Favourite Simulation ever

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.

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.

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.

 There are tons of other things I could go on about The Sims and still won’t be able to complete this post. That’s how detailed this simulation is.  I love to mess around in The Sims. Initially, I would play few serious rounds of it.  Once I am done with the serious playing, I start to mess around in the game.

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.

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.

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.