Product Details
 | The Sims 3 |
| List Price: | $44.99 |
| Price: | $27.99 |
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from and sold by DirectDeals4U
131 new or used available from $18.99
Average customer review:
Product Description
The Sims 3 lets you immerse truly unique Sims in an open, living neighborhood just outside their door! The freedom of The Sims 3 will inspire you with endless possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief. Your Sims can roam throughout their neighborhood, visit neighbors’ homes, and explore the surroundings. They can stroll downtown to hang out with friends, meet someone new at the park, or run into colleagues on the street. If your Sims are in the right place at the right time, who knows what might happen?! New easy-to-use design tools allow for unlimited customization to make truly individual Sims. Determine your Sims’ shape and size, from thin to full-figured to muscular—and everything in between! Choose your Sims’ facial features, their exact skin tone, hair eye shape and color and select their clothing and accessories. Create realistic Sims with distinctive personalities. Select from dozens of personality traits and combine them in fun ways. The combination of traits you choose—brave, artistic, loner, perfectionist, klepto, romantic, clumsy, paranoid, and much, much more—help shape the behavior of your Sims and how they interact with other Sims. Your Sims can now rise above their basic set of every day needs. They are complex individuals with unique personalities. Build your dream house or design the ultimate home. Customize everything from floors to flowers, shirts to sofas, wallpaper to window shades. It’s fun and easy to change colors and patterns giving you endless personalization options. Or you can populate your Sims’ neighborhood with pre-designed buildings and furnishings. Which of your Sims will live in high-end mansions, cool bachelor pads, ultimate dream homes or low-cost cottages?Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #232 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- Model: 15390
- Released on: 2009-06-02
- ESRB Rating: Teen
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X
- Format: CD-ROM
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .40 pounds
Features
- New Seamless, Open NeighborhoodExplore the neighborhood freely.
- New Create A Sim Create any Sim you can imagine.
- New Realistic PersonalitiesEvery Sim is a unique person, with a distinct personality.
- New Unlimited CustomizationEveryone can customize everything!
- The freedom of The Sims 3 will inspire you with endless possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
The freedom of The Sims 3 will
inspire you with endless creative possibilities and amuse you with
unexpected moments of surprise and mischief. Create millions of unique
Sims and control their lives. Customize their appearances and
personalities. Build their homes - design everything from exquisitely
furnished dream homes to quaint cottages. Then, send your Sims out to
explore their ever-changing neighborhood and to meet other Sims in the
town center. With all-new quick challenges and rewarding game play, The
Sims 3 gives you the freedom to choose whether (or not) to fulfill
your Sims' destinies and make their wishes come true.
Key
Game Features:
|
|
|
|
- New Seamless, Living Neighborhood
- Explore the ever-changing neighborhood—and take your Sims to meet friends in the park, go on a date at the bistro, visit neighbors’ homes, converse with less-than-savory characters in the graveyard and more. Who knows what might happen?
- Admire the natural beauty of the beach, the mountains, and more.
- New Create a Sim Functionality
- Create any Sim you can imagine with easy-to-use design tools that allow for unlimited customization of facial features, hair color, eye color, and more.
- Fine tune your Sims’ body shape from thin to curvy to muscular.
- New Personality Traits
- Create over a million different personalities with traits such as evil, insane, kleptomaniac, romantic, and more.
- Influence the behaviors of your Sims with the traits you’ve chosen. Will you create a neurotic romantic with a heart of gold, or a geeky super-genius with an evil streak?
- New Unlimited Customization
- Everyone can customize everything—design and build your dream house and decorate it to fit your Sims’ personalities.
- Customize everything from floors to décor, shirts to sofas, wallpaper to window shades.
- New Gameplay That’s Rewarding and Quick
- Face short and long-term challenges and reap the rewards.
- Your Sims can pursue random opportunities to get fast cash, get ahead, get even, and more.
- Choose whether, or not, to fulfill your Sims’ destinies by making their wishes come true. Will your Sims be thieves, rock stars, world leaders? The choice is yours.
