In this town, 'tude is king

It's all about reputation, baby.

Your everyday Sim gets an attitude and takes to the streets in The Urbz: Sims in the City.

Features

• Build reputation among groups
• Urban styles from clothing to furnishings
• Two-player simultaneous play
• Music by The Black Eyed Peas

If it's hip to be different, the Urbz are circles in a square Sims world. These city dwellers have very few things in common with their suburban Sim-lations. Although the Urbz speak in gibberish and need to go to the bathroom, eat and sleep, they live on the other side of the world from the Sims' suburban sprawl.

With the Urbz, life centers on reputation, style and living every minute like it could be your last. You need to help the Urb you create live it up with the locals while still maintaining a sense of style back at your pad.

Each city district is home turf to a different subculture. All the beautiful people congregate in Diamond Heights. The counterculture punkers own Central Station. The bikers hang out at Gasoline Row. You need to build a reputation with each group of people before they'll let you inside their world.

You make friends the old-fashioned Sims way: jibber-jabber. By talking each group's language and making friends, you unlock different Social Moves to perform on a group. For instance, the friendly act of belching a flame impresses the bikers and punkers, but it mostly just sets socialites on fire. Bragging might break the ice with some Urbz, but others will find you offensive. Study each group of Urbz to learn how to fit in and unlock all the Social Moves.

In The Sims, having a job meant getting in a car and leaving home for eight hours, then returning with some cash. The Urbz pick up jobs wherever they can, and it doesn't take hours to earn the cash to buy the bling. Each district has odd jobs for your Urb. Become a piercer in Central Station or work at a chop shop in Gasoline Alley. In each job, you'll press buttons on your Controller as they appear on screen. After you complete the button-pressing part of your job, each job contains secondary objectives, like conversing with the locals, before you get paid.

Much like The Sims, to get a promotion you must learn skills. EA put some interaction in the skill set, too. To earn a skill, you must buy the corresponding machine for your skill and then press the A button quickly a number of times until you gain the skill. To upgrade your artistic skill, you must rap with the Schnizzalator. Although having a job and learning a skill is more active, it doesn't really add a "fun" element to the game. Maybe if the tasks were different (like the minigames in the Game Boy Advance version of The Urbz), they'd be more fun. As it stands, you're just pressing buttons.

But the game isn't about working, it's about playtime. EA created over-the-top characters who do over-the-top things and wear outrageous threads. Just to get into the clubs, you have to dress like the locals, and you're given free rein to create your style. Your basic needs (bathroom, cleanliness, sleep) don't need as much attention as in The Sims, giving you more of a chance to get out on the dancefloor, arm wrestle or strut on the catwalk. Although you have goals to meet, you don't need to complete them in any order. This open-endedness works well, but you might feel a little overwhelmed at first when you're learning about all the tasks and different Social Moves. Never fear, everything's stored in your hand-held XAM device for later recall.

Each district also offers a variety of home furnishings and decorations to buy. But being in the city means being on the go. You won't have to worry about which potted plant gives your home more value, unless you want to. The game's 3D design makes the controls a little hard to get used to, but a lot of care was put into the details of each district. EA added an interesting two-player simultaneous mode. With two players, the screen splits vertically into two. Player one plays on the left, player two on the right. Both players still need to perform their goals, but both players can play in one district at the same time. Once one player leaves to another district, the other player will follow. An Urb will take over the whole screen when he or she accesses the XAM or pauses the game. But mostly, each Urb plays independently of the other.

Bottom Line

A strong sense of social structure and style pulsates through the game, but some gameplay aspects might seem a bit outrageous to hard-core Sims fans. The very Sims-ish pokey pace might not be active enough to bring hip newcomers into the Sim world, but it will suit the legions of fans of the franchise just fine. Check your ego and your attitude at the door and see the game for yourself.