The Sims Online

"Good Concept, Bad Execution"

Ah, the best selling PC game online? Personally, this has been a dream of mine for a while. I have always wanted to have a house with my sister, who loves the game too. You do have to pay a monthly fee of $9.99, but it isn't too bad. You can give up a magazine subscription to pay it up. But why the low score you ask? Here is why:

Graphics: 7/10
The game uses 2D rendered objects with 3D characters, and it works just fine! The problem is the animations are sloppy. With the 2D objects, you might open the fridge, and there are only 3 animations that do it, so its like the fridge opened at 66 miles per hour! They could have spent more time on that. Anyways, the graphics suit the game, but need to be updated!

Sounds: 9/10
Sure, the game isn't the best thing to listen to, but everything has very accurate sounds. The Sims have interesting voices, and the music isn't too bad either.

Game play: 3/10
Ouch. First of all, fans of the original Sims will feel out of place. The game has you controlling 1 character at a time, so you can’t mess around with many people at once. Vets of the Sims might think the first thing to do is buy a lot. No. Never. You start out with only $10,000 so you have to earn cash first. How do you get cash? 3 ways. First, you buy a lot, and advertise and have people come over and tip you and you get cash. Lots of it. But this takes a long time.

Next, you can use single-job objects. Here, you use an object like a painting, that takes the sim roughly 6-7 minutes real time to paint, then you sell it for around $25-$300. This will take forever, and the cash you get is related to skill, Ill talk about that later.

The last one is where you work as groups to earn cash, like make a pizza, but unless you have smart people on your team, it will take forever for you to get anything.

You will need to improve your skills to get money, and that is hard. First of all, you have 6 skills, like logic, creativity, cooking, and some more. The problem is, after you earn 10 skill points overall, all your skills will slowly go down! I had 3 points in each category, and in 14 minutes, my mechanical skill had dropped to a 2.34! Ouch, so your have to specialize in one skill only. Getting 10 points in one skill takes roughly 14 hours total, so get ready to be bored. Raising skills takes time. For instance, you can watch your sim read a book to raise cooking or mechanical.

The whole thing takes a long time, and its no fun to earn cash by visiting other homes to raise your skill. Once you do have your own lot, you have to somehow find smart people to be your roommate. You see, you start with a small lot, and can upgrade it 2-4 tiles in each direction for each roommate. If you don't have a roommate, you face a penalty of $1200- $48000’s depending on which upgrade you’re on. Then, there is another problem; you have an object maximum of 100! Yep. After you make 100 objects, its no more.

After you have a place, such as a skill center for raising skill, or a club, you advertise, people come in, and you get cash for each visitor that comes in. But remember, by the time you do make your own place, there are already hundreds of other places. You know that rule in real-life about how 95% of small business fails within a year? Yea, that applies to the Sims, because huge skill centers have already rooted by the time you get to join in on the fun.

A few more things, remember speeding up the game while you sleep or do something boring like read a book? Nope, can't do it. You HAVE to play at normal speed because it is online.

Maxis has promised to release little updates as that is what your $10.00 spent goes to. Yea. Right. Go to Wal-Mart and look at the back cover of the Sims box. See the band job object? It’s not even in the game! Casino items? Nope! Maxis promised these items on release, and they are still on the drawing table! Go see the official site if you don't believe me!

This game takes the freedom and fun house building of The Sims away, and makes it into a game where every day is a chore of raising your skills. The game can't be played offline, or even on a LAN network! Cheap. At least you don't need any expansion packs.

If you like the idea of having to work hard and long to get a house, and like the limited amount of items, get the game. But if you want hundreds of more items, and features, just buy The Sims and its expansion packs, and stay away from The Sims Online. The game isn't that bad, but it could be MUCH better if the problems were fixed. Try to see if a friend will let you play it before you buy it. Oh yea, the first month of playtime is free, so you can get the game and return it if you don't like it.

I am looking forward to Sim City 4, which should be 300x better than this game, so that shows I still have faith in Maxis!

Pros:
-Great Idea
-Chatting to other Sims
-Working as a team to earn cash
-Seeing other houses that people made
-So many skins to choose!

Cons:
-Bad money making system
-Impossible to make a house without hours of work
-Impossible to establish a business, because there are already many up
-Slow game play
-Missing items that were promised to be in

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/03, Updated 01/08/03