- Get Connected and Share Your Creations with The Sims 3 Online Community
- Get free bonus content—download Sims, outfits, furnishings, houses and more.
- Create and Share Sims, houses, movies and more with anyone.
- Join The Sims 3 community to share ideas with fans of The Sims from around the world.
System Requirements:
| Minimum Specifications: | ||
| OS: | Windows Vista (SP1)/Windows XP (SP2) | Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher |
| Processor: | Vista - 2.4 GHz P4 or equivalent/XP - 2.0 GHz P4 or equivalent | Intel Core Duo Processor |
| RAM: | Vista - 1.5 GB/XP - 1GB | 2GB |
| Disc Drive: | 8x DVD ROM or faster | 8x DVD ROM or faster |
| Hard Drive: | Vista & XP - 8 GB or more | At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games. |
| Video Card: | 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0. Supported video cards include: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900, FX 5950, 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800, 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950, 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800, 9600, 9800, GTX 260, GTX 280 (GeForce FX unsupported under Vista); ATI Radeon 9500, 9600, 9800, X300, X600, X700, X800, X850, X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950, 2400, 2600, 2900, 3450, 3650, 3850, 3870, 4850, 4870; Intel Extreme Graphics GMA X3x00 series. | ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100. |
| Other: | Laptop versions of chipsets above may work, but may run comparatively slower. | * This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards. |
Customer Reviews
Fun for some, diappointing for others.
There are many different Sims
players out there buying this game from years of playing The Sims 2,
and I think some of them will be impressed with The Sims 3, while others
disappointed.
Note: This review is for the base game only, and does
not include any of the expansion packs.
Create-A-Sim Players: 4/5
If
you have an juiced up computer, the graphics are amazing. The
customization you can give a sim is also very rewarding; you can now
color customize the different parts of a sim's outfit with virtually any
color, and the pattern system they've created only increases the amount
of customization you can give a sim's clothing. A sim's hair coloration
is now broken up into four parts, all of which can be set to any color
you wish. The only disadvantage I found is that there doesn't seem to be
as many ways to customize the face as there had been in Sims 2; there
are some new, different ways though.
House Building Players: 5/5
Because
of the new pattern system in the game, building houses now has a new
level of customization, making it easier to customize a house's color
and texture to your liking. Another nice thing is that furniture can now
be placed at angles, so you no longer have to worry about awkward
placement of objects near angled walls. Just keep in mind that since
this is the first game, with no expansions made yet, there is a limited
amount of furniture you can use. Also, if you're only interested in
building houses, its not as easy as simply clicking on the lot you wish
to build, once the game starts; you actually need to be playing your
saved household and then exit your household for "Edit Town," where you
can then select a lot to build on.
Neighborhood Building Players:
1/5
If you were big on building neighborhoods in Sims 2, you're
going to very, very disappointed. You can no longer make your own
neighborhoods; you are stuck with customizing Sunset Valley (the only
neighborhood that comes with the game) or downloading another
neighborhood from The Sims 3 website. There are no pre-made empty
neighborhoods you can create and then customize and populate. Needless
to say, there is no compatibility with SimCity 4 neighborhoods either.
You're stuck with Sunset Valley, and that's that.
Note: There is now a
"Create a World Tool" (in beta form and only for PCs) on the official
website, but it's a very difficult to use if you don't know what you're
doing.
Movie/Story Players: 5/5
If you're into making movies
or stories there doesn't seem to be big difference between Sims 2. Photo
capture now seems to be similar to what the "Print Screen" button does
on your keyboard. The quality is exactly what you see on the screen, and
the size of the image is as big as your resolution for the game. Video
capture options seem almost identical to Sims 2. And like Sims 2, the
controls are still difficult to deal with if you're trying to make
smooth transitions. Also, there is no in-game Storytelling option
anymore, storytelling is mostly focused online at The Sims 3 website,
where there are some neat tools you can use for editing.
