The Sims: Life Simulation Game Series

Imagine a virtual world where you could play God. A world where every facet of life was under your control at just a mouse click. The kind folks at Maxis and EA Games have provided us with just this opportunity, bringing literally dozens of simulated life games to our homes and hearts.

These games have been around for years, and have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. I'm about to introduce you to some of my personal favorites, and tell you more about these games you just cannot miss.

Let's start with my personal favorite.

The Sims is an -enormous- series of games built off of one another. You begin with the core software, and can add various elements and locations for your Simulated people to visit. This is probably the most fun series out of all of the rest of the various Simgames, because you can literally focus on one person, one family at a time and manipulate every little part of their life. In addition to the basic software, the following expansion packs are available:

• Livin Large
• House Party
• Hot Date
• Vacation
• Unleashed
• Makin' Magic
• Superstar

All of these expansion packs are great fun, and expand on the original Sims game in a nearly exponential way.

Whereas The Sims focuses on families, SimCity focuses on just that, an entire City! In this game you can choose from one of the premade cities, each modeled after a real city somewhere in the world with their own problems and benefits, or you can start from scratch with an open stretch of land. There have been a few sequels to the original SimCity line, five of them in fact, with the newest one being SimSocieties.

The object of this game series is to take a city and make it great. You manipulate commercial, industrial and residential zones and try to populate and entertain your residents.

Of course, the designers did give you the additional option of taking a huge premade city and throwing natural disasters like tornadoes, fire, earthquakes and even Godzilla at them if you're feeling the need for rampant destruction.

With the success and popularity of The Sims and Simcity projects, we're bound to see more of these games in the future. Until then, why don't you check out some of these other Sims titles?

• SimFarm
• SimEarth
• SimAnt
• SimTown
• SimPark
• SimSafari
• SimTunes
• SimLife
• SimRefinery
• SimHealth
• SimIsle
• SimGolf
• SimTower
• The Sims Pool
• The Sims Carnival
• SimAnimals