Won’t you be my neighbor? My Sims 3 neighbor that is. Even though the game has been out for two months, I’ve been playing during that time so I can give you some of my gameplay insight. You need to know a little background (yes you really do). I played original Sims for a few months before Sims 2 came out. Sims 2 was just awesome all around. I played in Strangetown every night for months. My obsession was getting the guys abducted and trying to get twins (with no cheats). I had quite the soap opera going because I tend to shake things up in the Sim world. I since bought every expansion pack and my love of Sims increased with each one. My game playing turned into creating story games with Sims that represented forum members called Sim House (think Big Brother). Enter Sims 3. I was excited about the new possibilities of being able to access the entire neighborhood and I wondered what kind of story games I could create.
One of the cool new things about Sims 3 is the Sim creator. It’a a much better platform to adjust the facial features of the Sims and the ability to make them very realistic. There is even a weight slider so you can have a really skinny Sim or an obese one. I personally think the overweight Sims are interesting and I chose one to be my first playable character. Her name was Martha. She came with the traits of Artistic, Unflirty, Angler, Couch Potato and Inappropriate.
Traits are another new feature of the game and gives your Sim a more defined personality. Some are very amusing such as “insane” and you can create some interesting combination’s. You can also randomize the whole process and that’s what I did with Martha. Clothing has limited choices but you can recolor everything including the hair. One tip before leaving the Sim creator: you will want to save your Sim but don’t save it as a household first, click the arrow by their picture and share it, which saves it and then you can bring it back into the editor later and make changes. I made the mistake of saving Martha as household and I couldn’t change her later unless I used a mirror and that has limited choices.
Wishes are something new in Sims 3 and they let you know what your Sim wants and when you fulfill them, they earn reward points. These points can be traded later for extra character traits like a steel bladder or the ability to be lazy at work and not have it affect your job performance. Interacting with your neighbors and their possessions is new and a pretty cool feature. You can do almost anything in a neighbor house that you can do in your own house As your Sim interacts with other Sims they discover their traits. This can require quite a bit of socializing.
I found that it took a long time for Martha to rest and fill her energy bar, which was annoying. This really killed the time needed to do extra things like gardening and fishing and find a love life. While the Sim is at work, you also have to wait and watch the time meter go by. It’s not so annoying when you have more than one Sim to play. When I first played the game, the time meter took so long even at the maximum speed. Later a patch was released that fixed the time meter to run faster, so now it’s easier to fast forward. It’s also easier to manage bills in this game. You can click on the mailbox and pay them all at once without the Sim having to go and pick up all the mail and put it down in random places. Martha did forget to pay her bills once and the repo girl came and took some of her stuff.
The neighborhood has places to visit like the store, they gym, a spa and the cemetery. You can talk and interact with the ghosts and build relationships. There is a mausoleum and you can have your Sim wander through it and explore. Beware though, if they get frightened, they will come out with their needs low and charred up like they got burned. Martha did not like exploring, she would rather fish.
The time as an adult seemed to go by fairly quickly, it wasn’t long before she aged into a Senior and she hadn’t managed to sleep with her (now married) boyfriend nor did the relationship get high enough to have him move in. She didn’t reach the top of the fishing levels and for some silly reason, and I allowed her to change careers and she wasn’t able to retire and earn money. Since she had no children and I wanted to continue the family line, I went back to the Sim creator and made her niece, Helga. This time I chose Helga to be a young adult so she could learn more before aging. Helga married, learned skills quickly and ended up pregnant with twins.
When Martha finally died, all her inventory went to Helga so I didn’t have to risk losing anything. Taking care of the babies is much easier in Sims 3, no dirty bottles on the floor and diaper changing is faster. Your Sim can study child care and know what the baby wants. You can hire babysitters to help out when you need an extra hand.
That’s pretty much where I stopped. Raising a family is tough if the Sim has to do it and continue working and pursuing hobbies. While I liked the game overall, some things became annoying. I felt like I was spending way too much time making them work and do hobbies and less time socializing. Using the neighborhood map was interesting but you can really only play one family at a time. You can’t jump in and out of different houses like you could in Sims 2 and I missed that. Let me rephrase, you can do it but if you leave the household you’re playing, you lose all the wishes and goals you had saved and that family will continue to age and grow without your input. So if you’re working toward something important, it might get messed up while the Sim is doing its own thing. You might end up with unwanted kids or jobs. While you can recolor any clothing item or object in the game, I haven’t figured out how to make custom shirts or clothes outside the game.
Despite the small annoyances, it’s still a fun game and worth the money to play it. I’ve enjoyed the new dynamics and discovering all the things you can do in the game. I would say if you enjoy playing the Sims, then Sims 3 is still a good choice. To date, 3.7 million copies have been sold, so I think it’s a hit.
I honestly just found out the game works on Mac. I might have to pick this one up now.
I find it hard to actually start actually playing, I want to create sims and build houses and that takes up way too much of my time.
I’m the opposite, I want to play so I take the pre-built house and the pre-built sim. Except I did create myself as a Sim and that took a long time. I haven’t played with my Sim yet, it’s still in the bin.
Well you seem to be having fun with Sims 3! Sims 3 has so much to offer compare to Sims 2 and I can’t wait for the new ep to come out even though Bon Voyage was not one of my favorites.
Happy Simming!
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I have been having fun playing but there are a few annoyances I have with it. I think they should have included pets in the initial release of Sims 3 but I’m sure it will be part of a later expansion pack. Also, the ability to have a bit more control over movement. What I mean is in the house I created (yes using cheats for money, I was bored), I created a great 2nd story jump off into the pool but of course you can’t have them jump off a building. While I’m on the subject of pools, why in the world is there not a diving board in the accessories for a pool? Wouldn’t that be something to include? Lastly, the flimsy relationships, I married two sims but was immediately able to have the wife cheat and get romantic with a random guy. Wouldn’t you think that there would be something to at least restrict that unless the relationship meter for a given sim started to decline? That’s just my thoughts coming from someone who hasn’t played any other version of the Sims but this one.
I think pets makes a better expansion so I’m sure they want to save that for later. More $$$. They can’t jump off buildings but that would have been cool for your pool. I didn’t notice there wasn’t a diving board. I did find that they didn’t need ladders to get out of pools, no more drownings I guess. As far as relationships, you can have them fall in love with multiple people, they don’t have “guilt” about it. As long as they don’t all show up at the same time, it’ll be fine. Otherwise, it’ll look like the Jerry Springer show.
I did not notice there no diving board either. Though it was only when I saw my Sim go to his pool that I realized Sims no longer need a ladder to get in or out of the pool which is pretty neat.
I wonder though if more pool action might come up with the new ep…
I also thought Pets & the weather would have been part of the game instead of making them as an expansion basically pets and weather are part of everyday life so it should be on Sims 3 too lol
[...] Review: The Sims 3 – Loot Ninja [...]
You can find all the Sims I used on my Sim Page. http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/LadyM
This is a great article! I have one question though. How did you make Helga be her niece? I didn’t know it was possible to access the Sim’s creator on an already created Sim. Can you enlighten me?
It didn’t show up in the relationship panel, I just called her the niece and gave her the same last name. Because they shared the house she still inherited everything when Martha died.
Creating Sims and building houses does indeed take up way too much time!