Single
Family Players: 4/5
If you liked only playing one household in Sims 2
(like if you were into the Legacy Challenge) Sims 3 makes it even more
interesting and more realistic with the fact that the entire
neighborhood ages around your sim; no more childhood friends always
being children, even when your sims have become adults; no more
grandchildren out-aging their grandparents because they happen to be on
different lots. And not only that, but you can now explore the rest of
the world, expanding the possibilities for your sims.
Multi-Family/God
Players: 2/5
If you liked jumping between many different houses and
creating a complex story between many different households, you may be
in for a big disappointment with Sims 3. You've ultimately been demoted
from being god. You can no longer save individual households for later.
Once you leave a household the sims there become NPCs (characters for
the computer to control) and continue on their own lives and own story
without your help. This may sound odd but Sims 3 is more of a game, and
less of a device to tell a huge complex story.
The Sims 2 Console
Players: 5/5
For people who loved The Sims 2 for PlayStation 2,
X-Box, and GameCube, The Sims 3 plays very similar to those. In fact,
The Sims 3 seems like a souped up version of the console Sims 2. For
people who hated The Sims 2 console games, well . . . you may not like
how The Sims 3 plays.
You're liking of The Sims 3 is really
going to depend on what you did and enjoyed in The Sims 2. And sadly, I
have to say this game isn't for everyone who loved The Sims 2.
New
Players: 3/5 - 5/5
For players who haven't played the Sims games
before, from my experience, Sims has either been a hit or miss deal. You
either like it or you don't. And it's hard to say whether or not you'll
like it until you give it a try. Sims can be a very repetitive game,
yet a very addicting game. It all depends on what entertains you. As
I've said above, Sims is a very creative game, and that alone can be
entertaining for hours. The customization in the game is probably one of
the game's greatest assets. As far as game-play is concerned, part of
the game is about making your own story, but there are also objectives
("opportunities" and "wishes") that help make the game challenging and
entertaining if you're more goal-oriented. But keep in mind, if you're
looking for a game with a solid plot and an ending, this isn't the game
for you. Sims is a game that never ends. It's a simulation game of life,
and The Sims is never short on life; even if you kill off everyone in
your neighborhood, you can simply create more.
[This part wasn't
originally in the review, but I figured since I was focusing on people
who were familiar with The Sims 2, I decided to add this.]
A Sims Type Game
If you are going into Sims 3
thinking of it as an improved Sims 2 you will be disappointed.
The
Sims 3 is a "Sims Type Game". It's like the previous Sim games but not
quite. Sims 2 was about creating your own storyline. Sims 3 is about
rolling with the punches. The game will change things in the
neighborhood at random. People will die, move out, have children...the
neighborhood is constantly changing. Like someone else said, the game is
rather like an RPG. If you liked having complete control like in Sims 2
then you may not like this game.
Also, if you did not know. With
Story Progression mode on Sims will leave town. Meaning they will
disappear. Not only townies, your custom made Sims can be randomly
deleted. It is not a glitch. It is an actual feature of the game. It's
difficult to understand why EA thought having Sims randomly deleted was a
good idea, but it's there.
There is an option to turn off Story
Progression which is supposed to stop life changing events.
Unfortunately this button does not work. Story Progression being such an
important part of Sims 3, you have to wonder how this got by EA quality
control. To me this is unexcusable. Fans have every right to be angry
about this. Even before the game released this was a widely known
problem. Everybody expects bugs, but for an important feature of the
game to outright not work is ridiculous.
Next, the controls. Sims
3 controls: Clumsy. In Sims 2 the controls are simple, friendly, and
easy to use. Sims 3 controls are strangely clunky and makes you jump
through alot of hoops for something as simple as switching families. Get
ready to learn the new and sometimes confusing interface.
Onto
the Sims looks. Even after watching all of the promotional videos I did
not realize the Sims 3 Sims were quite so chubby. There are ways to slim
down the face in CAS but once you actually start playing them they look
chubby again. After many hours of playing I have actually grown
accustomed to their looks so it doesn't bother me as much now. If looks
are very important to you this maybe a dealbreaker.
