Instead of being put together with your family and the problem of which furniture to put in your house, this time you have to get around together with a couple other unfortunates and little means. Hunting with a spear on fish, collecting drift wood to make a workshop, building cabins and plucking fruit... You can even train monkeys to make them take over the more boring work. That's what a Sim does on holiday!

As always you can make your own Sim with his or her specialties and wishes and you're again free to just hand around and collect stuff. Next to that there's a bunch of goals to achieve and these nicely fit together so that you first have to collect wood for a bench, and then make something else with which you can catch the necessary fish. Nice is that these assignments and pieces of gameplay are unlocked after reading a message in a bottle or by suddenly discovering a hidden piece of the island in the bushes. Those that like complete collections can keep busy for ever with looking for shells, plants and animals.

What I noticed most is that the gameplay is a lot more relaxed than with the classic Sims. There's more time for exploring and joyful playing for the playing itself. No constant time limit to go to the toilet or taking care your baby or you get food every three minutes. Gamers that want to relax for a minute will not buy wrong with this title.

Noticeable is the music that sounds a lot more original than we're used, and which nicely fits together with the tropical setting. The white beach, the palm trees and the gear is all shown very nicely and the Sims do look a bit different but keep those typical animations, the cute character and the nonsense they call a language. Too bad the PS2 needs some heavy loading now and then which doesn't help the immersion and makes exploring the island a lot less fun.