I'm a great lover of the Sims games, so I was intrigued by the variety of different Sims 2 games that were suddenly released for the DS.

After some careful reading of existing reviews, and product descriptions, I decided to try Sims 2 Castaway.

The plot to the game centres on your little lost sim who has found her/himself stranded on a desert island. You need to help your sim find their way off the island and back to civilisation.

It being one of the very first games I played on my newly bought DS, I was extremely over excited when I discovered that for my little Sim lady to be able to light a fire, I not only had to help by rubbing the pieces of wood to create a spark (using the touch pad obviously!) but by also BLOWING to help the flames grow! (into the speaker) A fantastic use of the DS system!

However, other than lighting a fire, the full flexibility of the DS seemed not to be utilised to it's full advantage for the rest of the time. Such a shame after such a promising start.

This game takes the idea of Sims 2 to a new level - incorporating growing plants and interacting with other sims, with old style adventure type games. To enable a fellow shipwrecked sim to help you, you first need to find or create an item they might need. This directed and problem solving play gives a new dimension to The Sims 2.

You can roam the island freely, rather than being restructured to one 'plot' or lengthly loading times when travelling about (as in the PC version of Sims 2), which pushes you gently towards the new time of game play incorporated in The Sims 3.

My main complaint is that the game itself seems relatively short, and once completed, there's little motivation to re-play it. There are also many familiar interactions and game play issues that you cannot do which are second nature in the PC version of The Sims 2. But if you approach this game as an independent item, rather than another 'expansion pack' of the normal Sims 2, then you should appreciate it for what it is.

Some people love this game, some hate it. I didn't mind it. It's just a shame I completed it fairly quickly.