The Camera.
Camera movement is not as smooth as in TS2. It's very touchy and jumpy.
After getting used to the controls I'm getting better at using it but at
the same time it lacks the smoothness of Sims 2. This is not because of
my computer. My computer way exceeds the minimum requirements for Sims
3. The game itself is just plain laggy. Some advice for those frustrated
with the right click screen drag, go into options and enable edge
scrolling this will alleviate some of your frustration.
Onto the
Pros!
The seamless neighborhood is gorgeous. This is one thing EA got
right. I almost never left home in TS2. In TS3 going into town is one
of my favorite things about the game. The scenery is beautiful. Go to
the beach and lookout onto the water, it's moving, glimmering, and looks
so alive.
I built my Sim home right next to a waterfall. Beautiful!
Traits
system. I really enjoy the traits system. You can now make truly unique
personalities. The little personality quirks of my Sims make me smile.
Like if you have a neurotic Sim, they will want to check the sink
constantly to make sure it's not dirty. A loner Sim will become upset at
being around other Sims. An insane Sim will talk to himself.
Color
Options. I love being able to give my Sims crazy colored hair and eyes.
You can also recolor almost anything.
Improved AI. It's not
obvious, but I do think the Sims are more intelligent in Sims 3. They
are better at doing things by themselves. Frustratingly they still do
the footstomp when their route is blocked.
Overall it's an
entertaining game similar to The Sims games. But I am disappointed by
the number of technical issues the game has. My advice to Sim fans is DO
NOT uninstall Sims 2. I'm very glad I did not uninstall TS2. There are
things TS2 still does better. It's much simpler and easier to play. I
will be going back and forth between TS2 and TS3, enjoying the
similarities and the differences.
EDIT: Hi I just wanted stress
one thing. What EA did with The Sims 3 was take away creative control
from the player. This is what made so many fans angry. I'm sure the
anger will simmer down over time but the overall disappointment and
missed potential will remain. The Sims 2 was about playing GOD. It is an
integral part of what made The Sims so successful and loved. For EA to
have taken that away from the player is a blow to a large group of The
Sims fanbase. Now, it's still possible they will add more controls in
future expansion packs so I'm not giving up on this game yet. It has a
lot of potential and I would like EA to use it to it's fullest.
This soulless game isn't really "The Sims" for me
Like many of the other
reviewers here, I have been a HUGE fan of The Sims franchises, losing
many pleasant hours to The Sims 1 and its wonderful sequel The Sims 2.
Even before The Sims came out I was a Maxis fan, playing games like Sim
City and Sim Tower with pleasure.
I can't say that The Sims 3 has
"disappointed" me because the more I heard about the new game over its
development period the more I thought to myself "why are they including
this feature or dropping that feature? It sounds like they are tampering
with the heart of the things I enjoy about The Sims". But I bought the
game anyway in good faith. Needless to say I am now back to playing The
Sims 2. The Sims 3 has no interest for me at all in comparison. Despite
all the "improvements" - and I admit there are some surface ones - the
heart and soul of what The Sims means to me is absent from this game.
Unlike
other reviewers here, my negative review of this game is not due to any
technical difficulties. Perhaps I haven't played long enough to
experience any, and at any rate - every hard-core Sims fan has learned
to live with the bugs shipped with the game and love it anyway. The
modding community has always done a sterling job of cleaning up our
games and making them more playable and enjoyable. So my negative rating
is not due to bugs or crashes - it is purely based on my perception of
the game's enjoyment factor, especially when compared to The Sims 2.
To
be fair, I will sum up what to me are improvements to the game compared
to The Sims 2:
- the "open neighbourhood" - the ability to go
from one place to the other without a loading screen is a fine idea and
works well in principal. But I found that it really didn't impact my
playing habits as much as you might think at first. While playing a
large, busy family there would be very little time to go rushing off to
the park or elsewhere and I found I was "household" focussed in my game
playing just as much as in The Sims 2. I actually prefer in some ways
the way community lots worked in The Sims 2. If you could organise your
sims enough to go off to a community lot, time would actually stand
still in the meantime, taking the pressure off your enjoyment of this
change in pace for your sims.
