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1  The Sims 3 / Sims 3 Buzz / Re: I love the Sims 3. . .an honest review from a veteran Simmer on: June 27, 2009, 12:42:28 pm
I agree, Lisfyre, and I miss the pianos and hot tubs too (expansions, hopefully?). And it's good to get an honest perspective from you as well, Jasumi, you brought up some excellent points about the game.

Mairi   Grin
2  The Sims 3 / Sims 3 Buzz / Re: I love the Sims 3. . .an honest review from a veteran Simmer on: June 25, 2009, 12:11:35 pm
Sims 2 and 3 both have a very different feel, and I can see myself continuing to play my Sims 2 game as well. I have all of the expansions, etc., and love the sheer amount of content that is available. I hope that Sims 3 will mature into that type of game as well, as more expansions and improvements to the game engine are released. Some of the features of the Sims 2 are still quite desirable, such as the ability to create entire neighborhoods with families interacting with one another (the story progression feature and only one available neighborhood template from the Sims 3 makes that difficult - Sims 3 is more suited to a single-family "legacy" type of game).

I have played (and loved) a lot of in-depth and complex games as well, Jasumi, (and I would call myself a hardcore Sims fan, since I've been enjoying the Sims franchise since the Sims 1) but I find that the Sims 3 is still a very relaxing and interesting game to play. The game allows me to express my creativity and have fun creating and living in dream homes that I will probably never have in real life. The Sims is my way of unwinding and enjoying a game that doesn't require a great deal of thought or pressure.

That said, this genre of game doesn't appeal to everybody, as people have individual tastes and look for different things from their gaming experiences.

Mairi  Grin
3  The Sims 3 / Sims 3 Buzz / I love the Sims 3. . .an honest review from a veteran Simmer on: June 22, 2009, 11:10:32 pm
As a veteran Sims 1 and 2 player, I love this game. I have built countless houses and families for the Sims 2 (I'm a featured creator at MTS2), and I have found that even with the limited selection of tools and content that comes with the vanilla Sims 3 game, I have more freedom to express my creativity than ever before. With the Sims 2, I often found myself relying on custom content to create the homes that I was dreaming of, and I spent more hours than I can count poring over forums and websites looking for just the right wallpaper, or a couch in just the right color (and I still had to compromise my designs more often than not, based on whatever selections of content were available). So of course I love the create a style tool, that lets me do whatever I want to customize content to my liking, without having to rely on someone else to make my custom content for me. Granted, I wish that more content had been included (I miss a lot of the building tools, especially the two-story windows and the columned arches from the Sims 2), but I hope to see those things in upcoming expansions. Look at the limited content that came with the base Sims 2 game, after all. I can't wait to see what expansions EA releases for the Sims 3.

As for the Sims, I love their new AI. They're much more intelligent, much less whiney, and much more unique and interesting. I love the fact that you can completely customize their personalities, even choosing things such as their favorite foods, music, colors, etc. Awesome! I think that the process of starting families and raising children has also been improved on, and the game overall feels more realistic. I love the new cooking recipes and ingredients, and the fact that you can purchase new books for your library, or buy new recipes to cook. It's fun to stock the fridge with the ingredients that you need for your meals (though you don't have to, you can just pay the cost for the ingredients that you need directly, if you wish), and I love the fact that the leftovers that you put in the fridge will eventually spoil. It's a nice touch of realism. The fact that you can completely customize your Sims' body shapes is nice too, not every Sim should look like a skinny magazine-cover model. People come in all shapes and sizes, and now your Sims can too.

One of the first things I did when I got the game was to build an ultramodern house, all decorated in steel and glass and natural stone. I was able to customize every single thing that I put into the home, so that I was able to achieve exactly the look that I wanted. I have never had so much fun building a Sim house, nor has one ever turned out so spectacularly well. It's on the cliffs overlooking the sea, and my family who lives there loves to sit by the pool, sipping drinks and enjoying the beautiful vista (living in that house with its plentiful big glass windows gives them a huge boost to their mood from the view). Because there aren't any restrictions to where you can place your garage and parking spaces for your vehicles, I was able to build a unique side-entry garage that houses several diagonally parked cars. How cool is that?

I made another little family and started them in Mosquito Cove. Their rustic little home feels so backwoodsy and realistic. They love spending time outside, fishing, grilling hotdogs, and listening to the frogs and crickets at night. The rusty old fridge on the front porch is a nice country touch. The atmosphere of the place is incredible - it's a really well done house, built by someone who is very creative. So it's not the most glamorous place, nor is it a decorator's dream, but it wasn't meant to be. It's amazing how the same items can look completely different in different styles of homes, just by changing the textures. Did you know you can customize every tiny aspect of your Sims' clothing, too? The sheer customizability of everything in the game makes it a very, very shiny toy for an obsessive Sim creator and home builder like me.

Now I'm not saying the game is perfect - there are some things about it that I wish were different - such as not being able to completely disable story progression, and not being able to go into public buildings. I was very disappointed that I couldn't go to work with my Sim, or go with her into the grocery store or bookstore. But who knows, maybe future expansions will provide more options. But overall, the game feels much more polished, powerful, and flexible than the Sims 2. There is much more freedom, both for creativity, and for gameplay. The new interface takes some getting used to if you are accustomed to the Sims 2, but it's very powerful and is a pleasure to use once you learn the controls (as you would have to with any game).

And, some of my male Sims are hot.  Wink

So, that's my two cents worth. Actually, that was more like two dollars, but anyway. . .I just wanted to caution people who are considering buying the game but are having doubts to look into it more before agreeing with all of the people who say that it's a waste of time and money. Everybody is looking for different things from the game. Some people won't like it at all (there were people who hated the Sims 2, as well), but some people, like me, think it's the next best thing to Christmas.

Hugs, and happy simming!
Mairi Grin

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