Now there's a good topic to start a conversation if I ever heard one. What three things would you take with you to a remote desert island? The quality of answer is usually dependent upon which demographic you ask. The thinker will normally take three things to help them escape - a raft, a flash light to signal down passing ships and a good supply of food and drink. In fact, most people opt for food and drink, because they don't know if there's going to be any on that island. In addition to the mentioned nourishment, the sex pest will most likely want to take some supermodel guy or girl and something to prevent them from getting rescued, like a rocket launcher to shoot down any aircraft that dare even fly over the island of pleasure, and then there's the gadgeteer, who'll mostly likely want a laptop and a super strong satellite to get some kind of Internet connection, because as long as you can check MySpace and AceGamez, who cares about that big bear behind you, who's licking her lips in anticipation as to how you taste - she's not had a raw human since they started shooting the first season of LOST!

There's nothing to stop you from living out your LOST fantasies in The Sims 2: Castaway if you so choose. At the start of the game you can create a party of people to wash up ashore, and so what if some of the characters you happen to make look remarkably like Saywer, Kate, Jack, Locke, or Juliette? In fact, substitute Locke for somebody who resembles yourself and you'll have some pretty good eye candy no matter what your preference of gender may be! The character creation process, as always, is top notch, morphing things like body size, face shape and hairstyle before equipping clothes, modifying traits to influence star signs and selecting your Sim's favourite stat - I chose creativity for mine, because I envisioned my Sim playing the guitar around the campfire.

There was only one thing standing in the way of me playing a guitar, and that was the lack of a guitar! As you might expect, I washed ashore with nothing but a roll of toilet paper, there only to satisfy my toilet needs. In Castaway you get to build many things; but rather than navigating into a buy menu and just placing things on the ground, you have to gather resources to craft objects, making the whole experience rather engaging and rewarding. There's something therapeutic about searching shipwrecks for planks of driftwood, climbing banana trees to gather huge leaves and harvesting bamboo from bamboo plants that are hidden around the forest, to build a shelter from the day long showers that seem to pour from the sky at random moments that would normally prevent you from sleeping. Crafting objects, clothes, furniture, instruments, building fires and then gathering food to roast over the campfire largely makes up the Castaway experience. You simply can't have a ten-minute blast on this game; you need to sit down for hours at a time - but then, that doesn't matter when those hours seem to pass by like ten minutes would in the real, urban world.

As the days progress you can unlock new plans to build new things. Sometimes when you harvest a particular plant, plans become available that use that resource as one of its primary elements. Creating items usually involves using certain tools; a crafting bench is used for main things and you can find these all around the jungle. You may need other tools too, which require that you use tools to make these new tools - and suddenly making that new outfit, or that new means of escape, becomes more than a five minute job. Don't forget though, with Castaway being a regular Sims 2 spin-off (and not like MySims where needs don't have to be fulfilled as much) you have to attend to every whim of your Sims to keep them sane. I thought just having one Sim would make life easier, so I only made one character in the party, but then I later found out that I'd be bumping into no more residents on the island other than chimps, which don't make very good conversation. As a result, my social needs were never really full, so my Sim didn't always feel like working.

Fortunately most of the other tasks aren't too difficult to achieve. You can sort your toilet troubles out by selecting the toilet paper from your inventory and your Sim will just go where they are standing. You can easily keep your hunger down by building fires and cooking fish that you've caught with the spear you just built - or you can just go au natural and eat fruit from the trees. Sleep isn't too hard to come by - you can build beds for a comfier night's sleep, or you can use your sleeping bag instead. The only other thing I found hard to satisfy was the hygiene motive; why I didn't become clean after standing out in the torrential rain is beyond me - building showers out in the jungle just seemed like a waste of resources and time, but there you go.

You'll probably have several homes in Castaway. There are quite a few islands to explore and quite a few stages within these islands too. You outgrow the first island quickly, but you'll still need to spend time there sleeping and eating, so up goes your first bed and fire - before you have enough resources for a raft. Onto the next island, you set up shop again before you have enough strength and vigour to explore its steep rocks. Once you're up there, you need to work on your mechanical skill in order to build a bridge to the next part of the island, and so on and so forth. As well as the main goal of obviously progressing through the islands, you've also got little side quests and goals, such as befriending a chimp, which you can complete at your leisure - so there's never a shortage of things to do in Castaway.

And if you do get bored of running around and building things out of rubbish (MacGyver style!) then you could always count how many loading times there are in this game. Yes, it's a sad fact, but each section of jungle is split into loading times, so you'll often find yourself stuck in the middle of a waiting session. I wouldn't mind, but the graphics aren't anything to write home about - they look no better than the PS2 version in my opinion, with plenty of jaggies and loads of repeated textures. The saving grace in the visual department can be found in the calming sea washing the sandy beach while sitting comfortably in front of a campfire, and I found my hair growing on a day to day basis, so before long I looked like a real jungle resident with long, hobo-style hair and clothes made out of leaves and vine. The sound, as you'd expect from a Sims game, is bang on the mark however; all the talking emotions are here and it's highly comical to listen to your attempt to talk to a chimp. There are some good music tracks on the aeroplane radio that you'll find later on, too.

Before my closing thoughts, let me just talk to you about controls, because playing Castaway couldn't be simpler. You walk around with the nunchuck analogue stick, you interact with things by walking up to something and pressing the nunchuck shoulder button, and you select from a list of interactions from a list by tilting your nunchuck up and down, navigating the menus with tilting ease. You can do everything with the nunchuck in the game, but you can point at objects with the Wiimote, which of course makes selecting what to craft and what ingredients to use a lot easier with its point and click features too. It's safe to say that EA have made an effort to make this game Wii-friendly when it comes to the controls, but I still feel slightly disappointed that EA didn't spend a little extra time incorporating further levels of interactivity. Imagine lighting a fire by using your Wiimote to mimic a twig, which you'd palm and twist to cause a spark. Or picture yourself spearing the fish in the sea, using the Wiimote as a spear. There are a lot of missed opportunities in the Wii version of Castaway and that's a shame.

The Sims 2L Castaway is a really good, well put together title that deserves some attention. Sure, it's not one of the three things I'd take with me to a desert island - those three spaces are reserved for a helicopter, a trained pilot and a good flask of Yorkshire Tea for the ride home - but Castaway is something that I'd look forward to playing upon my safe return from the island. Whether you decide to go for MySims instead depends on your personal preferences. If you prefer traditional Sims with a classic twist on the franchise then Castaway in a must, but if your heart lies in unique visuals and a higher level of Wii interactivity then MySims might be for you. However, both titles are highly recommended, and you can't go wrong with either.

So Mr. Pilot, ready to take me home? What do you mean I forgot to bring fuel for the helicopter?! Is Yorkshire Tea any use? Dammit!

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).