- No doubt about it, the "Create a
Style" colour wheel/pattern maker is the one thing that is far superior
to recolouring in The Sims 2. It's great fun and so easy to go through
and match up clothing, furniture, wallpaper, etc in an obsessive fashion
that suits my type of playing down to the ground. But even here is a
caveat - there is no Body Shop type program to truly customise textures.
You can recolour only which is hardly satisfying in a creative way
compared to being able to extract a texture and import it into
Photoshop, thereby putting your own personal stamp on the texture. For
example, in The Sims 2 you could export a dress texture and by pasting
on a texture of your own you could make the outfit appear to be a
cardigan and skirt instead.
I am sure custom content creators in time
will come up with ways of importing new meshes/textures into The Sims
3, but it is obvious that EA is trying to limit this type of thing to
the "regular" user right from the beginning by eliminating a "Bodyshop"
program from their development tools.
- The ease of angle
rotation is an unmixed blessing in this game - something that I wish had
happened in The Sims 2
- The outdoor scenery in The Sims 3 is
gorgeous from the beach, the shimmering water, to the parks, rolling
hills etc. But the limitations put on being able to make this
neighbourhood your own again shows up the inflexibility built into this
game. Whereas in The Sims 2 you could completely customise your
neighbourhood, building it up from a terrain created in Sim City, to
decorating it and laying out your lots etc, in this game, EA gives you
this beautiful scenery and then severely limits your ability to
customise it. You cannot create your own terrain, the community lot
buildings are the same everywhere and are not even properly functional,
and there are a limited number of lots for your houses. It feels like a
"dumbed down" version of a neighbourhood to me that even the "open plan"
of the game cannot make up for.
- There are a lot more surface
details to gameplay in The Sims 3 by the way of person and object
interactions and the little missions/opportunities that pop up. I do
appreciate the amount of thought that has gone into a lot of these
things, like adding depth to the career paths and making such things as
painting a picture personal to every different type of sim. But again,
when playing a busy family (six kids!) I found that I would just click
the opportunities away as an annoyance without even reading them. There
was no way my busy mother or father could go running off to the town
park for a chess tournament when they were caring for screaming toddlers
at home!
- The lighting of the new game is a nice update and
beautiful. It is also flexible if you have the time or inclination to
mess around with the many options provided
So even the
improvements included in The Sims 3 are mostly mixed blessings for me!
Here
are the things that have decided me against the game:
- The sims
themselves. Try as I might, I cannot bond with these weird looking
people and that bond between the player and their "Simmies" is the major
factor that holds many Sims fans in thrall. For a start, these
creations just don't look like sims to me. It is laughable that the
creators of this game are claiming that the sculpting tools given to
create a sim are more flexible and customisable than in The Sims 2! In
fact the sliders are very limited in their scope and have less points of
difference than those provided in "Bodyshop". That round-faced,
chinless look that we all noticed and wondered at in preview pictures of
this game is there for the very specific reason that you can't provide
your sim with a proper chin and all of them look blobby and quite fat in
the face. The noses look like they are just stuck on anyhow and look
very unfortunate in profile. And the empty-looking eyes roll in a very
disconcerting and unappealing alien manner.
The sims toddlers and
children - one of my prime delights in The Sims 2 - all look very ugly
and all look exactly the same. One couple I played had six children,
just to check out the genetics and all of them looked like peas in a pod
until they got to their adult years, and even then the differences were
minimal. It was very unsatisfying spending so much time and energy
raising these unappealing little clones!
