The Sims

The Good
I remember playing Sim City 2000 a long time ago and thinking 'you know, wouldn't it be cool if I could zoom in far enough to see the people in those houses?'. Little did I know that Maxis had that idea too, though on a far grander scale.

The Sims came out at the same time as Sim City 3000, and I picked both up in a bundle pack. At first I was more interested in reliving my city building days, but soon I picked up the idea of watching a Sim go about its every day life while having control of certain aspects.

It soon became obvious to me why so many people had become addicted to the game. The combination of having the chance to live out a life exactly as you want it to through the eyes of a digital character, and at the same time creating an addictive puzzle/strategy hybrid was hard to put down. Every day I'd come back and play out another few days of my characters life, building up the home and creating a family atmosphere.

The level of freedom to do as you please was, at the time, unheard of. Even Sim City had its limitations, but here you could live out an entire life for as long as you could stand your character. Even the house building mode was just as entertaining.

The Bad
Since the Sim craze has faded just a little bit from the original magic, that addictive like nature does tend to fade with it. You can make as many lives, houses and families as you like, but in the end it all works out similarly to before. Expansion packs and downloads help to starve complete boredom, but it will set in eventually.

The other thing that I did think brought the game down just a tad was in the characters themselves. They moved well, performed just about all you ask them to, but once in a while they go off on you and doing strange, if not disturbing, things. Put it down to a lack of true AI development, perhaps.

Maxis hasn't always been known for its best musical scores either. The Sims had some nice shiney tunes, the kind of tunes that would grate on your mind and you'd whistle constantly long after putting down the keyboard. Catchy, yes, but annoying, definitely. A little more variety (as seen in The Sims 2, for example) would have been an advantage.

The Bottom Line
The Sims was, put simply, a brilliant concept that was developed into an entertaining game. All problems aside, it's probably the most addictive game out there.

Forgetting the fact that there have been probably a few too many short lived expansion packs and the rushed out Sims Online, Maxis moved itself out of the shadow of Sim City, so much so that The Sims is the new flagship title in the arsenal.

The question is, will it be remembered for its uniqueness, or for being so addictive that people were living out their lives almost the same as the characters themselves...

The Good
Like most Will Wright 'games', the Sims is a construction kit; a toy. You're given a set of basics and told to play make believe. Anyone who played with building blocks, chemistry sets, or even created complex stories for their toys will instantly love this game. There's no defined goals, no ending.

Part of the addictive nature of the Sims is the fact that it's open ended. When my co-workers caught the Sims bug, one played a number of very straight laced familes, while another created a house only a drugged-out artist could love and proceeded to be the town bum, eventually having his wife leave him and his kids sent to military academy. A third created an Austin Powers Sim who lived with seven women...and tried to keep relationships going with all of them without causing a fight. On the web come stories of everything from militia type compounds to insane asylums to one demented soul who kept his neighbors in glass rooms. What other game gives you this much flexibility?

The graphics are beautiful and functional, and give the game a nice balance between 'cute enough for kids' and 'serious enough for adults'. The Sims wear various clothes, can play with little electric trains (that actually run on the table), watch TV, or lounge around in the hot tub.

The interface is simple and intuitive. The first time I played this was on a friend's PC and figured out all the commands without any assistance. This makes for both a game you can sit your children in front of and not have to test their patience training them...and a relaxing game to pass time with without having to think too much about where everything is.

For anyone who's ever harbored a deep, hidden desire to be an architect and/or interior designer, this game gives you plenty of options to play with. Maxis has been putting out new goodies for their registered customers on a nearly weekly basis, making this a never ending toolkit.

Last, but not least, is the community that the game has inspired. From the office banter (there was a point where we'd share what our Sims did the previous night!) to the thousands of fans online, there's a giant fan base that just loves to share anecdotes and home made add-ons. Your Sims will never want for anything new because there's now thousands of various types of clothes, wall paper, carpet, and even furniture/items.

The Bad
Although the Sims can technically take care of themselves if left alone, they merely survive, if possible. They don't really try to make themselves happy or excessively relaxed and you will often find unattended Sims leaving messes about the house and falling asleep wherever convenient (like a dog!). The micromanagement required sometimes is extreme and since many of the duties are as repetitious as they are in real life, it becomes tedious.

The pacing may also be an annoyance. There are multiple speeds the game can be played (some people who don't read the manual may never realize this) and it is almost essential that you speed up and slow down the game in order to enjoy it. Some tasks (like making dinner) can take an excessive amount of time (often near a Sim hour to make breakfast...almost twice as long for dinner) and while the Sim may be enjoying himself watching TV, you're not really enjoying yourself watching him sitting there humming away. During these times you need to speed the clock up. But no sooner than you run at the increased speed does something vital happen, such as a friend you wanted to have visit knocking on your Sim's door, or the Sim deciding to make another meal and setting the kitchen ablaze, throwing you back into normal speed. For many, the speed changes become second nature, but it's odd pacing at first, and annoying forever to some.

