The Sims 3 Review

Computer simulation games always tended to occupy a niche in the computer game market until The Sims came along. The Sims games and expansions have sold over 100 million copies worldwide since the original The Sims debuted in 2000. On June 2, 2009, a new generation of Sims was born out of The Sims 3, and the verdict is in: cool!

Briefly, this is how all of The Sims games have worked: you design a Sim of your choosing by crafting its appearance, its traits, its goals, and its age/gender, then you move into the neighborhood and guide your Sim through daily life while making the house and relationships the way you want them. There are some other ways to occupy yourself as well, but that's it in a nutshell. It doesn't sound all that great on paper, but somehow the gameplay has always been addicting, and The Sims 3 is the most addicting The Sims yet.

With The Sims 3, you can customize your Sim's avatar to a ridiculous degree, from the color of hair roots to nose thickness to make-up. It is easier than ever with the Create-A-Sim tool to make a Sim that looks just like you, and even that special someone down the street too (nudge nudge). After all, one of the most exciting things about the Sims is that you can live out fantasies that you won't be experiencing in real life anytime soon!

Once you've got the right look of your Sim, you'll notice that the iffy Astrological system of The Sims 2 has been replaced by a new, much-lauded traits system. It's as easy as picking individual traits that you want your Sim to have, such as coward, evil, loner, mooch, or unlucky (guess you can tell what kind of Sim I like to make). Fortunately, for those that want a Sim to have a good, happy life, there are also traits like neat, friendly, athletic, ambitious, great kisser, and of course, vegetarian. These will contribute to your Sim's Lifetime Wish, which is that big goal that he will try to meet before the end of his life.

When you've selected your traits and finalized your Sim's appearance, you can move into a vacant house and start your Sim's life off right by getting a job. Luckily, unlike the real world, getting a job in The Sims 3 is as easy as looking in the newspaper, on the computer, or going to visit the location itself. That's right, you can find the actual locations now. One of the most-touted new features in The Sims 3 is the ability to move around the neighborhood seamlessly--that is, no load times, no breaks between locations, and actual buildings and locations that you'd find in a real town, like parks, theaters, and fishing spots. You can go anywhere and see anything, which brings the sense of immersion up a lot.

The interaction between Sims is much more advanced too. Based on those traits you chose, your Sims might have certain options available to them that they wouldn't have if you had chosen other traits. For example, a kleptomanic Sim will want to steal a lot, so that is an option for her. Dialogue between the Sims is closer to a conversation now, rather than a bunch of random thought bubbles with pictures of handcuffs and suns. Best of all, their Simlish is back and just as incomprehensible as ever. As if you'd want it any other way!

Work is a bit more interesting this time around as well. While you still can't follow your dear Sim into his office, you can choose whether he uses his work time to suck up to his boss, make friends with his co-workers, or actually do his job. These kind of options dramatically improve the flexibility of the game, so that you can guide your Sim to be the way you want.

In fact, what you can say about The Sims 3 is that they really stuck with the "if-it-ain't-broke" mentality. They improved on almost every aspect of the core gameplay from the first two, lessened the micromanagement of a Sim's needs, and improved the rewards and traits systems so that the Sims all behave more like real people with real goals. What they didn't do was go crazy with gameplay changes. For the most part, this is the same game you've seen in the first two, but it has enough cool features and enhancements to make it a good game to pick up. This includes the graphics and sound, which are both modest improvements but nothing to write home about. The small details and cute animations are impressive, however.

A couple more improvements: the home construction mode allows you to move whole walls without having to move everything off with a wall-drag tool. You can also choose any pattern on any surface and apply it to any other surface, meaning your refrigerator can have the same pattern as your Sim's Hawaiian shirt, and the walls can have a shiny refrigerator tone. Once you've created a Sim or appearance of an object that really tickles your fancy, you can upload it to the new Sims Exchange, which is a site that lets you upload and download free alterations to the in-game items.

And EA couldn't drop a new The Sims game without finding a way to keep a constant revenue stream. If you feel that your Sims need to have an armoire from the Victorian period, chances are on the online Store, you can find something like it and purchase it with SimPoints, which are not unlike Microsoft Points for Xbox Live or Wii Points for Nintendo Wii. The full version of The Sims 3 ships with 1000 SimPoints, but after that you have to purchase your own with real dollars, not Simoleons. A travesty. The main advantage of this, though, is that if there is one item you are dying to have, you can buy it without having to buy an overpriced "stuff pack", and instead of releasing stuff packs, EA will probably just stick to period expansions and leave the sales of "stuff" to the online Store.

What The Sims 3 lacks in innovation, it makes up for in polish and implementation. The truth is, if you loved The Sims and The Sims 2, you'll be very happy with The Sims 3. Despite the fact that it still is missing some features that expansion packs in the prior Sims added, it still adds enough new content to be a great game.