- Obviously, I have had
trouble creating sims I like to look at. That wouldn't matter as much if
I could love the way these sims act and interact. If you think back to
The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 what charmed fans of these games was how cute,
quirky, funny, unexpected and unique all these characters seemed to the
player. I don't accept the criticism the developers of this new game
kept stating that "all previous sims games had sims who were all the
same and all they wanted to do all the time was go to the toilet!" Well
really - do they think The Sims 1 and 2 would have been such world-wide
successes if this were actually true?? Of course not! Our sims charmed
us, made us laugh, surprised us and often took their own little lives in
their own hands and pulled the game in a direction all their own.
The
two things promised by The Sims 3 creators about how the new sims would
behave were 1) There would be a lot more time to attend to the sims'
lives and less need to run around after them caring for their basic
"needs" - such as sending them to the toilet or to bed; and 2) the new
"traits" system would ensure truly unique behaviour from the sims and
open up entirely new vistas of personalities and interactions for sims
fans to enjoy.
I'm sorry to say, but I have to rebut both of
these stated improvements.
1)I think every Sims 3 player, no matter
how dedicated a fan they are will admit that you spend more time waiting
for your sims to fulfil needs than ever before. You spend ages just
watching them sleep every night. They seem to have bladder and hunger
needs that are never satiated, and you spend more boring time staring at
their work building while they are off at work. So between taking them
to work, watching them sleep, fulfilling their needs and trying to skill
up, there is actually zero time left in a sims' busy day to take them
to the park, the beach or visit a neighbour! How is this the "new
balance" of life over needs that the developers were so proudly
proclaiming??
2) As for the "traits" system - that has to be the
biggest disappointment of all. Sure, picking different traits for your
sims will give them some very superficial differences, such as different
interaction possibilities with other sims, or different animations. but
at a deeper level, each and every sim seems the same over and over
again. I think the main reason I say this is if you watch a household
full of sims who all supposedly have a unique set of traits, you don't
see them acting differently unless you tell them to. In fact they barely
interact with one another at all if you don't tell them to. They ignore
one another and spend their time being boring - fulfilling the endless
needs or perhaps using a skill object. They don't care to interact with
one another at all! It is quite possible to have two sims living in the
same house forever and they remain total strangers to one another. You
have to force them to interact which I find really annoying - I had
hoped that they might work out their own relationships as they did in
The Sims 2. Another annoying thing is the lack of familial affection
between sims. Unlike The Sims 2, you never see a parent hug, kiss or
play with a child unless you tell them to. You just don't feel that
these sims love/care about one another at all, and I remember that
feeling that "love is real" between sims being the primary and most
striking point that charmed me when The Sims 2 came out.
I am
sorry to say, if I compare the depth of personality of a houseful of
Sims 2 and 3 sims, the Sims 2 sims would win hands down. In Sims 2, they
would take one another in like or dislike, be attracted to some and
repulsed by others. The parents would hug their kids when they got home
from work, and kiss them goodnight. Husbands and wives would find a
quiet corner and canoodle in a very romantic way. In Sims 3 they all
coldly ignore one another and act in boring and one-dimensional ways,
totally uninfluenced by their so-called "unique traits".
This
lack of true feeling for my sims and between the sims themselves is my
primary reason for calling this latest instalment "soulless". How can
you feel attached to these ugly, alien-like people who all look and act
the same?
- I do not care for one of the key selling points of
The Sims 3 - the so-called "story progression". Which sim fan really
wants to leave their playable family for a little while only to come
back and find they've moved out of the neighbourhood, or had a family
while you're not looking with kids you didn't get to name? Where is the
appeal in that? Most sims fans love to micro-manage their sim's lives -
who they love, marry, have kids with, what they name their kids, where
they choose to live, etc. Even more frustrating, the ability to turn
story progression off is broken!! Good one, EA!!
Another one of
my criticisms is that EA has written out some of the most enjoyable and
endearing elements of The Sims 2. Eliminating these things really proves
to me how little the developers of the game understood the things that
true Sims fans love about their games. Here are some as an example:
-
Story mode is gone. Yes I know there is a camera and yes I know they
have all this fancy equipment that enables you to easily upload stories
and movies onto the web to share. But I bet 90% of Sims players are not
all that interested in sharing stories on the world wide web. The Sims
has always been a highly personal game - a fantasy world unique to each
sims player, and making up and sharing sims stories is not the driving
reason to play the game for most. It is to get lost in your own little
self-created kingdom and fall in love with the little pixels that people
it.
