The Sims

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Title : The Sims
Author : Electronic Arts
Release Date : 20000202
Binding : CD-ROM
Regular Price : $49.99
Amazon.com Price : $39.99 (20 %)
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Editorial Reviews :
The ultimate goal of life is to achieve happiness, and the way to achieve happiness is to buy stuff. So says The Sims, a game that lets you create, direct, and manage the lives of SimCity's residents.
The game begins with the creation of your simulated people: pick a name and a gender, decide on personality/astrological sign, and then choose a look from a variety of heads, bodies, and skin tones. Name, gender, and appearance don't affect gameplay much, but personality determines how your Sim plays with others. A serious, neat Sim might go crazy living with a sloppy party animal--or opposites might attract, and the two could end up falling in love.

After creation, the next step is to find a place to live. Again, the player can choose from among the empty houses in the neighborhood or decide to buy some land and design a dream house. Building houses is a blast, and the easy-to-use house design interface could almost be its own game: players design the floor plan, put up walls, pick carpet, wallpaper, and siding, and fill the house with furniture, decorations, fixtures, and appliances. You're limited only by your imagination--and your Sims' pocketbook. But the choices you make in designing and decorating your Sims' house are vital.

A good general rule is that the more expensive the object, the better its ability to satisfy Sim needs. Each little Sim person has needs (Hunger, Comfort, Hygiene, Bladder, Energy, Fun, Social, and Room) which can be satisfied by interaction with other Sims or purchased objects: throw a party with the help of a rockin' stereo system, and watch your Sims' Social and Fun ratings improve. Have one of your Sims whip up some food from the refrigerator, and you'll satisfy the Hunger needs of your guests. Or have your Sim engage another Sim in a game of chess: not only will their Fun and Social moods improve, both Sims will gain some points in their Logic skill rating--which might help on the job.

One gameplay goal is to improve your Sim so he or she can climb a career ladder, which nets him or her more money, which allows the purchase of higher quality stuff, which lets you improve your Sim even more. With proper care, your Sim can have a mate, kids, and a mansion with an indoor pool.

Mismanage your new, simulated family, and you'll be faced with the worst of MTV's The Real World: jealousies will ignite, fights will break out, jobs will be lost, and the house will fall apart. Bringing about such a calamity is almost as much fun as guiding your Sims to material paradise, and takes considerably less time.

Triumph or tragedy, each significant event in a Sim's life is captured in a snapshot and saved in a photo album for later viewing. Players can also take photos any time they wish. The photo album feature is cool by itself, but the best part is that you can upload the album to www.thesims.com and share your Sims' sagas with the world. Entire families can also be uploaded and downloaded, as can houses. Want to re-create and manage your own version of Friends? Download the free face and body editor and make Sim clones of the Ross, Rachel, and the rest. Want to perfectly re-create the set? Snag the free wall and floor texture editor. Feeling a little silly? Add Darth Vader to the family and see what happens. With The Sims, you can create whatever--and whomever--you desire.

Toying with the lives, successes, and emotional states of dozens of little Sims is undeniably fun. In the same way that SimCity players develop a condescending attitude toward real-world city planners, The Sims players will begin to see life as a series of needs-satisfying challenges; the game gets in your head. But that's OK: limitless gameplay, endless variety, imaginative Internet features, and the ability to play matchmaker/landlord/counselor/God makes The Sims a great way to increase your own Fun score.

Buyer Reviews :
Much is made of the fact that The Sims is a realistic study in human behavior and motivations. Well, play the game for twenty minutes and you will find that the Sims PEE ON THE FLOOR when they're just a little bit depressed or lathargic...How realistic is that? My cat doesn't do that, even if she's ill. They also get depressed at the drop of a hat. I guess this is supposed to make the game 'challenging,' but there are so many more realistic ways such challenge could have been achieved: how many people simply refuse to go to work for days on end because they're tired, or a little sad? And if they miss just TWO days they get fired, instantly. (Keep in mind there are no weekends in this game, no extended periods to recharge batteries and explore relationships.)

The way the people move is also astonishingly clunky. If you want a Sim to clean up the kitchen, say, before going to bed (and no matter how neat I make characters when I create them, they never seem to do this on their own), you have to watch them pick up each cup, glass, plate, pizza box, etc., INDIVIDUALLY and take it to the garbage, one long trip at a time. With the unrealistically accelerated clock the game runs on, this means cleaning up the breakfast table takes about an hour. They also place dishes, cups and the newspaper on the floor even when there is ample counter and table space. Showering takes about an hour. Eating takes an hour, and they can't eat 'on the run,' taking that last bit of breakfast with them when the carpool shows up. Sims can't seem to do common things like socialize while they eat, or watch TV. So if you're Sims are low on social, hunger and recreation readings, you can't do the common sensical thing--the thing real people do all the time--of having them eat while they watch TV, or talk while they eat. You must set aside time for them to eat. Then talk. Then watch TV. Each of these takes from 1-2 hours. So that's as many as six hours there. And you MUST do these things regularly, or else Sims get depressed and pee on the floor and lose their jobs.

The hype that comes with this game insists the programmers spent seven years studying human interaction. The manual even pretentiously gives you a list of textbooks to read at the end. If they really did study human behavior for seven years, or seven hours, I'd give them an F for what they came up with. There's absolutely nothing to be learned about how people really behave in this game. I understand games have to have their limits, but there are many issues that could be easily fixed with some re-programming.

There is a certain perverse fun to this game. You can put all your Sims in a room with no door, no food and no toilet and watch them pee a river all over each other and starve themselves to death. Or you can have them cook and invariably burn the house down the first or second time. The death screams are possibly the most realistic thing in the game, but true to Sim form, they don't DO anything when the house is on fire, not even just run. They stand there even when the flames start to surrounding them. Sometimes they try to get a snack or call a friend while the house is on fire. I kid you not. Realistic...yeah.

Interestingly, men and woman can slap and even fight each other violently, but there's no sex. Kissing is all you get. Violence is okay, though. The parents will not shower in a room if children are present--I guess the tots can't see mommy and daddy nekked. But they can see mommy and daddy kick each other's butt and slap each other around. Hmmmm...

Also the reviewer below who said the furniture is all out of scale is correct. The smallest tables fill entire rooms. The Sims always want new things--this is a very greedy and materialistic game, where you must buy new things for your Sims constantly or they immediately get depressed--but there's no room to put the new things. The pool table can't fit in the living room of any of the non-mansion houses, unless your living

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