The Sims 3: A Player's Review

I pre-ordered this game and joined the online "VIP" club as soon as I first heard about it, and I've been fanatically obsessed with The Sims 3 ever since.

The Sims 1 was good, but obviously very basic. Nonetheless, unique elements such as designing a house, outfits, and killing yours Sims in very creative ways brought the game to many people's attention.

The Sims 2 was pretty excellent, although I thought it was a bit too complicated at times. I wasn't really interested in designing every aspect of my Sims' bodies, and I never could get the hang of creating pets. The better parts had to do with the clothes, new jobs, and lifetime aspirations...

The Sims 3, however (now we get to it), is just about perfect. I mean, yes, there are several bad aspects, but the good far outweighs the bad in this case, and if you haven't decided on whether or not you want to spend $50 on the game, I would suggest doing so. Immediately. Because trust me - it's worth it.

To start with, designing Sims is much more relaxing. While you do have the option of using "advanced" features to change the minute details of the nose, eyes, etc., you don't really have to. The pre-set facial features look fine, unlike some of the ones from The Sims 2.

Also, your Sims have much more options than ever before. Yes, they go to work, but it's up to you to decide if they slack off, meet coworkers, chat at the water cooler, work as hard as normal, work SUPER hard, or suck up to the boss. In fact, one of my Sims, an athletic addict who works for the police department, can even work out while he's on the job. Very nice.

You may have heard about how you can customize virtually every piece of clothing and furniture in the game. If you're like me, you were probably expecting this to be complicated and annoying. Wrong! Oh, so wrong. It's easy, fun, and takes no time at all. One of my Sims has a forest pattern throughout his house, another has a wood layout, and so on. And you know how if you wanted an outfit in a different color, you had to find someone who created it and download theirs (or create one yourself)? Well, with this feature, you can just make your own. It's really fantastic.

One of the most anticipated features of The Sims 3 was the "no boundaries" idea. I didn't really understand it - I thought you could switch from household to household, and it's not really like that. But there are no more tedious "loading" screens when you want to check out the town - just click "M," choose your spot, and click again. This is super handy, because you can also go straight to your Sims' wanted job and apply there, rather than waiting for an opening to show up in the newspaper or on the computer.

Also, while Sims lives continue on when you're playing one character, you can always choose to turn this feature off. Your unplayed Sims will remain frozen in time (I haven't done this yet). Another neat feature is that you can lengthen or shorten your Sims' life spans in the options panel. Very handy for those of us who want our Sims to have long, long, long lives.

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Now, like I mentioned before, there are some negative aspects. Makeup, for instance, is severely limited. In some ways, there are more options (like how you want your makeup applied), but the color choices are kind of bland.

Also, the speed features aren't that great. Time seems to move kinda sloooowly, which makes things boring when your Sims are at work or sleeping. I generally keep a book by me at all times when I'm playing.

Finally, and this is just kind of my own annoyance, but the bed situation is driving me mad. I used to use a fair bit of money to get my Sims the most comfortable bed, but that's not really an option now. The most comfortable bed (well, the most energy-restoring one) is $3500, whereas an 8 energy one is substantially cheaper, but still doesn't seem to fill up energy all that quickly. I'm trying to save up money, but with gardens to grow, books to buy, and concerts to attend, who has enough money for that?!

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Another cool thing! Traits! Your Sims can have up to 5 traits, and they're really neat.
I have one Sim, a fat Italian guy named Joey Pastromi, who's childish, a couch potato, has a good sense of humor, and some other stuff I can't really remember.

Carla Crouch is a workaholic, perfectionist, frugal, and...other stuff...the other Carla is excitable, flirty, and absent-minded. And a I have a married couple - family-oriented, hopeless romantic, genius, good, and so on and so forth. Picking traits is so far one of my favorite aspects.

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Anyway, head on over to your closest game store and pick up your copy of The Sims 3 today. Or, hey, just click on one of the items below.