Fluttereyes, Sims 3 early review

Thursday, 18 June 2009 09:46
The Sims 3 Review by Fluttereyes
Ok here’s my full review of what I’ve learned so far about Sims 3.

First off it was remarkable easy and quick to load. I know others have had issues here, I was one of the lucky ones. The first introduction to the game is the need to create a sim. I would have preferred going straight in and having a look around first, just to get the feel of the game. After I made her I had to use her to do all the exploring for me. It would have been nice to have jumped from house to house but I don’t think that’s a good idea in this game. Like everyone else I worshipped Sims 2 so this was a factor at the start of the game play. Comparing it to the game before and this gave a bad impression of the game, which was generally down to lack of content in game and the abilities we had in Sims 2 that were no longer present. I still miss many features of Sims 2 but enjoy this game. I wish I could roll them up into one little bundle that would be the perfect game.
First impressions were good with fast loading times and no drag on the game play, again this has varied from player to player due to the differing machines being used. I think EA were very optimistic in their basic requirements and this has left many people sorely disappointed.

Into the game and I loved the look of the town, I thought I would play Riverview but have actually settled into Sunset Valley instead. One of the things that immediately stood out for me was the great selection of plants in build mode, much better than we were given to work with in Sims 2. I noticed how the trees and shrubs, even the flowers swayed in the breeze and the graphics were so much clearer on these objects too, altogether a more realistic look. Then I saw the scenery around the town. Beautiful beach views, getting the sim to stand at the top of a hill gave a gorgeous view which was so much more appealing than the predecessor. I saw my first sunset and thought ‘wow’, it was lovely. The transition from dusk to dawn also is much better than Sims 2, where you were basically stalled while the screen went dark in an instant; this is a more gradual process with the red light of a beautiful summer day coming to an end. Then I saw the night sky, amazing, all those stars and clear skies. Overall the aesthetics of the town blew me away. I can’t fault the scenery at all and I wouldn’t change a thing.

It was hard to get into CAS on the first day, mainly because I just wanted in there to play so I didn’t spend that much time on the sim and have since left her.
Game play is a little disappointing for me. I think we all misunderstood what the open neighbourhood would be. I was thinking I would be able to swap to another sim any time I liked, it’s just not like that. Basically to do this you have to take a chance of forfeiting the other sim you were playing. Not a problem for Legacy type players but for people like me who like to control the whole town, definitely a downside.

I also thought the needs were going to be less. It had been said that they wouldn’t be wasting so much time on needs as they did in Sims 2. I find that not to be completely true. The good thing here is that we can save their life points and use them to buy perks such as steel bladder and dirt resistant, this reduces the need to pee altogether and dirt resistant means they only really get the need to shower if they garden or work out. Unfortunately my Sims enjoy both these activities and they shower just as much. They don’t wake up with a desperate need for a shower though, so that helps.
Traits I actually find the traits system to be pretty good at making Sims different from each other. The traits they have guide their personality and ultimately their goals in life. I do think it’s better than the star sign thing from Sims 2.

One problem though is in working out who is who in the game. You can’t switch between families that easily, therefore it’s hard to tell who is married or attached without having your sim ask them. It is also harder to manipulate romances and relationships because you can’t switch between Sims. This is probably the one thing I don’t really like about the game. I would like to play more than one family in one game. In order to play another family, I essentially have to start a new game. I fail to see the point in that. I think this is a big letdown.
You have to learn all the tricks of the game pretty fast if you want your sim to come to anything. Good thing is we can have them start as young adults rather than mature adults, giving them time to build a career to a decent level before we marry them off and let them have kids.

Tricks I’ve found that make the game easier.

Lifepoints: Use those life points; they can give you many things that help in game. The ones I use most for my current family are the dirt defiant, steel bladder, collection helper to find those all important seeds, only one person in the family needs this. You can use the sim who has it to highlight where the seeds, rock, insects or anything else you want to find are located, and then switch to the other sim to pick them up.

