Review of The Sims 3 - Great PC game

If your reading this then there is a very good chance you have heard about the Sims. The Sims 3 is sweet, sassy, and boy oh boy is it green! Electronic arts have really given the Sims franchise a shake up and what a job they have done! What a wonderful and exciting game. Take a look at this video to see a trailer for the game and wet your appetite. Now I hear you say is it more of the same, well the answer is sort of...and that is a good thing. This latest release combines all of the great and familiar aspects of the franchise, but removes a lot of the repetitive and trapped game play feeling that you got after a few hours of play in the previous titles.

The Sims 3 is it worth your hard earned money? Absolutely!

It brings you your very own valley sized slice of virtual life, which is yours to tinker with as you choose! You are no longer trapped by invisible walls, you are able to roam free in your very own virtual environment, where your actions here might have a major effect elsewhere.The effect of the open town has a profound influence on the community aspects of The Sims 3. You can call other Sims and invite them over using your handy cell phone, but if you're feeling adventurous, just head directly to another Sim's house and introduce yourself. Or travel to one of the many public venues: the beach, the park, even the graveyard. In these places, you will have a chance to interact with other Sims, and there may even be surprises in store if you happen to be in the right place at the right time. For example, you might be able to join a picnic in progress, or a midnight visit to the cemetery may introduce you to some new see-through pals.

Creating your Sims

Creating your Sims has also never been so much fun and you have never had so much choice! Every bit of your Sim is customizable, you can make anybody you want...in fact one of my favourite things is to make famous Sims and put them in unusual situations...very funny. You can also customize your Sims looks for each type of outfit, great for making it feel realistic.

Arguably the best enhancement in The Sims 3 involves how you develop your Sims personalities. In order to craft a Sim's unique mindset, you select five out of 60 traits, each one influencing how you'll cope with the game's social and economic pressures.

Are you good (helpful, charitable) or evil (delight in others misfortunes)? Bookish (quick reader) or athletic (an exercise maven)? Hydrophobic (no swimming for you!) or never nude (A shy revered geek)?

Each trait has consequences - nothings "just for fun" - and different combinations present unique challenges. How challenging depends on how many paradoxes you're willing to juggle.

"Family-oriented" Sims make great parents, but add "light sleepers," "hot-headed," and "neurotic" to their mindset and they'll suffer shocking mood swings and explosive outbursts when the baby wakes them.

Ambitious Sims are happier when moving up the career ladder quickly, but click the "unlucky" and "loser" traits and they'll turn angry and bad tempered when promotions finally stops. Create a "hopeless romantic" but tag them as "inappropriate," "mean spirited," and "evil," then watch as she jumps between craving and destroying the ones she loves.

The choices are endless and there is nothing more fun than creating a Sim who does the most unexpected of things!

Socializing and Community

All of the customization possible with your Sims personalities means that bringing Sims together is always a bundle of laugh. As in the older games, you can just watch and let things happen, and the AI does a good job with automated behavior; Sims will act in ways remarkably true to the personality that you've chosen for them. But directing social encounters often produces many hilarity's.

The traits you chose for your Sims allows you to guide conversations more easily than before. There's a huge choice of conversation topics when meeting up with others, and you'll want to mess around them just to see how other sims react. Try jumping into a romantic interest's arms they may not catch you! Take your fat weak Sim to the gym and watch what happens on the treadmill; kiss another Sim in front of your partner and watch what happens next! Or give in to your own evil tendancies by denying your Sims the use of a toilet, or putting them in a room without doors. Watching the animations and listening to theinteresting vocal inflections as always enhances the game experience, whether it's your toddler Sim chewing on her xylophone mallets or the man of the house throwing a tantrum because there are rotting leftovers in the fridge.

Rewards

You can make your Sims happy by being aware of their needs and dreams. You'll set a life time goal as the last section when creating your Sim, choosing from five that are automatically chosen based on the traits that you picked. You may want to have 5 kids, or become an international super spy, or be a famous musician. Keeping this goal in mind, you'll need to make choices to help you achieve this goal. If your Sim wants to be a chef, take the right career path; go to the bookstore and buy cookbooks to increase your cooking skills; and, of course, cook as often as you can to keep the improving that skill. You can even take classes to speed up the process.

Not all the goals are long term; you can improve a Sim's mood and earn points by accomplishing smaller tasks that occasionally appear. Some of these are very simple like cook the dinner Others are a little more time-consuming: master the painting skill! These points allow you to purchase permanent goodies such as a dirt defiant (never need to shower again, well nearly never!), or fast learner, or distinguished author. The system is more effective than The Sims 2's aspirations/fears system because it concentrates on rewards and not fears! One of the strange and for me slightly disappointing things is the default life span only being 90 days, by the time you have your Sims life in order it's time to retire, however EA kindly allowed this to be changed in the game options and actually, you can turn aging off entirely if you wish, or adjust the length of a Sim's lifetime to your preference. Overall the new rewards system is more about rewarding achievement than avoiding negative consequences, and the game is better for it.

Career

Getting jobs and starting specific career paths couldn't be easier. Instead of having to wait for the specific advert for the career track of you choosing to appear, as in previous versions, you can go directly to the building in person and apply there and then.

You progress through jobs depending upon a variety of factors all of which are easily monitored in the job section of the interface, keep your mood good, and develop close relationships with you boss and colleagues to progress up the career ladder quickly!

As you progress toward career pinnacles such as "star news anchor" or "illustrious author," you'll have the option to advance supplemental skills like "painting" and "athletics" or "cooking" and "logic" by performing activities like reading books or playing chess.

Occasionally work and career opportunities (fix the thingermijub, play a concert for gifted children, take exam papers to town hall) occur, which produce special rewards that boost your Sim's career performance!

As you start to earn more you are bound to want to improve the old homestead!

Build Mode

As the simoleons flood in, you'll be spending time in Buy and Build modes. You are able to create your own style and put your mark on the home by being able to customize furniture, appliances, and even window panes. For example, you can paint almost every brick in the wall pattern time consuming but I bet it would look great. Better stuff makes for a more automatic and happier life, and it also lets the architects and landscapers among us showcase their creativity. The tools work much the same as before, though the terrain and terrain-painting tools are easier to use than ever, and those designers who like life a little easier can still use cheat codes to change things further hint: some of which are included in the game's readme file.

Graphics and system specification

The graphics have been massively improved and the lighting, effects and interactions all add to the atmospheric and lifelike feel of this game. there are a variety of graphical options which make a massive difference the in game graphics, however I run this game on a modest machine and i am 4 generations in and have yet had no performance issues. Below are the minimum specs that The Sims 3 needs to play (from the Sims 3 website):

FOR WINDOWS XP

• Windows XP (Service Pack 2)

• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent

• 1 GB RAM

• At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content

• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

FOR WINDOWS VISTA

• Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)

• 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent

• 1.5 GB RAM

• At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content

• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least:

• Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above.

• 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent

• 0.5 GB additional RAM

SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS

NVIDIA GeForce series
FX 5900, FX 5950
6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
9600, 9800, GTX 260, GTX 280

ATI Radeon™ series
9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900
3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
4850, 4870

Intel® Extreme Graphics
GMA X3x00 series