Out of your home and into the big Sim community.

User Rating: 9.5 | The Sims 3 PC
There is nothing quite like Sims 3, and I mean nothing quite like it. From the beginning in The Sims, controlling simple characters of your creation, to the more complex and unique features from The Sims 2, The Sims 3 takes it to a whole new scale of an experience. Although you basically play as a unique created Sim of your own, or chose predetermined sims from the list, the experiences you will encounter in this game is much more delightful and engaging to the fullest; it will have you exploring, it will have you running around crazily, it will even have you scouring through other sim's houses, and garbage too, for you to grasp the idea of how big of a game this truly is.

I will break the game down into a few categories of discussion. The first one I will speak about basic character gameplay differences and functions; how they changed so dramatically from the previous as well as mentioning completely new options to have you. In the second I will focus on how they managed to expand the opportunities of your primary career as well as the interesting "opportunities" you will encounter along the way through either the skills, your career, or just the typical events. In the third focus I will focus on the overall features of the game itself from the huge explorable space that is other than your own living space, to the features you may encounter outside your doors. With the fourth focus, I'll explain the features of how the skills you may know and love, get a completely new makeover with their 'skill challenges'. Finally, in the fifth section, I will discuss on the gameplay issues with the game, and at the end of that I will list the advantages and disadvantages of the game. It's just my thought about how I feel about them, you don't have to read it so long as you at least check out the Pros/Cons portion. So then, onwards to the first focus; Characters.

Character Focus:
Within The Sims 3's character creation tool you have all the originals that you may have seen in The Sims 2; you can alter their face, switch around the types of noses, or even the saturation of their skin color. However, they added in a few extras for you to play around with, or rather, changes. This time around, you can change the certain aspects of your sim's hair color, tired with the natural...then try bright red, or even green, you can even do highlights if you wish, the same goes for you eyebrows too if you want Also there is the coolest feature that allows you a big difference in your sim's clothing style too, whether you want a certain texture or color to your pants, shoes, or shirt, or even your pajamas, you can do so. Now for the newest feature, you are no longer assigned certain zodiacs to your character's core personality such as how clean they are or how nice or mean, instead you are given slots for traits which can depend on certain fears for example to their understanding in things like books, artistic things, cooking, gardening, or even computers. Whether you want your sim to be perfectly happy, or afraid of certain things you can give a huge variety of how they come out, whether you wan them to be a people person or afraid of large groups of sims, to loving the arts or hating the arts, or even loving computers or just plaing being afraid of technology...your sims are very much customizable with a large list of traits to choose from.

There also is a new feature with your sims now in the way they generally socialize. All your friends and relationships are now based on a single bar, rather than one that demonstrated short term relationships to long term, there is now only a single bar. However the real difference isn't how you socialize, but the way you socialize. By either telling funny jokes, or being romantically suggestive, there is a bar at the top of the screen with whom you're socializing with to show you that sim's thoughts of you. It's a different step in how to build up certain relationships as certain actions won't appear if you keep tossing out the wrong type of material (for instance, you can't expect someone to find you extremely attractive by jokes alone, you might have to demonstrate some romantic charm very much most of the time). I will say it will take some getting used to, even figuring how to get a certain sim to fall head over heels for you and eventually marriage, to I'm pretty sure other examples. Another new addition, or change, is the way they tossed out the 'aspiration' meter and replaced it with something called wishes. Although wishes won't make your sim feel golden, or platinum, they do have somewhat of an impact on how your sim's overall mood is set on, which I will mention in a moment. Wishes, when fulfilled by completing various requirements like cleaning a sink, to catching a certain fish or of certain type, to completing skills or advancement through work; so they are in a way like aspirations...with a little twist. Now your sim's mood meter is basically an overall status on your needs like your bladder, or your hunger, or your energy. Although you find that if your sim is tired, they will pass out, but because of this deprivation you may find yourself situated with a impacting status effect (similar to status ailments as with some Role Playing Games), this will ruin your mood making your sims cranky and grumpy and it goes with not just one, but basically all your needs and not just your needs alone but certain circumstances you may encounter. Though not just the negatives, there are also some positives for you mood as well such as; well rested, ate nice meal, exhilarating shower, even to some outside factors like a well decorated house, or great music around, to even the kiss of a 'great kisser'. There's much to experience with you sim alone from their features

Opportunities Focus:
In this section of opportunities, your sim will encounter pop-ups either from something through work, some work (as in not of your own place of work), to the very creative and unique, skill opportunities, or even events within the community. These are just a fun way to experience with the game you're already playing to make things more intriguing. You may be asked to paint someone a picture based on you sim's painting ability, or asked to bring in some fish or vegetables for a work related opportunity, to making some meals for a neighborhood cookout for the community. These are all optional but some can teach you new things, make you some money, build up someone's relationship, or even give you a boost at your job depending on the situation. There is much to experience so it's often a good thing to try and get as many opportunities you can gather, some are more easy while some may take time to complete, they just give the game that extra touch.

