The Sims is a real-time simulation game where you simulate the lives of one or more people in a family and their social activities in their immediate neighborhood.

Characters of the family may be custom created (including physical features) or simply chosen from pre-generated families. All the characters also have different age groups, ranging from toddlers, children, teenagers, adults and elders. Each age group has different lifestyles, priorities and interests.

Game play in the Sims may be classified as the following:

[1] Life Simulation
This revolves around simulating their day-to-day lives. From eating, sleeping, entertainment, socializing and romance, you are in complete control of their actions if you choose to. Each Sim has a statistics that may be developed. Some of which identify certain desires the Sim in mention may require. Your role in simulating their lives is primarily to keep them happy by fulfilling their desires.

Controlling the Sims people is optional, as they follow their own Artificial Intelligence unless commanded otherwise by the player.

[2] The Architect
Designing and furnishing your home is an integral part of the game play. Pre-generated houses may be purchased at the beginning of the game, or you can design and build your future home from scratch. Furnishing consists of acquiring various items that may be manipulated by your Sims to fulfill their needs. Designing houses and furnishing costs money, which may be obtained through jobs.

[3] Character Development and Careers
Adult Sims may acquire jobs to pay for the many necessities of living a simulated life. There are several different job track available, from Entertainment, Law Enforcement, Politics and even a life of crime! Promotion in a job requires the Sim to advance in certain statistics (e.g. Charisma, Strength) which may be done so by manipulating the various items available for purchase.

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Alternate Titles

"模拟人生" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
"The Dollhouse Simulator" -- Informal development title
"Tactical Domestic Simulator" -- Informal development title
"SimPeople" -- Japanese title
"Sim Dollhouse" -- Informal development title
"Project X" -- Informal development title
"Los Sims" -- Spanish title
"Les Sims" -- French title
"Home Tactics" -- Informal development title
"Dollhouse" -- Earliest working title
"Die Sims" -- German title

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	The Sims	PlayStation 2	$0.01
	The Sims	PlayStation 2	$0.01
	The Sims
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User Reviews

And who DOESN'T like to control peoples' lives??

Haiku (10)

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The Press Says

Gaming Age	Jan 21, 2003	A-	91
Game Over Online	Nov 30, 1999	87 out of 100	87
Armchair Empire, The	Feb 23, 2003	8.5 out of 10	85
GameSpy	Jan 27, 2003	85 out of 100	85
Game Freaks 365	Apr 19, 2003	8.4 out of 10	84
IGN	Jan 14, 2003	8 out of 10	80
Jeuxvideo.com	Jan 28, 2003	16 out of 20	80
Factornews	Feb 17, 2003	8 out of 10	80
Games TM	Jan, 2003	5 out of 10	50
The Video Game Critic	Nov 09, 2004	D-	16

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Trivia

3D Realms

3D Realms have released a skin pack for The Sims featuring their trademark action hero - Duke Nukem. The pack could be downloaded off their site at www.3drealms.com

Development

The Sims was originally going to be called "Home Tactics," and would have an entirely different focus. Will Wright originally designed it to be completely about building houses. When someone suggested a feature involving letting people move in to determine the quality of the house, the focus completely changed. Developers were having more fun watching the people than building the house. The design goals were directed towards Sims, and architecture was left as a side bonus.
According to the March 2002 edition of Wired Magazine, Will Wright and his development team had to develop what he called a "happiness landscape." By using this landscape, The Sim People could map and identify what items would satisfy any pending needs. It also permitted Sims to prioritize what needs were more pending. Will Wright stated that he went around his house, doing an inventory of objects and how he needed them so he could map out the landscape in the game.

Extras

After managing a household for 100 days you will be rewarded with information etc. about the creators of the game.

Inspiration

The game's most obvious progeny is Little Computer People.

Music

You can put your own MP3s in the music folder in the game's directory and they will be played on the radio.

Nudity

Although Sims are censored (their image blurred) when naked, there's an unofficial patch known as The Sims Nude Patch that eliminates censorship. You can find it at several fan sites.

PC Gamer fake review

In the April 2003 issue of PC Gamer, The editors faked a review for a phony expansion called "The Liebermans." In the June 2003 issue of PC Gamer, The editors revealed that their prank fooled a lot of people, including the political beat reporter for the Hartford Courant, The local news in the city where Senator Lieberman's office is located.

Pre-order bonus

If you pre-ordered the game at Electronics Boutique, you received a bonus disc containing different skins and a mini-strategy guide.

References

Shiny Things Inc., a company that makes kitchen appliances and other shiny things in the game, makes a guest appearance in the Sim City series as one of the industrial structures that can be built in your city. Malcolm Landgraab, the head of Shiny Things Inc., makes a guest appearance in The Sims for the console systems.

Sales

On August 31, 2003 has The Sims (PS2) won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The game is listed in the 2008 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition as the best selling PC game of all time, with 16 million sales worldwide since the original launch.

Awards

Computer Gaming World
- April 2001 (Issue #201) – Game of the Year
- November 2003 (Issue #232) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
Game Informer
- August 2001 (Issue #100) - #80 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
GameSpy
- 2000 – Strategy Game of the Year
GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 02/2001 - Most Innovative Game in 2000
PC Gamer
- October 2001 - #11 in the "Top 50 Games of All Time" list
- April 2005 - #23 in the "!50 Best Games of All Time" list
PC Player (Germany)
- Issue 01/2001 - Best Economic Simulation in 2000
Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
- August 31, 2003 - Gold Award (details in "Sales" section)