Your Sim's job is, unfortunately, done behind the scenes, so there's little to do while they're away at work or school. Perhaps Maxis will come out with an expansion pack called 'Sims at Work', although it would have to be much more expansive; currently the only action you get to see is your neighborhood. Like living on some commune miles away from anyone else, the only Sims your Sim meets are those who live a block away. Random outsiders would have been nice.

Some would add that a lack of multiplayer ruins part of the game. I disagree if only because I could just see an online Sims neighborhood with people walling each other in their houses, stealing from each other, and generally causing whatever mischeive they can. I'd rather keep my social experiments self-contained and controlled.

No pets (well, aside from the original fish and the newer caged animals)! Perhaps Wright and crew felt the user had enough babysitting to do, but it would've been fun to have had a dog or cat as a family member...even with the same stats of 'Neatness', 'Outgoing', etc...

The Bottom Line
Waaaaay back when computers running at 2MHz were considered fast, there was a game from Activision called 'Little Computer People', in which you 'adopted' a person who lived in your PC and watched him live. Anyone remembering and loving that game will fall instantly for the Sims.

The Sims is a house-building/social interactivity toy that allows you to build up a neighborhood, populate it, and watch the neighbors interact. It's fun and addictive for a long time and may be a nice educational tool to teach kids how much effort goes into maintaining a healthy, happy lifestyle while bringing in a decent income (if a family member is thinking about having a baby without putting much thought into it, allow them to play the Sims and let their Sims have a baby. It'll show them how much work it is).

The Good
The first time I heard about this game I was told that you could pretty much do what ever you wanted to do. As in you could go down and rob the local store if you wanted to. So when I got the game I was obviously disappointed that I couldn't even leave the area of my house, so that being said here is my review.

The first thing I noticed when I started to play the game was the graphics, smooth around the edges and the game didn't seem to jump at all or have many bugs. I think that the Maxis / Electronic Arts team took about three quarters of the time spent making the graphics of the game perfect and then just adding a bit of game play in at the end.

The sound in The Sims was great. The little language that the Sims speak in can get a bit annoying after a while but it is still a nice touch to the game. And the language also makes the conversations between the Sims a lot more interesting. You can also hear you Sim / Sims grumbling if they are unhappy or if you have just woken them up in the middle of one of their peaceful little naps.

The game play, though the downfall of the game still had its high points such as, making the house is one of the most fun things to do in the game, and getting a job and watching as your house and your bank account expand. There quite a few jobs that the player can choose form such as a Army recruit or a journalist. If you get bored of just being a bachelor / bachelorette then you can try and get a person to marry and maybe even give you some children. And when you get a child then your character actually gets the pleasure of waking up at four in the morning because the baby is hungry or needs to be changed, and if you decide to neglect it then a social service person will come to your house and take the bundle of joy off your hands.

The Bad
As I said in the good review when I heard about The Sims I had quite a different idea of what I thought it was going to be like compared to what I actually played. Even though the graphics in the game were quite good they still had flaws such as, swimming around in the water there are no ripples or anything and it looks like he’s floating around in his own little patch of sky. And when the house was getting built and you could choose what kind of roof you wanted on top of your house, there was one size which looked quite normal but the other two just looked stupid and it was a waste being able to have them.

The Sims have their own little language. And it would not matter if the language was English it would still get incredibly annoying after a while and to be able to play the game I had to mute the sound so that I could not hear the sounds of the annoying Sims any more.

And now we come to the worst part of the game. You have to give your Sim(s) the attention that you have to give to a newborn baby. And its even worse when the Sim is a new born baby, and if you are not up within 30 minutes after it starts crying then the bloody social service woman gets there and takes it before it can even become a child. The most annoying thing by far about the Sims though is this: it takes so long to do ANYTHING. If you want to have a snack it will take your Sim about an hour to finish it, and its even worse if you want to actually have a full dinner. For example if I wanted to be up and be ready for work in my game then I would have had to be up four hours before my car pool arrived otherwise I would've been cutting it extremely close.

The Bottom Line
The Sims is a fun game for a while even though it takes the Sims ages as I said to do ANYTHING. If you are someone who is looking for a game that has no real ending and you have to be watching like a hawk every time you are controlling then go ahead and buy this game. If not then you will probably find The Sims to be annoying after a while you will be discarding it quite quickly.