art for the Wii version
- Opening movie (Polsy'd)
- Official game trailer (also Polsy'd)
- A completely non-serious interview with Jeff Green, the game's writer, courtesy of Gimbal lock (contains no plot spoilers but shows areas and characters from very late in the game)
- Closing credits
- Master Portrait Sheet by Genevieve Tsai ( + missing character)

Happiest little Paul the Yeti icon, by Embiggen!

CHARISMA:
Trevor: +++++
Ms. Nicole: ++++
Pinky: ++++
Travis: +++
Beebee: +++
Preston: +++
Spencer: +++
Leaf: ++
Renee: ++
Liberty: ++
Vic: +
Annie: +
Hopper: +
Lyndsay: +

SPORTS:
Roger: +++++
Star: ++++
Aran: ++++
Gonk: +++
Wolfah: ++
Hopper: ++
Spencer: ++
Lyndsay: ++
Mike: ++
Beebee: +
Preston: +
Annie: +
Makoto: +
Magellan: +

SMARTS:
Gordon: +++++
Makoto: ++++
Elmira: +++
Rosalyn: +++
Annie: +++
Sir Vincent Skullfinder: +++
Travis: ++
Nova: ++
Mike: ++
Vic: +
Preston: +
Carl: +
Violet: +
Ms. Nicole: +
Zoe: +
Lyndsay: +

NATURE:
Petal: +++++
Leaf: +++
Wolfah: +++
Renee: +++
Magellan: +++
Liberty: +++
Gonk: ++
Hopper: ++
Nova: +
Beebee: +
Elmira: +
Carl: +
Violet: +
Wendalyn: +
Lyndsay: +
Aran: +

PARANORMAL:
Marlon: +++++
Wendalyn: ++++
Zoe: ++++
Carl: +++
Violet: +++
Vic: +++
Rosalyn: ++
Nova: ++
Sir Vincent Skullfinder: ++
Elmira: +
Pinky: +
Mike: +
Magellan: +
Star: +

The Let's Play Archive

MySims Agents

by Picayune

Introduction