I absolutely love The Sims.
It’s my favourite game and it’s the only game that I can sit down on a
chair without moving for anything (except for wash room breaks) and play
throughout the night. That’s how much I appreciate this simulation game.
I am going to talk about The Sims 3 for this post because I
have yet to get my hands on The Sims 4. Let me summarise as much as possible about the
game. The Sims 3 is the third part to the previous The Sims game. The sims is a simulator of a human’s virtual
life. You are allowed to create a
character or a family which you would control in this whole game.
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| Creation of a sim character |
You are not allowed to start a game as a toddler alone. You
need an older figure to start the game. Or you could start within built
characters. You are also allowed to
choose the characteristics and goals In each character’s life. All you got to do is to be like a nanny for
the Sims. You have control their life.
All Sims have basic human needs, they need to
eat,sleep,bathe,socialise, visit the washroom, a job, fun, parties. You as the player get to control them. You can
make their life fun or miserable as hell. It’s just real life in a virtual
world. It’s almost like playing the “God” game.
The sims can find a job and work, they can socialize with
strangers, pick up a hobby, go to gym or swimming. They need to work on their skills. If
sometimes breaks in their house, like water pipe, they can fix it by themselves
(for free) or call a repairman.
Simoleans (Money Currency In their world) are very important
in this game. In real life you need
money to lead a life. It’s the same in Sims. You need money to buy furniture’s
in your house, you need food. You have expenses if something breaks down in
your house. Thus, a job is important unless you are rich. If you are rich you
don’t have to work or you could work for the sake of spending time.
Communication between one character to another is through speech
bubbles. When the player clicks on another there are few action words used. For
an example, you want to introduce your character to another character; you have
to click on the other character and select “Introduce”. That’s how you
communicate with other Sims character.
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| Select an action to take for the character. |
Player could move from place to place through various ways.
All player has to do is to go to their map and select the location. Depending
on the character’s availability of vehicle, the character could travel with
ease. If the character does not have a vehicle, he/she then hails a cab to
reach the selected destination.
You are also provided a cell phone to contact your other Sims
or to call for services like adoption,
pizza delivery and others. You could
also call your other Sims friends to chat, invite them out, or invite them
over. Even you could plan a party and
select who you would invite for it.
There are also expansion versions of this game where you
could add on to your base game. Expansion
games like The Sims pets, Late night, Katy Perry and many others that are
available for players to play in a different situation.
I would try different possibilities in the game. Once I
called The Sims character out to the garden then built a wall around the
character without any doors or facilities in the small room. I know this is sadistic but I was really
curious.
The character called out for other family members in the
house. Surprisingly the family members came out to help, but I cancel their
task and assign them other task. Thus, they could not reach out to her. The
character died in the end and all the family members went through emotional
pain (Could be seen through their mood meter).
I know that was sadistic, but I was very curious on the
reaction. I always wanted to try it out
on a most hated person in the family but I never had a chance to try it. I
wonder whether the Sims will come out to try their best to help.
I also like to mess around in various ways and see how the
game reacts to my decisions. I love how they have so many actions to any possibilities
a player could think off. It’s not the same reaction all the time.
The A.I. are really good in this game. Most of the time,
they have the capability to look after themselves. Occasionally, they require
the player’s help. For an example, if I am a child, I would go to school and do
my homework and do stuff. However, my mood gets affected because I feel lonely.
Thus, my mood meter drops.
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| A possible scenario that will affect a sim's mood. |
I like how they alert the characters need’s to a player. At
the left side of the screen, there are few boxes with the character’s picture.
If the background of the box is green, the character is perfectly fine. If it
is yellow, then the characters have some problems but still can manage it. If
the box turns red, the character is extremely moody and they are at the peak of
negative moments.
Not only there is a colour indication in each box to express
the character’s situation, the face in the box changes according to the colour
too. If it is green, they are happy. If it is yellow, they will look slightly
annoyed. If it is red, they will look unhappy.
Once you see this you can click on the box which the camera
will immediately zoom to the player location. At that moment, you are able to
see what could be the possible reason of your unhappiness of your Sims through
the mood meter section.
This game tend to be unrealistic like you could be enemies
with another character but you could talk or high five and hug till you become
buddies. Or on how you could cheat by aging the younger characters by
celebrating their birthday every day till their reach a certain stage. Or even how a chair could block a player way
and he can’t find another way to go other side.
Other than some factors, the game is realistic in many ways.
It’s like a game that meant for player’s to live the way you want to if you are
given an opportunity in life. You could party away and not work.
Or the player could make the characters work till they have reached
the highest position. They could become rock stars. They could make friends
with anyone. Players can build any dream house they want (if they don’t have
money the common cheat to use is Motherlode) or buy any dream house.
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| Top down view of a simple house |
To summarise in quick sentence, The Sims 3 is simply amazing
because it’s a well-developed Simulation that is realistic to real life and has
different types of reaction towards a player’s action. It might not suit all types of players but I
do believe it is very idealistic girl’s game. The Sims games are definitely
worth a shot to spend your time on it.
