Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Gamefly has added Wii and DS listings for The Sims 2: Castaway Stories to its website. There's no official confirmation of the title yet from EA, who have only announced it for PC so far. As the title suggests, the game will offer a story mode featuring 'romance and dramatic twists.'

These games could work really well on DS and Wii, particularly if the online/wi-fi aspect is exploited - imagine being able to create and share your avatars - or replays of your characters' most entertaining moments.

Castaway Stories hits the PC in Winter, with DS and Wii versions hopefully arriving shortly after.

[Via Siliconera]

"OMG! The Wii is so cool," an enthusiastic female developer screams during a GDC session. That developer is Robin Hunicke, designer of the upcoming Wii-exclusive MySims. Designing the title began long before the team had a chance to get their hands on the system, so they had to rely on the "aesthetic" of Nintendo's advertising. "We wanted to bring The Sims to the Wii in a way that we could say we were at home on the Wii," she said, trying to find a unique look, style and feel for the Wii version.

Converting a game for play on Wii doesn't necessarily mean changing everything. What the team focused on was how it feels to touch the characters on screen with the Wiimote: wild, flailing actions probably wouldn't be appropriate for a title such as this. One of the biggest changes that needed to be made was how the game was managed: there was a great deal of opposition to focusing on a single character (rather than a large family), and there was an even greater uproar against the loss of urination, and other micromanagement features.

Streamlining The Sims process was key to moving the franchise to the Wii, and that's where the character designs came from. Although they look strangely like Mii, the look wasn't based on Nintendo's character creation system. The lead character designer, when showing off her simplified look for Wii Sims, was told: "it's perfect."

See also:
Joystiq: Moving The Sims from PC to Wii
Gallery: MySims design process
Gallery: MySims

With the huge success of the Sims series, we aren't surprised to see it branching out to the latest consoles. While the Sims have taken on more adult themes, the upcoming Wii version looks like the game had a rough run-in with Animal Crossing. The characters and topics now resemble those found in games directed towards kids and adults who turn away from high graphics and violence.

The trailer shows characters flouncing about doing Animal Crossing-esque gestures with added facial expressions and sounds. While the trailer is void of controller use and character creation, a few screenshots give viewers a glimpse. As usual, our non-existent command of the Japanese language limits what we can gather from the site. Still, this title may be worth keeping up with.

Catch the video after the break!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]