Exploration Focus:
Even though The Sims 2 was a big game, it wasn't quite as navigational as it was sought out to be, probably because the focus would've been lost or whatever reason I can't say for but when it comes to The Sims 3, your home is just a small box in the largely scalable place that is your community. Whether you choose to walk, run, jog, bike, drive, or use a taxi...it can be quite a big place to explore. One of the many interesting things is through exploring you will encounter 'collectibles' which is apart of your skill sheet. With collectibles you may find certain seeds for planting, metals, gens, or even insects you can capture if you desire. Exploring around not just your home, but the entire environment, can be quite an adventure from finding fishing spots where you can come across particular fish, or seeds that you can garden if you desire, or you may even come across someone's house in case you need to use the bathroom (just don't use their beds, they don't really like it that much). Venturing out is fun, finding new places, but you can always explore around the city's center such as the park or the wander around at the beach to watch the Sun set.

Skill Focus:
Nothing says progression like learning a few skills to make your life a little easier to handle and with The Sims 3, the skills you know and love get a little ingenious. While most of the skills do remain the same such as cooking and body, there are also some newer skills and some skills that get broken into new categories. The first one is goodbye mechanical skill, hello Handiness skill. This one more or less replaces the mechanical skill and makes things a little more interesting in the fact that your basic old television or crummy toilet can get a makeover by performing upgrades. Then there's creativity; does not compute, it is now divided into the Guitar and the Paint skills, which is fair for those that believe that music is a different kind of art. Then there's the newest skill called Writing, which helps you write novels and books to earn you some weekly royalties. Then there's the fishing, as well as gardening, which were both featured as "badges" in The Sims 2, they now receive their own skills. Collection isn't really a skill since it doesn't progress with experience but it is listed as so...but I detest the idea (in my opinion). All these skills, they can add fun to how you do things around the house or outside, but by extra incentives for fulfilling certain skill challenges, you may do things a whole lot better. One such example is with fishing, you can catch fish a whole lot faster than you normally could or catch bigger size fish. These little bonuses to your skill's performance are called skill challenges, and while they make take some time to work on, they do ofter some benefits to those that feel a little under appreciated with a skill that's been mastered; given that the skill isn't master after all challenges have been completed.


Gameplay Focus:
You don't really have to read this focus section if you want to see how I view the good and the bad with the game, you can simply check below where I have minus (-) and plus (+) regarding my thoughts on the issues, but this is more of a discussion on those peeving issues, but I do neutralize out by discussing some of the good issues as well.

While I do really really really much enjoy playing this game, one of the biggest problems I have seen in and out and even in the spacious areas like the park, the sims like to travel down a single path. They will frequently bump heads with others, and even in the open, they lose their head and just stand their, not pausing and moving around the other sim. It's a troubling issue that does become a bother but in no way have I less appreciated this game; I'm sure there will be an update in the future for this. The second issue I have noticed is that even though there are now cars, bikes, or your own two feet, none of that matters because carpool still exists, leaving you to rely on a traffic jam of carpools for each individual sim, so even if you have a very expensive vehicle - what use is it other than just going from Point A to Point B? It's too bad they can't have an option for "Carpool _off". The next one is the fact that there no longer seems to be able placement of lots to build a home or community zone. This mean that you can only build within what has already been given, so the general idea of build where your heart takes you is out of the question, which is a shame with so much land space available you would at least expect some way of making a small community of its own. So one of the last issues I have noticed, the belongings on upper floors will bump with building features on the lower floor directly below. This makes building a pool under a balcony troublesome because certain objects you wouldn't expect will impact whether or not you can build that pool, which would then in turn force you to clear out anything that might be in the way from above. It's not a really big issue but it does become a big nuisance in the fact you'll have to clear out entire rooms to make way for something particular below. Some of the great issues however, on a brighter side, there's many unique experiences to play throughout the game from new housemates, unexpected opportunities, or just the unexpected (someone dying at your birthday party for example? lol). The features within the game can be changed and if you desire selected sims to age, or not age (unsure whether it implies 'everyone' or just selected household) you can toggle around and make changes that are more comforting to you. The other great thing is that with the color/texture tool found within the buy and build mode, you can change literally almost everything, from; beds, tables, televisions, showers, lamps, wallpaper, even floor tiles...you don't have to settle on what's commonly assigned to you; you can tweak things around a bit and that's really grand. So with my discussions on the pros and cons, sort of, I will now set them by my thoughts on how affective they may be.

Pros
++ Game has a very user creative approach on customization through colors and textures on many various objects.
++ The game is so big and has lots to offer through exploration.
++ Game doesn't require much for PC improvements to run, making it pretty easy for those familiar with The Sims 2.

Cons
- - Pathfinding with sims can be irritating and almost always seems to happen
- - Only able to build within preset zones or lots; No zone creation tool available
- - Not all newer features are covered with lessons on how to use or perform them.
- Objects may get in the way of building/buying, even if on another floor.
- Carpool stills arrives for sim even if the sim already owns a vehicle assigned.

Overall, I give The Sims 3 a 9.5 because the game is beautiful, it's very addicting and mesmerizing, the graphics are fair but for being a common demanding game that makes it great, the music either by guitar or stereo are very soothing (at least the classical anyways). It's great game and any fan of The Sims should at least enjoy it.