Monday, October 11, 2010

The Sims 3 Review

The Sims 3 Review
By Rita S



‘Commas nala’ means ‘hello’ in the great Simmish language. If you have begun to read this, then chances are that you have either played or known of The Sims, the greatest life simulation game on the PC platform of all time.


In 2000 Electronic Arts released the very first version of The Sims; ever since, Will Wright the developer or god-like creator of this game went on to make the Sims 2 which was released in 2004. Its latest edition Sims 3, which was released in 2009. In the first week alone of The Sims 3 release it sold a major 1.4 million copies, the game had once again gone global and it had fans all around the world glued to the screens of their PC playing the ultimate living ‘doll house’.


The Sims 3 contains many elements from its predecessors or so to speak but does also have a funky fresh new outlook for the third edition so those who have been exposed to The Sims previously will feel like a welcomed guest. For those who have not played this amazing life simulation before, never fear!! The game will give you guiders as you play... which of course is very handy. If you are a newcomer to the Sims this is a life simulation game. You control a household of people that you create and they are called Sims. Sims work much the same as us, they need to eat, drain their bladder, sleep, make friends, find a job just amongst many factors of life. In this game you become someone like God and control their actions as you please. It goes further than that though, you can make your Sims fit by training them at the gym or fat by eating too much food; you can get your Sims pregnant and have a houseful of kids... the possibilities are endless. Much like life again you can find adult Sims jobs and earn their form of currency which is known as Simoleans with this money they can buy new furnishings or groceries. Your Sims are just like real life people doing real life things and that is the most attractive thing about this entire game, this by all means will keep you at your computer easily for hours.


For the gamers who have some experience with The Sims there are a whole list of new features but obviously the biggest and most noticed will of course be the simplicity of being able to move around your virtual town. In previous Sim games you could not do this so you felt a bit left out from the rest of the community. Being able to move around the town lets you watch your sim drive, walk or bike to work, the movies, or to go to a stranger’s house and randomly introduce themselves.


Having an open town unlocks a whole new range of community aspects to explore in The Sims 3. There are many public parks and beaches to be explored and to socialise with other Sims, you can find a new friend or the love of your life. If you feel more adventurous though you could get your Sim to head down to the local cemetery and meet with some see-through pals. There are just so many ways to socialise this time around, maybe more so then in real life. Other than your Sim venturing out other Sims may call you, or if your Sim has the knack for fixing then someone may ask you over to fix a broken appliance and for your troubles they will give you some cash. Honestly, this game has really stepped up a level since The Sims 2 and it’s very exciting to see.


In The Sims 3 many things that your Sim does or the way that it reacts to social situations will depend on how you create your Sim. The new feature that decides this is the social traits, you have to pick only five from a list of many and these determine so many things so... you guessed it, choose carefully!! Some examples are; friendly, insane, kleptomaniac, neurotic and so many others. So for example depending on what you choose you can either have someone that is happy but a neat freak so if they go into a messy environment then they stress and get very unhappy. Or you can have someone that likes to be a sleazy Sim and sleep with everyone in the district, the choice is yours. Other than having to spend so many hours just deciding on the personality alone there are sooooo very many customisation tools to create your Sims. You now get to do anything you want to your Sim for example one very new feature is to change the colour of their hair style into two colours so they look like they have dyed in streaks. There are also slide bars to get the perfect skin colour to customise a certain facial feature. The next big feature you will notice is when you add some clothing, there is a tool called ‘Create a Style’ this tool lets you choose all the colours for your Sims clothing, it’s very much needed in this game and you’ll be happy to use it. Expect to pay a long amount of time on this; there is much to do to perfect your Sims, very much indeed.


When you design your dream home you can expect to pay triple the time that you put into creating your Sims until you bought a pre-made house. There are many different styles of paint wallpaper, flooring and furniture and on top of that the ‘Create a Style’ tool can also be used, once you get stuck into the colour customisation you feel like an interior designer... If only you got paid to create your Sim’s houses. From a plain house to a multi floor mansion, you will build it.


Once your house is all finished and your Sims move in you are in for a jolly good time. You can either take control or just sit back and watch and let your Sim do its own thing and they do a good job of it too. Sims will dedicate their life to the personality traits you have dedicated to them. Watching social encounters will have you in stiches at times such as trying to get a smooch from a love interest and he or her may push you away, making an unfit Sim go to the gym and watching them fear the gym equipment or Cheating on your husband or wife Sim. There is so much entertainment lurking in every reaction and interaction, this is all why The Sims is so fun to play.


There are so many more things to experience in The Sims and this game is just like no other, it’s an experience all of its own kind and I’ve only touched the surface of the gameplay in The Sims 3, it is so amazing.


Now, if there is so much good then where are the bad bits? Well there is one major downfall if you want to play this game then you need a really good graphics card and more RAM then you can poke a stick at. Also, you will need to have a rather large hard drive, for most people with modern computers that won’t be a problem though. If you don’t have the right specs to play this game then either it won’t work at all or you can expect some random crashing due to memory leakage or the game just decides to lock up your PC so then you have to restart which means you lose all your unsaved work so remember, SAVE OFTEN! The bad thing is the game can choke up a bit from time to time because it is so big and it’s a shame because sometimes you have to get your Sim to run from large crowds of Sims that are on the screen as most of the time that is what causes the game to crash. Just incase you want to know the specifications that you need in order for your PC or MAC to run this game I will list them below...


Sims 3 Specifications for PC:
PC operating system: Windows XP service pack 2 or Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
CPU: (XP) 2.0 GHz processor or equivalent (VISTA) 2.4 GHz processor or equivalent.
RAM: (XP) 1 GB RAM (VISTA) 1.5 GB of RAM
HARD DRIVE: 6.1 GB of hard disk space with an additional 1 GB of RAM for saved games and custom content.
VIDEO: 128 MB video card with support for pixel shader 2.0


Sims 3 Specifications for MAC:
PC operating system: Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
CPU: Intel Core Duo Processor
RAM: 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 6.1 GB of hard disk space with an additional 1 GB of RAM for saved games and custom content.
VIDEO: ATI X 1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of video ram or Intel integrated GMA X3100


Summary: The Sims 3 is a whole new virtual world waiting just for you to explore it. EA have once again done a marvellous job of putting this game together and have topped all of the previous Sims games. Keeping all the old features but adding so many new features in gives it a whole new outlook. Social interactions are much more lifelike and are a hoot to watch; the game will not disappoint old fans and will welcome all newcomers. The game will never get boring and if you are looking for something that will keep you hooked all day, then look no further. It’s a tad disappointing that the game can crash randomly from time to time but it’s easily forgiven with all the things that you can do in this game. This is life simulation that will never be beaten thank you to EA.

Please note that the Sims 3 will very soon be available on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and DS. Whether the game is very much the same as PC or not is yet to be known.

Overall Rating: 9 / 10

11 comments:

  1. The game almost seems like a huge waste of time, I have a hard time seeing the appeal.

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  2. Always been a fan of the sims, so I'll probably pick this one up

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  3. Sims 3 is so addictive. I wasted so many hours on it. I get out my evil side in that game. :)

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  4. I'm just waiting for Sims Multiplayer, that'd be crazy.

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  5. looks too much like an mmo, without the actual point of a game, not for me i think

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