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Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family
The concept of the game is simple enough. You create a Sim (or more than one if you are so inclined), give them personality traits that you like, drop them in a house in the town of your choosing, and act out their lives as you see fit. The term ‘life simulator’ is thrown about quite a lot when people talk about the Sims series and The Sims 3 takes that to a whole new level. It hits particularly close to home when the computer loving, absent-minded Sim I create with the loner trait seems completely content working a crap job and staying at home playing video games all day in his free time. And it becomes uncomfortably realistic when the only girl he can get is of particularly loose morals when it comes to monogamy.
The core gameplay in The Sims 3 (or any other Sims game to date) revolves around taking care of your Sims’ basic needs (like hunger, hygiene, energy, bladder, etc) and balancing them with their job, family and friends. You need a job to pay the bills and the whole idea is that whatever time you have left to yourself in a day is a limited resource and you have to utilise it correctly to keep your Sim happy and functioning at maximum efficiency. There is no final goal or a victory condition and if your Sims keep reproducing, you could play the game infinitely.
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Choose a big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers
So while at heart the gameplay still remains quite similar to the first two Sims game, The Sims 3 brings quite a lot that’s new to the table. The character creation has been revamped to give you more control over your Sims’ appearance. The number of options you have to customise your Sims in areas like weight, skin tone, facial appearance etc. has been increased substantially from The Sims 2. This isn’t as big a positive as you would imagine though. The number of options still feel rather limited when you compare them to other games (like Smackdown! vs RAW) that let you customise your appearance. And overall, there is a distinct feel that some things (like hairstyles) have been limited to a small number so they can be sold as downloadable content later on, a feeling further strengthened by the fact that there are more hairstyles to purchase now than there were initially shipped in the game.
Also new to the Sims series are personality traits. So when you are creating your Sims, you can decide the kind of personality they will have. If you create a Sim with the artistic trait, they will tend to excel in music and writing. This not only changes your Sims’ behavior from when they are left alone to how they interact with other Sims, but it also changes the career options you have available. Certain careers are only available if you have the requisite traits and a lot of career options are locked away if you have traits that conflict with them. For example, the loner trait means your character cannot be a politician and the kleptomaniac trait means you can be an excellent thief. And since two different Sims with different traits will have completely different lives, it adds an immense amount of depth to the game and gives you a lot of replay options. Your traits also dictate what your lifetime wishes and lifetime goal will be. Neither of them makes a huge impact to the game though; they will just increase the overall happiness of your Sim and let you unlock some minor rewards
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Choose your friends
Next page: The verdict
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Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fabrics
Another major addition to The Sims 3 is the outdoor map. Now instead of being isolated to either your house or a single community place, you can explore the whole neighbourhood without ever seeing a loading screen. You can visit another Sims’ house, go to a community hang out and watch a movie, buy groceries, etc. There are even community places, where you can learn and hone your skills. For example, if you go to the theatre, you can take guitar lessons to improve your music skills. You can also buy out various properties like bookstores and grocery shops and earn money off them. You can even fire Sims that work there just for added laughs. All of this isn’t as radical a game changer as personality traits, but it’s a welcome distraction for you (and your Sims) when the monotony of household life starts to induce claustrophobia.
There have been various other refinements in the game when compared to the prequels. The number of needs has been trimmed down from eight to six. Hunger, bladder, energy, social, hygiene and fun are still there while comfort and environment are gone. This takes some of the micromanagement annoyances out of the game. The game’s auto play system, where your Sims would take care of themselves if left unattended, has also been revamped and works a lot better now. Like the previous version though, it’s completely customisable, so if you don’t want your Sims to take care of their own needs, you can always turn it off. Interactions with other Sims have also received a major overhaul. You cannot simply choose the same interaction with them over and over again to build up a relationship. This removes the grind-like nature of the social aspect of The Sims and is a welcome addition.
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Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into your mouth
The last major add-on to the game is its own inbuilt launch application, which lets you download and install any new content you like. If you have played either of the previous Sims games, you will know how active the Sims community is when it comes to creating new content. So a better way to download and install it is always welcome. At the moment, new content is split into two parts – community created (which is free) and developer created (which is paid). The amount of community created content on offer right now is nothing short of astounding.
From a technical point, the game has some performance issues. For one, even though my system will run the game at maxed settings, it will at random points slow down to a stop. Even dropping the details down to low doesn’t fix the problem. Visually, the game looks like a slightly improved version of The Sims 2, and when I say slightly, I do mean it in the most literal sense of the word. If you put up screenshots of The Sims 2 and 3 side by side, you would be hard pressed to find differences in visual quality. It is somewhat compensated by the fact that the game doesn’t require a lot in terms of graphics prowess to run. The back of the case even says that the game will work on onboard Intel graphics and I haven’t seen that in any major release recently. The load times are also slightly longer than you would expect; the save times even longer. On a slightly positive note, the game doesn’t need an online activation to work and has no install limits.
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Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish brats you spawned to replace yourselves
Conclusion
All in all though, it’s pretty easy to recommend The Sims 3 to anyone. It’s a rare case of a sequel improving on its predecessor in every way and is easily the best Sims title till date. Even if you haven’t played any Sims game till now, you “gotta” try this one out. It’s well worth the price of admission.
(+) Huge, explorable map
(+) Personality traits
(+) Tons of user-created content
(+) Addictive gameplay with lots of variety
(-) Limited customisation options
(-) Some performance issues
(-) Long load and save times
Title: The Sims 3
Developer/Publisher: The Sims Studio/EA
Genre: Simulation
Rating: 12+
Platforms: PC (Rs 999)
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