The Sims

aka: Die Sims, Dollhouse, Home Tactics, Les Sims, Los Sims, Project X, Sim Dollhouse, SimPeople, Tactical Domestic Simulator, The Dollhouse Simulator
Moby ID: 860
Windows Specs

Description official descriptions

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 two age groups, children and adults. 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.

Spellings

  • 模拟人生 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

208 People (150 developers, 58 thanks) · View all

Product Marketing Lead
Marketing
Public Relations
Localisation Lead
Localisation
Voice Test Lead
Testing
Quality Assurance
Documentation Layout
Product Manager
Public Relations UK
Project Manager Localisation
Documentation Editing
Package & Documentation Layout
Pack Co-ordinator
Localisation Coordination
Localisation Coordination Export & Web
Material Planning
Studio Operations
Quality Assurance
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 52 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 205 ratings with 20 reviews)

Brilliant game which fails where all other SIM games fail - it gets dull.

The Good
Massively addictive when you first start. The graphics and sound are wonderful, but it is the totally compelling nature of the game which keeps you playing.

The Bad
After a few weeks of playing, I realised that it just doesn't go anywhere. Create your families, get them promoted, build their dream homes... and then what? It's the same with all SIM games (especially SIM City). After a while you realise that there's no end to the game, no greater purpose, and it's very easy to lose interest. Every now and then (say 6-8 months) you can go back to it a re-discover it all over again, but it never has any long term appeal.

The Bottom Line
Brillaint game, but without an end-point it can get boring.

Windows · by Steve Hall (329) · 2000

What do you do when your Sim's life is more important than your own...?

The Good
It seems to me that most of the reviews for this game were written waaaay back when it first came out four years ago - before all the expansion packs, version patches, and literally hundreds of both official and user created items, skins, and packs hit the gaming community...

Well, I have to say, The Sims is a game that just keeps on kicking. Four years later, and I still can't put this one down. The SimCity series came frightening close to rivaling Sid Meier's Civilization series as the all-time most addictive time waster in computer gaming history. The Sims makes Civ almost seem like a flash in the pan fad.

The sheer scope of this game makes it endlessly playable. Play with a little imagination, and you really will start to notice the hours, days, and weeks roll by...

Traditionally, the way the game was "meant" to be played, you create a Sim and you strive to help him/her excel in every aspect of his (I will use the male adjective from here on for convenience) life. In the beginning, your Sim is unemployed, homeless, and lonely. With $20,000 in his pocket and no possessions but the clothes on his back, it's up to you to buy him a block of land and build a house on it, get him a job and help him earn a living, find him a partner, maybe start a family. The many expansion packs released expand the scope even further - buy him a pet or three, take him on a holiday, make him a superstar!! It's your job to take this little virtual guy from zero to hero and everywhere in between.

But that's just the beginning...

So, your Sim is married with children and living in a mansion with his pockets bulging with cash, he's been to the pinnacle of every career path you've thrown at him, so now what? This is getting boring, right?

Wrong.

Use a little imagination. Switch to a blank neighborhood (with expansion packs installed, there are 8 neighborhoods to use) and play creatively. Make a little story. Write bio's for your Sims, and make them act and interact as your story befits. Is your military general Sim disgusted with those bisexual binge-drinking party animals that have moved in next door and keep him awake all night? Has your crazy old Sim slipped slowly into dementia after years of neglect and now lives in a house of filth and disarray which is avidly avoided by the neighborhood children? Is Robert, the successful college professor, having an affair with Jim's wife Candace, the famous journalist? Will Jim, the pro athlete, smash Robert's head in when he comes home early one day and finds them in bed together? Design, script, and enact your own little soap opera with your neighborhood full of unique personalities, and get ten times the gameplay out of The Sims.

But wait, there's still more!

