The Sims 3 Review

Conclusions

We’ve written a fair ol’ bit about The Sims 3 by this stage, but the frustrating thing is that we’ve still not even scratched the surface of the game, or explored all that it’s got to offer. That’s how deep the game is in terms of content and until you’ve tried pretty much every combination of traits, family members, actions, neighbourhoods and optional content then you won’t see everything the game has.

Still, there are a lot of little touches that we’ve come across and which we really do like, such as the new challenge system that pops up occasionally when your sims stumble unknowingly over a trigger. This happened to us when we were quickly testing out the graphics quality of The Sims 3 and we moved into a new house.

“Zoinks! A Challenge!” declared a status box as we moved our sim in. “It turns out that this house was built on an ancient burial ground – do you want to try and ride the house of spirits by yourself?”


We were then given the option of either moving into a haunted house and trying to deal with or live around the spectres, or having the host immediately exorcised and avoiding a potentially troublesome story point. Things like this are great for a game like The Sims 3 because not only do they offer players an unexpected twist in the mini-sitcom they’re playing through, but they also don’t force a strange twist upon you if you don’t want it.

It’s these little moments which really bring a lot to The Sims 3 and make it such a replayable experience. You’d be surprised how much your day can be brightened by finding an abandoned book or valuable rock on the road and getting an experience point, new recipe or cash bonus. It’s refreshing to see that Electronic Arts has made the game accessible to different play-styles too, as it’s about time the developer recognised that there are very few people who actually take the game seriously for long periods. The Life Goals are a nice feature for those few but, just as in real-life, a depressingly small group of people will ever even approach them.

Still, the game isn’t perfect and for all the little touches that make it so fun and replayable there are things that irritate us – mainly things that are being carried over from previous games. The flow of time is one thing in particular that bothers us, with individual sims forever at odds with the timeline. How come it takes someone only two minutes to flag a taxi and get back home from the other side of town, but 15 minutes to make some toast for breakfast?


It’s also worth bearing in mind that, even though The Sims series has a reputation for being a casual game that’s mainly popular with the oxymoronic non-gaming crowd, it’s actually not casual at all. The Sims 3 is, more than nearly any other game we’ve seen, a micro-management nightmare. You have to feed your family, keep them happy and entertained, employed, active, healthy, social and all manner of other little things. You need to constantly attend to their every whim – and that’s all just if you’re looking after just one sim, not a family of six. No wonder most people just use the game as an interior decorator simulator.

It’s that last point which is critical to understanding The Sims 3 though – the fact that it isn’t necessarily designed for people like us. It’s not a game that’s going to be massively popular with the type of hardcore gamers who follow individual developers and collect gaming memorabilia. Our rule of thumb is that, if you know who Warren Spector is then you probably won’t like The Sims 3 for one reason or another.

Crucially though, that doesn’t mean that The Sims 3 is a bad game. It isn’t and we recognise that even though our tastes generally flow more to the FPS and fantasy RPG genres. The Sims 3 is a huge game stuffed with things to do and explore, with a number of features like the trait system that breathe new life into the series. Yes, it’ll doubtlessly be exploited just like the original games and it’s more iterative than innovative, but the formula works well and just because we probably can’t recommend it to regular bit-tech readers doesn’t mean we can’t recommend it for everyone else.


Score Guide