Game Thoughts: The Sims 3

So one thing both Mariel and I enjoy is playing "The Sims 2." We have all the expansion packs for it and often drive those around us crazy by talking about the Sims we've created and their adventures in life.

Call us losers if you will, but it's fun to play God sometimes, you know?

Well, we've been looking forward to "The Sims 3," for awhile, thinking it was going to be an upgrade in the series. Well, I think we both agree that it's just a waste of space on the computer.

Seriously, we heard all about the "Seamless neighborhood" and new aging systems. We also heard about the wonderful new look of the Sims themselves, and about how you can customize them even more than the Sims 2.

Right.

This is EA games here.

So First off, what do I HATE about the game? I'll start with the whole seamless town thing. In Sims 2, when your Sim wants to go to another lot, say the store, a restaurant, or the Gym, the game had to stop and load the new lot, and the time that your Sim had been out would be reset once you came home. Still, you could actually go into these lots, browse items, interact with other sims, play games, light fires, etc.

Well, throw that out the window for Sims 3. Sure, the load times are gone, but in it's place is a crappy looking view of your sim driving their car. It honestly looks like something out of the first Sim City game or a Nintendo game from the early 90s. When my chick got to the store, instead of going in and interacting with the world on the lot, a menu list came up and you just picked what you wanted to buy. Lame. Oh and when you come out, you have to call your car, which has disappeared on you. To me, this is a downgrade from a lot of the fun interaction to be had in the Sims 2 Expansions. Maybe some other lots offer more interaction, we'll see.

Next up, the new aging. It used to be, on Sims 2, that if you had multiple Sims in the same town, they didn't age unless you played them. Well, that's gone. Everybody ages all the time now, all at once. Now that does certainly seem more realistic, but a lot of the fun Mariel and I have had with the game is raising different families in the same town, and working at aging them together and having them interact. We got to experience each of our Sim's lives. It also increased the replayability.

Now however, Mariel played her sim for awhile on Sims 3, and I come back and the Sim I had created was an old Lady and I had barely even played her. Now she can't have kids or anything, so what's the point. It's a one family at a time deal I guess, and I don't like it.

Of course the Sims look better right? I don't think so. I never could my chick to look the way I wanted her to. The customization really isn't all that different. Sure I can make her a total lard-ass or Crack-Whore skinny, I can also change her skin tone on a gradual scale. Well, those are things that EA and other game companies have had in their PS2 games for years. I was using the same color system that's innovative in the Sims 3 on my NASCAR THUNDER race cars on my PS2 in 2003. Lame. The rest of the customization really isn't that different than the Sims 2. Then in the end, they end up looking like two-bit cartoon characters.

Oh, and finally, there's next to no content in the game. Instead of packing in more outfits and furniture for your Sims, there's very little of it there and you get the privelege of going to the EA Sims 3 Store, where you can spend your hard earned real world cash on a couch for your Sims. Lame. Of course, there will be infinite expansion packs as well.

What's good about it? Well very little. Yeah it's nice that the load screens between lots are gone, but if you have a halfway decent computer that was never too big of an issue. The personality system is actually quite a bit more customizable, and the need bars aren't near as rigid this time around, so that's a nice touch. That's about it though.

Rating--2 out of 10. Don't waste your money, just upgrade your Sims 2 game while you still can.