With an in-game home editor which was utterly unparalleled prior to the release of The Sims 2, half the fun is just designing the houses! Forget the annoying people, crack open that lot editor and design your dream mansion, a haunted castle, or a tiki dream house made entirely of bamboo (yes, even the TV and toilet!). Get away from the boring modern workaday life of your regular Sims with hundreds of unique downloaded item sets, clothing, and building tools, to create anything from an opulent Roman villa for your decadent orgies, a medieval castle for your dignified monarchs to rule, or a Presidential White House from which your political Sims can rule the western world! Or if Western is your thing, put your steer's horns over the bar, your hitching post out the front, and watch your Sims backside on those swinging doors as you build the Wild West saloon of your dreams!

But okay, so history and fantasy aren't your thing, right? You're a more sensible, down-to-earth kinda person, hey? So, forget the fun - the Sims building editor is surprisingly useful as an architectural design tool! Go ahead - make a exact working replica of your own real-life house! Then knock out that back wall and see what your home would look like if you installed that indoor pool you've been thinking about! Test your memory by recreating homes you lived in as a child - can you really remember where every little household item was placed? With enough time and patience, you can fill a whole neighborhood with simulated houses from your real life, and then renovate, demolish, or just see what a Sim would think of your actual house!

And as clichéd as it may sound to the uninitiated - this is just the beginning....

The Bad
Like I said: The Sims is - and don't mistakenly think I'm exaggerating here - as addictive as crack. Look through the other reviews here - I'm not the only one to say this. If you play this game for ten minutes and find you enjoy it, take my advice: put it down for a moment, and SET YOUR ALARM CLOCK, or you will forget you exist until starvation, dehydration or exhaustion finally claim your addicted body.

Seriously, this game should come with a warning label. I couldn't tell you the number of times I've sat down to play this game in the early evening, and looked up from the monitor an hour later to see the sun rising outside. "What the?! Where did the whole night go?!" Oh, that's right - your Sim had three promotions, got a new girlfriend, and added another wing to his house today.

The Bottom Line
I once said in regards to Civilization, and I say again here with twice the emphasis: If you have a job that you're expected to show up to, if you have family or relationship commitments, if you have health problems, an addictive personality, or anything else that is important to you and needs your attention in real life - don't play this game. If you let it, The Sims will consume your life until you are nothing more than a husk who only exists for tiny virtual people to thrive on your energy...

Windows · by Vaelor (400) · 2004

I thought this would be the worst game ever....

The Good
This game was fun, not to mention a great challenge. In fact, I have quite a new appreciation for the non-avid-gamers who have taken to The Sim's making it seem 'uncool' for the quality gamers out there. I had a hard time trying to get those arrogant little people to do their job and enjoy their house!!

Yet, overall I had a barrel of laughs a minute with this fun and creative game. The bare bones let me create a family and buy them a house. Then I got to decorate it, make sure everyone went to school and work, and with all the cool add-ons the Sim world just expanded and expanded!

The Bad
Leo's are hard to control. It makes me scared of my partner - he's a leo... I guess I wasn't too impressed with the whole star-sign side of the game. There was a lot relying on that with the social interaction, and how the sim felt about the house. For those not interested in that whole fairy-fairy aspect of the world, it's a bit of a pain in the arse that you have to take it seriously.

I also got a bit annoyed at my sim when they refused to get a job because they were depressed, yet were depressed because they had no job to earn money to buy their luxuries. I wished for a Dungeon Keeper add-on so I could slap my sim around!

The Bottom Line
This is not the stereotyped girls-only game, as we think of it in the gaming community. It was quite a challenge! It's like SimCity with people, not a game for people 'who need to get out of reality because they can't even control their own lives'...

I also found it very useful if redecorating your house. You can build a replica of your house and then use the editor to import the colours you were choosing. Very useful!

Oh, yeah.. get a virgo, I'm a virgo, easy to keep happy they are... ;)

Windows · by Michelle (176) · 2004

[ View all 20 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The PC version of The Sims appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

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.
  • The Sims was also meant as a satire on suburban life and consumerism. In a clip from "Charlie Brooker's How Videogames Changed the World", Will Wright has stated that "It was actually meant as a satire of U.S. culture, and I think most people didn't get that". An example he gives, is that the player is supposed to buy objects and furniture in the game to make the Sims happy, but inevitably the furniture will break or catch on fire making the Sims miserable instead.