In Sims 1 & 2, using the camera as I played and building up
an album for each little family became a mainstay of my playing style
over the years. Most of the time I would not even add text to the
pictures. They would be safely stored in each family's little album and
every once in a while I would choose to browse through this visual
record of my sims' little lives and enjoy again the sentimental,
surprising, funny little incidents that marked the passage of that
family's life. I would record the unexpected or charming little things
that made my sims seem unique, like when my prim little sim teenager
fell in love with the neighbourhood "bad boy" all on her own and against
any of my expectations. Or when my shy, nerdy sim who lived with a
party animal room-mate spent all her time in her room reading on the bed
or, of all things - washing the windows! whenever her room-mate threw
one of her wild parties!
Not having this record at hand of the
family's little story in Sims 3 is definitely a contributing factor to
the feeling of the game having little forward progression - every day
seems like the one before.
- Eliminating memories from the Sims
is another way EA has wiped out the sense you might have of the family's
story and history. I know memories caused all sorts of trouble in The
Sims 2 if you moved sims indiscriminately from one neighbourhood to the
next, but I think for many of us, having that sim's little milestones
recorded in their memories really gave the sim a feel of individuality
and personal growth. After not playing a particular family for a long
time the first thing I would do would be to flip through the family's
album and check their memories. This would put me back in touch with
where the family was in their own particular life story.
-
Another charming Sims 2 feature that was wiped out was the attraction
system. I know the original Sims 2 game did not ship with this, but it
was added early on in one of the expansion packs and I am sure every
Sims 2 fan absolutely loved it. It was another way to differentiate sims
from one another. You could create down to the finest detail two sims
who you thought would be "perfect" for each other, only to find they
couldn't stand each other! Then two of the unlikeliest sims would get
together all of their own accord, making you feel that these little
people had minds and hearts of their own. I loved this feature so much
that my playing style was to resolutely let each sim choose his or her
own mate with no help from me.
There are other reasons for me not
to like this highly polished, highly superficial instalment of The Sims
franchise. But in the end, it came down to these basic feelings about
the game
- I don't care how gorgeous it is to look at if the gameplay
is shallow and boring
- I feel like EA is really dumbing down
long-time sims fans by trying to eliminate custom content, charging like
a wounded bull for their sub-standard stuff and doing their best to
stifle the creativity of the custom content community
- The sims are
cookie-cutter clones of one another, and have no charm either of
physical appearance or personality. The life and soul has been sucked
out of these pixel-people
- There is no sense of story, no unexpected
interactions, no story mode or memories to record the sims lives. They
no longer care about one another at all - parents, children, lovers,
room-mates, friends - it doesn't matter what relationship the sims have
to one another, there is no desire for these people to interact or
develop their relationships unless you force it.
I am mad at EA
for "missing the boat" on this franchise upgrade. In fact, it no longer
feels like The Sims at all to me. All the charm and spontaneity has gone
out of the game. I suppose it's not surprising I feel this way - Will
Wright and his unique Maxis team of developers are long gone and EA has
taken over. EA have no idea, and do not care what made The Sims beloved
of fans the world over and instead are forcing something on them that
has only a surface relationship to previous games. Much in the same way
they "improved" Sim City out of all recognition of the original game
("Sim City Societies"), they have done this to The Sims and that, I
think is unforgivable.
Fortunately, The Sims 2 will always be
here and I am gladly getting back to my cute, funny, irreverent,
surprising little sims with the huge added bonus of all the expansion
packs and custom content I have built up over the years. I doubt if I
will ever come back to The Sims 3 even if they bring out boatloads of
expansion packs. If the game has no soul, it cannot be loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment