The Sims

"Fix the control!"

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few years, you know what The Sims is all about. I'm not going to bore you with that. I went out to rent this game because I loved the PC version. The Sims has always been a favorite game of mine.

Gameplay
The most noticeable part about this game's gameplay is that it is ADDICTING! You pop it into the drive and you feel that you just cannot stop playing it. That is why I have always liked The Sims. At first, I thought that this game's gameplay was a lot like The Sims for PC. I played for a while through the new Get A Life mode. I decided to take a break from that and just play Play the Sims mode in which you do what you did in the PC version. Well, I went to build my house. Ah! I can't figure out how to do this. Maybe I'm just so used to the PC version. The control was just terrible in building houses. I quit and took this game back after that. To sum this game's gameplay up, this is a great game, just poor control.

Story
The funniest thing about this is that The Sims has no story. That is one of the reasons why I like The Sims so much.

Audio/Video
You have, of course, the Simish language which, while irritating at times, is normally quite entertaining. It sounds something like a foreign language. The sound for everything else in the game is quite good. The graphics of this game are better than in the PC version. They are one step closer to when we can have complete 3D figures. The only problem with the Xbox version is that Maxis, in order to release it sooner, ported the PS2's graphics. I was disappointed that they didn't take their time and utilize the Xbox's graphics.

Replayability
This game never ends. There is no way to lose. (Unless your sim dies, which can be prevented) Obviously, if a game that never ends is fun enough, it's replayability has to be good. Did I mention that this game is addictive? Well, that adds to the replayability.

To Buy or to Rent
Rent. This game pretty much has everything going for it except control. And, if you can't control the game, then you can't play. If this game had better control, it would earn a 10/10 score. The control kills this game. Sorry folks.

Final Score

7/10.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/09/03, Updated 10/15/03