Stop us if we’re wrong, but we thought party games were meant to be fun. It’s not that MySims Party is gouge-your-own-eyes-out awful – it isn’t, it’s perfectly serviceable – but it just feels so flat. We like the proper MySims games, and there’s an element of them here as you move into a new town, get a house, meet the locals and play them at minigames. But this sort-of story mode is as unsatisfying as low-sugar Haribo because it doesn’t do either the life sim or minigame bits in enough depth.

Rope in some mates and fire up the quickfire minigame mode and things improve slightly, but the 40 unlockable challenges aren’t very, er, challenging. Everything’s got that cute MySims sheen but it feels hollow. As it stands, the minigames included as an extra (an extra, not even the main game!) on the New Super Mario Bros. cart are still the best on DS.

Apr 20, 2009