The Sims Online impressions

The Sims Online was finally released this week, and we've since gotten our hands on some copies and spent a good while playing this unusual game. Clearly derivative of Maxis' hugely successful 1999 game, The Sims, this new game takes the familiar look, mechanics, and humor of its predecessor, but all the proceedings take place online, and all the sims are controlled by real people. The result can be described as a hybrid of the original Sims game and a massively multiplayer online role-playing game such as EverQuest--only with an emphasis on trade skills instead of combat. Like in conventional online RPGs (or like in The Sims, for that matter), in The Sims Online your characters can train and improve in various skills (cooking, mechanical, and so on) and then use these skills to make more money. Money is then used, like in The Sims, to buy property and furnish that property with a variety of different things. Again, though, the big twist is that in The Sims Online, you can have other players come and visit your place.

During the game's installation process, there's a brief and useful tutorial that explains some of the things you can do in The Sims Online. The point of this tutorial, though, is largely to explain that, like in The Sims, in The Sims Online you're not really limited in what you can or are supposed to do. The core "gameplay" of The Sims Online, such as it is, does largely resemble that of The Sims. You still need to look after your sim's various needs, such as for food, comfort, entertainment, sleep, and so on. Meanwhile, you'll wish to improve your standing with other people in the world, make money, and build relationships. Conversely, it's viable to go out of your way to make your sim do all kinds of ridiculous things. As a matter of fact, a surprising number of hostile (though comical) social interactions are available. Much like in The Sims, in The Sims Online you have the option to flirt with, joke with, dance with, laugh with or laugh at, slap, whistle at, shake your fist at, and whisper to other sims, and many, many other such actions. These all play out using the sorts of humorous, highly articulated animations that made The Sims so popular.

You can have up to three sims total in The Sims Online, and creating a character is as simple as choosing the gender, then picking a head and a body. Around a couple of hundred heads and a couple of hundred bodies are available either for male or female sims, so a huge number of different combinations are possible, and some can be absurdly funny--such as putting a polar bear head on a leather-clad biker body or putting a nerdy bespectacled head on a muscle-bound body. We had a lot of fun with this stage of the game, and in the end, we created two characters: Thin Man, a scrawny fellow that we wouldn't expect anyone but a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 player to appreciate; and Lord British, ruler of Britannia.

As Lord British, we proceeded to trespass on other people's property, treat them as though they were our subjects, and demand food and entertainment. We didn't make many friends this way, but we got poked in the eyes several times and eventually were booted from the premises. We were pleased to see that getting booted from someone's home involves the physical act of getting kicked in the butt and were comforted to know that Sims Online players could easily protect their homes from unsavory characters such as ourselves by means of this particular feature.

We tried to boost Lord British's creativity skill by making him play an electric guitar for a while. The skill system in The Sims Online encourages you to practice skills in the company of other players, which automatically makes all players' skills improve more rapidly. However, Lord British had little patience for music or for the performances of the other musicians, so it wasn't long before he took up another pastime: sleeping on other people's couches. Later, we proceeded to scatter the pieces of a life-size novelty chess set all across a homeowner's property, so that the cleaning crew could enjoy a nice scavenger hunt.

The Sims Online is colorful and amusing to watch, but it's visually very similar to the 1999 game and as such is not particularly impressive from a technical standpoint. Of course, The Sims has never been about wowing people with its fancy graphics. We're very curious to see how the game continues to grow as more and more people start playing. The game has robust community and social networking features built into it, which encourage players to collaborate and communicate and create unique services for their fellow sims, and that looks pretty intriguing. We'll have a full review of The Sims Online in early January, but for now, have a look at our new media so that you can see some of Lord British's exploits firsthand.