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

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
  • The Strong National Museum of Play
    • 2016 – Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame
  • Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
    • August 31, 2003 - Gold Award (details in "Sales" section)

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Entorphane, James1, JPaterson, Matthew Bailey; Matt Neuteboom, PCGamer77, Sciere, Scott Monster, Technocrat, Ummagumma, Xoleras and Zack Green

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Related Games

The Sims 2
Released 2005 on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube
The Sims 2
Released 2004 on Windows, 2005 on Macintosh
The Sims: Superstar
Released 2003 on Windows, Macintosh
The Sims: Vacation
Released 2002 on Windows, Macintosh
The Sims: House Party
Released 2001 on Windows, Macintosh
The Sims 2
Released 2005 on Game Boy Advance
The Sims: Medieval
Released 2011 on Windows, Macintosh, 2012 on iPad...
The Sims: Hot Date
Released 2001 on Windows, 2002 on Macintosh
The Sims 3
Released 2009 on Windows, Macintosh, Xbox 360

Related Sites +

  • 7 Deadly Sims
    Hugely comprehensive fansite with downloadable items, skins, building materials, and much more.
  • 8th Deadly Sim
    The 8th Deadly Sim is the paysite counterpart to 7 Deadly Sims. For a small token fee you can download hundreds of amazing objects, skins, building materials and lots more!
  • Around the Sims
    Can't get enough of that fresh downloadable content for The Sims? Here's another Sims fansite!
  • Coasters
    An all inclusive site with houses, skins, fashions and more. News too
  • IGCD Internet Game Cars Database
    Game page on IGCD, a database that tries to archive vehicles found in video games.
  • KillerSims
    A Great Mall for your Sims
  • SIMplyDariene
    Walls, Floors, Paintings and Objects, Murals, Objects, The Lollipop Shop, All That Glitters, FAQs, How-To Tutorial, Links
  • Sim Dudes Online
    The site is said to be updated every Monday with great new Skins, Walls, Floors, Roofs, Houses, Paintings, and Objects.
  • SimFreaks
    Yes, even more amazing new unique downloadable content for The Sims!
  • Sims in a Bottle
    A site with Cool Original Objects, tons of Wallpaper Sets, Floors, and Cheats.
  • Simulation Sims
    Another fantastic fansite full of downloadable new Sims content!
  • The Sim Sisters
    A unique site about The Sims that is theme-based around a Church. Art Gallery, Paintings, Skins, Nuns, Priests, Religious Items, Disney, and News
  • The Sims Resource
    Another huge fansite choc full of new downloadable content for The Sims!
  • The Sims Tattoo Parlor
    Site contains Tattoos, Clothing and Swimming Suits, Floors, Walls, Paintings, Guest Skins, Objects, FAQs, Links,
  • The Well Dressed Sim
    A Sims fansite specifically dedicated to fashion and the fashionable. Download stunning new clothing, salon items, home decor and more!
  • Who Needs the Networks?
    An Apple Games article about the Macintosh version of The Sims (August, 2000).
  • devisraad.com: The Sims
    Download unique skins and furnishings from devisraad.com's Sims page.
  • thesims.be.tf
    This site gives Overhead cabinets Plus loads of sets of same color furniture and a very useful program called Sims Object ID to check to see if an object has an uniqe ID number

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 860
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Rynok.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper. Linux added by Christopher Corkum.

Additional contributors: Brian Hirt, xroox, Heikki Sairanen, Andrew Hartnett, Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Zack Green, Atomic Punch!, Alaka, Xoleras, Vaelor, BdR, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance, FatherJack, SoMuchChaotix.

Game added February 19, 2020. Last modified March 14, 2024.