The Sims 3

As an avid user of the original Sims game and Sims 2 I was looking forward to the 3^rd installment of the franchise. After months of looking at videos and screenshots, the game finally came out on the June the 2^nd, I got the game and installed it straight away on my computer. The game is available simultaneously for the PC and for the Mac, this is for the first time ever that this happened.

Installing

Installing the game is pretty easy and standard. I missed the games that you could play while the Sims 2 was installing. So with nothing to do then to wait I went and made coffee. Depending on your hardware installation can take up to the 20-30 minutes. Mine took it's time however. After a successful installation of the game the game launcher loads with different options. I always check for updates first. Now here comes the tricky part. You are allowed to install the game on more than one computer but the software will "phone home" and after 3 attempts you will not be able to verify the game anymore.

The online Store

The game comes with $10 worth of sim-points. They translate in to 1000 sim-points all together. Of course you can buy more in the retail shops if you want. But why should you want to. There are a lot of people out there that will make extra items totally free of charge. Maxis/EA, The maker and Publisher of the game, make an extra town available via the website free of charge.

Running the game

When you start the game you will get the movie which is done very nicely. Watch the movie you will be able to see what the new town looks like you will see some of the new features in the game. The loading time of all the reticulating splines and what not became faster with this 3^rd installment. Of course the more you add on custom content the longer it will take. The sim maker is completely revamped with more options then the previous versions. One new little aspect is that you now can set all the relationships of the people in the household.

The Actual Game play

At first glance the game play did not change too much. The can now go to the entire neighborhood. This is fun but you will need to have some serious Video power to make it go smooth. Personally mine crashed the first time. That was mainly an operator error. I had the settings set too high.

You can go to downtown and walk in to every shop that there is. However you cannot see your sim inside the stores, the book store for example you get a pop-up where you can get your books from. Your view however is still on the street instead of the store itself.

Some things are not modeled correctly in the game either, not sure if that will change later or not, but the cars do not leave the driveway anymore they just get dumped on the road, your Sims get in and they take off to parts in downtown or work.

Also a lot of items that you had in Sims and Sims 2 are missing like a piano or a guitar even a drum kit is not available in the Sims 3. That was a big letdown for me. Some essential things are not included like the diving board for the pool. Where did that go to?

After the many updates to the game I still do not see it. Hopefully they will add that with one of I presume many expansion packs that will be coming out for The Sims 3.

Conclusion

Overall the game was been improved, but it did not exceed my expectations of it. By the time wrote this the World adventures expansion pack came. As I do not have the yet I cannot say if the game has been improved even further. As of now it is far from the standard the Sims 2 set.