The Urbz: Sims in the City (GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

The Urbz: Sims in the City
Also known as: Los Urbz: Sims en la ciudad (ES), Dosiui Simjeu (KO), The Urbz: Sims og Singelliv (NO), The Urbz: Simowie w Mieście (PL) Developer: Maxis Publisher: EA Games Platforms: GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox Released in JP: January 13, 2005 Released in US: November 12, 2004 Released in EU: November 9, 2004 Released in KR: December 7, 2004 (PS2/Xbox) This game has unused objects. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused items. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a development article This game has a prerelease article

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

The Urbz: Sims in the City changes up the usual suburban lifestyle of The Sims and puts all the action into a city with workable jobs, unlockable (and crazy!) social interactions, an infectious soundtrack, and stereotypical caricatures. Also, The Black Eyed Peas make an appearance.

It's so ambitious that the game was even planned to start a sub-franchise for the series, but it never came to be due to overall poor sales. Despite the game being semi-forgotten, several elements be revisited in future Sims titles, most notably in The Sims 2: Nightlife with the city setting and The Sims 3: Late Night with the reworked reputation system, bars, and bouncers.

To do: Unused graphics. Unused or console-exclusive accessories. Unseen text on items. Scrapped Woohoo functions? Development oversights Placeholder yellow question mark used in one of the Create-an-Urb icons.

Sub-Pages

Development Info

Prerelease Info

Developer Options

The Sims: Bustin' Out Leftovers Believe it or not -- same engine!

Build Tags

Platform	Sandbox Version
GameCube (USA)	0.mainline_SKU1.0.126
GameCube (EUR)	0.mainline_SKU2.0.119
GameCube (JPN)	0.mainline_SKU3.0.101
PlayStation 2 (USA)	0.mainline_SKU1.0.125
PlayStation 2 (EUR)	0.mainline_SKU2.0.124
PlayStation 2 (JPN)	0.mainline_SKU3.0.101
PlayStation 2 (ASIA)	0.mainline_SKU4.0.92
PlayStation 2 (KOR)	0.mainline_SKU5.0.34

Unused Audio

Interestingly many of the following unused sounds are left unused in later console games up to Castaway.

Elevator Load Loops

load_loop_elevator1, load_loop_elevator2 and load_loop_elevator3 were likely intended to be used when the player accesses a district with an elevator, such as Diamond Heights and Blankwood Towers considering the used sound effects sound similar in style, but the regular loading screen theme plays instead.

XAM Sounds

Filename	Sample	Notes
cellphone_dial1		Earlier and simpler sounds for the XAM before they were replaced with realistic cellphone sounds.
cellphone_dial2
cellphone_dial3
cellphone_ringtone2		An alternative and earlier version of the Cozmo Street Ringtone with a jingle present over the morse code message. cellphone_ringtone is used as the generic ringtone sound.
cellphone_ringtone3		The same as above, except without the morse code message, sounding like a generic ringtone.

Unlock Sounds

Filename	Sample	Notes
ui_unlock_social ui_unlock_level		Unused unlock sound effects for new areas and social options.

Menu Sounds

Filename	Sample	Notes
UI_accept		Unused generic menu sound effects. Would be used as a placeholder for sound effect entries.
UI_back

Unused SFX Data

There are over a dozen of sound entries that all use the same UI_accept sound effect played above, including leftovers from the previous games.

Filename	Notes
ui_action_menu_browse
ui_action_menu_close
ui_action_menu_open
ui_action_menu_select
UI_cancel
ui_bm_fail	Unknown what "bm" stands for.
ui_bm_succeed
ui_browse_kbd	Unknown what "kbd" stands for.
ui_cac_cyclehead	Unknown what cyclehead means.
ui_cas_accept	Cut sound for accepting something in Create-An-Urb.
ui_cas_browse_category	Cut sound for browsing through object categories in Create-An-Urb.
ui_cas_browse_item	Cut sound for browsing items in Create-An-Urb
ui_cas_close	Cut sound for closing a menu in Create-An-Urb.
ui_cas_kboard_backspace	Cut unique sounds for typing out Urb names on the keyboard in Create-An-Urb.
ui_cas_kboard_char
ui_cas_kboard_done
ui_cas_kboard_end
ui_cas_kboard_key
ui_cas_kboard_shift
ui_cas_kboard_space
ui_cas_open	Cut sounds for Create-An-Urb.
ui_cas_rotate
Ui_help	Cut sound for help UI.
UI_move	Placeholder sound for moving stuff.
UI_NHOOD_BULLDOZE_DEMOLISH	Sound entry leftovers from The Sims Console and Bustin' Out.
UI_NHOOD_CLICK
UI_OBJECT_MONEYBACK
UI_OBJECT_MOVE_PLACE
UI_PLACE
UI_ROTATE
ui_open_sub	Cut sound for sub-menu.
ui_pda_close	Cut sounds for the XAM, including that of EyeToy features.
ui_pda_eyetoy_delete
ui_pda_eyetoy_save
ui_pda_open
ui_phone_call1
ui_phone_call2
ui_pda_submenu_browse	Cut sub-menu sounds for the XAM.
ui_pda_submenu_close
ui_pda_submenu_open_side
ui_pda_submenu_open_top
UI_PIEMENU_APPEAR	Sound entry leftovers from The Sims Console and Bustin' Out.
UI_PIEMENU_HIGHLIGHT
UI_PIEMENU_SELECT
UI_QUEUE_DELETE
UI_QUEUED
ui_rotate
UI_SPEED_1TO2	Sound entry leftovers from The Sims Console and Bustin' Out. Final uses lowercase equivalents.
UI_SPEED_2TO1
UI_SPEED_2TOP
ui_unlock_money	Sound entry leftovers from Bustin' Out.
ui_unlock_objects
ui_unlock_services
ui_unlock_skins

