"Personally, I'm dazed, very dazed"

I’ve never been a very big fan of PC games, preferring to stick to the consoles such as the Playstation and the Gameboy. When I heard my friend describe it, though, I was skeptical, but gave it a chance, and was I glad I did! I was instantly hooked, and the next day, I flooded her with questions, miscellaneous ones that she had to struggle to keep up with.

Gameplay: You control the lives of your Sims, their romances, their daily activities, their jobs, their personalities, their very own existence. Your main objective is to fulfill their needs, Hunger, Bladder, Relationships, Comfort, Fun… You must keep every one of them above the alert mark. If you neglect to fulfill one of them, Bladder for example, your Sim will response in a unique way, either dashing to the bathroom or going right there on the floor. When that happens, your Sim’s bladder is full again. It doesn’t sound critical, right? Wrong, every action that you make has a chain reaction, when that happens, your Room Rating will instantly drop, you will have to clean up the mess, and your Sim’s Hygiene level will drop drastically, and you will have to take a shower or bath to raise it again.
You also control your Sim’s relationships. Hold multiple affairs, commit infidelity, stay single, get married, have a baby, all of that is possible with the Sims. You work your way up the relationship ladder, from just plain, simple, boring talking to more active things such as Entertain and Joke, to intimate things such as Back Rub and Flirt, to the ultimate sign of affection, the Kiss. However, with everything there is a consequence. If you Flirt with someone’s husband or wife, however, there will be some angry and hurt feelings, are perhaps even a slap. That might be amusing to watch, but it’s certainly not amusing to cope with! Your Sim’s Relationship meter will drop, and there will be sour feelings that will take time to eliminate. If you are caught kissing someone that is not currently single, there will be a slap from either side, and also sour feelings. However, you can avoid that by doing all of your things in a private room.
Now, you can also control your Sim’s personalities! At the beginning of the game, you must Create a Sim, their name, and their personalities. There is 5 categories, and only twenty-five points to spend! Equally divided up, that will be five points per category, making everything average, but where’s the fun in that? You might want to make a very neat, yet grumpy Sim, or a very lazy and nice Sim. Anyways, you
You don’t just get to control your Sim’s lives and personalities, you also get to control their very environment! Start off in a n expensive house, start off with a small plot of land, start off with a house already built, or start off with just an empty piece of land, yours to make, yours to create. There are also prices for the houses and lands, and you start off with seemingly little money. Therefore, buying a little house and working your way up the chain can be better than buying a very large house and not having any money for furnishings.
You can also get jobs, like in real life. You get promoted by meeting the requirements set of you, and you will need Family Friends to get promoted. You can make friends around the neighborhood, although often you might have to make another Sim family in order to do that, you cannot befriend people from another neighborhood. You can chose your careers, and each career is different, with different job times, different pays, and different requirements! As in real life, you try not to be late for your job or you’ll get fired. The carpool arrives for you exactly 1 hour before you start your job, so get in there within that hour (harder than it sounds, Sim hours are very fast) and you’ll be on time for your job.
One of the very few flaws of the Sims is the time. It speeds by so quickly that you’ll find yourself with the carpool right in front of your house and you haven’t even caught a single wink of sleep yet! You can speed the time up, but you can’t slow it down, but eventually you’ll get used to the fast pace.

Rating: 10/10

Music: The music is original and exciting, but listening to it for hours might get a little tiring. Just turn off the volume if that happens. Unlike other games, this does not handicap you because you cannot hear the cues, so turning it off is fine. If you are one of those people who cannot stand quiet, pop in one of your favorite discs, crank up the volume, and bring the house down. It’s amazing that Maxis thought of this, while so many other companies could not figure out such a simple thing….

Rating: 8/10

Sound: The sound is as good, if not better, as the music. Every single noise, from flushing the toilet to the beep of the timer of the microwave to let you know that it’s finished, is just like reality. The only gripe I have with this is that the voices of the Sims are like gibberish, you cannot make anything out of it, even if you set it to English. A minor setback though, and it does not prevent the game from higher scores.

Rating: 9/10

Graphics: Best. Graphics. Ever. To. Be. Seen. On. A. Computer. That much is said for the Sims. Even though it cannot match the graphics of the Playstation 2 and the X-Box, it is still stunning. An eye-shocker, Sims has blown all of its competition away. The lines of the face, the furniture, your clothes, even the background! It’s so intricately sketched, you will not believe your eyes.

Difficulty: The Sims learning curve is a bit steep, I suppose. It takes about 2 full hours to completely learn the design of the Sims. It might seem confusing at first, but don’t be fooled. Once you grip the concept firmly, the world is yours to command.

Replayability: The possibilities are limitless. You can play the Sims again and again without getting tired of it. Why? Because you never repeat the same experience twice! Build in different neighborhoods, fall in love with different people, design a different house, create your Sims differently.

Conclusion: Yeah, there’s a reason why the Sims is so popular, there’s a reason why it’s available on almost every single gaming system you can think of, including Gamecube, X-box, Playstation, and Macintosh. There’s a reason why there’s more than 15 games based on Sims alone, and there’s a reason to fall in love with it. Be warned, however, that the Sims is so addictive, you just might have to chose between virtual or reality life. Get lost, there’s no harm done. Let your imagination soar, there’s no harm done. Build houses, get jobs, become a millionaire, destroy cities, you can do all of that with one simple game. Play as god, mayor, or just your plain simple self with the Sims. Buy this game, it’s worth the money and beyond.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/05/03, Updated 04/05/03