Unused Graphics

To do: rip the ui-jayde icons.

Early Main Menu Gradient

Though the mainmenuscreen texture from Bustin' Out remains in the files, it was overwritten with an orange and black gradient. Final game doesn't use the graphic at all, implying it is an early leftover.

Tex.	Mockup

Unfinished Chinese and Korean Localization

While The Urbz: Sims in the City was released in Taiwan and Korea, they were never translated and are only playable in English.

There are two duplicates of the game's English logo with those languages which are ui_logo256_kor_dark and ui_logo256_tchinese_dark.

• 

  ui_logo256_kor_dark

• 

  ui_logo256_tchinese_dark

To do: Are these different from the ones used in Bustin' Out?

There's also unused Chinese and Korean text in the files, different from Bustin' Out.

Chinese
font_china_s24_p0	font_china_s24_p1	font_china_s24_p2	font_china_s24_p3
font_china_s24_p4	font_china_s24_p5	font_china_s24_p6	font_china_s24_p7
font_china_s24_p8	font_china_s24_p9	font_china_s24_p10	font_china_s24_p11
font_china_s24_p12	font_china_s24_p13	font_china_s24_p14	font_china_s24_p15

Development Oversights

To do: So much more.... Object icons not matching final. HygiElite Luxury Shower Stall icon not matching model. Neon Nights dresser using different icon. Sexi Plexi Window using wrong icon. Manhole Cover, Sidewalk Grate and Newspaper Box using placeholder icons. "Neon Nights" dresser using Diamond Heights dresser icon instead.

Overwitten Song

Pootie's Top 40 (the station in Diamond Heights) is the only radio station to have three songs, in comparison to four on other stations. This is because Pop One (music_24_celebs1) is accidentally duplicated over music_24_celebs2, therefore having a chance of the song being played twice in a row in some instances. There was supposed to be a fourth song for the Station, which is called I Wanna Be Bad, but it was only playable on the official website before its shutdown. The song is sampled in the XAM Shot Power Social and on a XAM ringtone that can be listened to below as (xam_ringtone_celebs).

Filename Oddities

ui_sm_meter appear as blank, implying there were originally sounds.

Team Photo

A secret graphic of developers that worked on the game can be found by pressing Up, Down, X, Up, Down at the credits screen.

Regional Differences

To do: More... Cover the removed Red Bull product placement in the European and Japanese versions.

Red Bull Machine

Exclusively in the European version, the Red Bull machine is completely reskinned into a generic machine for unknown reasons.

The icon (electronics_vending_drink_redbull_action_queue) even got a change too;

Eur.	Int.

The can prop is reused from the drinks machine inside the Kicktail Park club.

Default Create-An-Urb Preset

The Asian releases have a different Urb given to you as the default when starting a new game.

International	Japanese, Korean, Rest-of-Asia

Platform Differences

Language Select

The European PS2 and Xbox versions have a language select menu and Xbox happens to have fewer languages available. It's missing Polish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish.

PlayStation 2	Xbox

Create-An-Urb

The Create-An-Urb for the GameCube version has a much brighter background than in the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions.

PlayStation 2 & Xbox	GameCube

Xbox Loading Screens

The Xbox version has unique loading screen backgrounds that can be seen. These textures also exist in the PS2 and GameCube versions, however they are 8×8 in size, and even if it's shown in-game there, there's no way it can be seen at that small of a size.

PS2 & GCN	Xbox	PS2 & GCN	Xbox
house_load0		house_load1
house_load2		house_load3
house_load4		house_load5
house_load6		house_load7
house_load8		house_load9

house_load10

Oddities

Unplugged Controller Screen Background

When the controller screen is unplugged, a light-blue gradient background with text on it reminds the player to plug it back in. It's actually reused from Bustin' Out, with the only difference being the font. It would later remain in the rest of the Sims console games, with the respective menu font being used.