Skills

Gardening: Don’t underestimate the necessity for the gardening skill; it goes along with the cooking skill. Better seeds and better gardeners make better quality meals and the moodlets last longer for your Sims. This in turn makes it imperative that you have some sort of exercise machine for the Sims, they gain weight rather quickly left unchecked, or they can visit the gym in town. There is also a reward you can buy with life points which speeds up the metabolism and stops them getting fat. They can also sell what they grow at the shops and can make a good income from this, allowing them more luxuries, especially good in legacy games where motherlode is not an option.

Fishing: As well l as being a good gardener, good fishing skills enable them to do so much. Fish can also be sold in shops, eaten or used to stock ponds or the pitiful goldfish bowl we have instead of the lovely aquariums we had in Sims 2.

Ageing: I quickly found out that ageing in the game is not an exact science. With a group of Sims made together in CAS ageing at different rates. I had a young adult sim go straight to elder too, completely bypassing the adult stage. This caused a problem as she was married to my sim and therefore I didn’t want him a widower far too soon. It was also a little icky that he was a young adult and she was an elder, in addition she had a baby a couple of days before ageing up to elder. So the plan was simple, to get her ambrosia.

Ambrosia: During the quest for ambrosia, which sets the sim back to ) days of whatever life stage they are in, was the biggest learning curve for me. So many things have to be mastered in able to be able to make ambrosia and you really have to get into the game to make it work. Firstly two skills are required for this, cooking has to be a high skill as is fishing. Having a couple I set them to do a task each, she learned cooking and he learned fishing. They both learned gardening. First thing is to grow a life fruit tree, this means having to start collecting seeds from everywhere you can. The life fruit is a special seed. During this quest they ended up with all sorts of useful plants, including death flower plants, flame fruit, life fruit and a money tree. There is no way to identify rare or special seeds till they grow. She was getting the garden done during the day, building her skills as she went, she retired being an elder. At night she was building her cooking skills and eventually learned the recipe for ambrosia. He was working during the day and at night was building his fishing skills in order to catch that death fish up at the cemetery. This death fish could only be caught between 12am and 1am. This exercise of getting ambrosia was the single most beneficial factor in improving the game and knowledge of the game for me, so much had to be achieved. In the end they got ambrosia and I made them both eat it at the same time to get their ages back to level.

Fourth speed: The much misunderstood fourth speed was reported to be broken by so many people, including myself. Not so, it is not intended to be a faster speed than the third at all. The fourth speed is there for speeding up current activities only. It’s actually a very useful tool for skilling up Sims. In Sims 2 we could put the game on fast forward to allow them to gain skills without us dying of boredom whilst watching them read a book for a full sim day. If we looked away for a minute we could turn back to see them burning to death or dying of hypothermia on fast forward, the latter actually happened to me when I answered the phone while playing Sims. I forgot to switch it to pause, running along in high speed my uni students decided to have a water balloon fight in the snow. When I hung up my phone the 3 girls were dead in the snow while the 3 boys were inside playing musical instruments as if nothing had happened. I left without saving to get them back. In this game, the fourth speed goes back to normal speed when the current activity is over, that’s what it’s for. I find it useful.

Hacks

Luckily we now have hacks just two weeks into the game. This has made the game a little easier and less annoying. I don’t miss cc as much as I thought I would, I would love better genetics though. I am using several hacks by different people in the game to help with some annoyances but others have still to be fixed.

Annoyances

There are several things in the game that really annoy me. One is the route fail where they will stand with hand on hip, tapping their foot, because someone is going the same way as them. This takes up so much time in the game that it is really grinding me. I watched the kids going into school in the morning and it took around 8 kids a whole sim hour to get in the school door. That’s just ridiculous. This happens when they are just passing each other in a kitchen or any other room in the house too, they do this performance before one moves and goes round the other. I think that type of behaviour in a family is unreasonable and just downright rude. I’d love to know who came up with that one. They just do it for too long.

They won’t sit. Basically when you told a sim in Sims 2 to sit, they would sit on the bench, chair or wherever and stay there. I used that a lot for couples or siblings. I would make them sit on a bench or in the living room on a sofa, this would make them chat to each other and they would happily sit for sim hours. I find in Sims 3 they just won’t do it. This was a useful feature in the game and it’s gone.

When a household is not in play they spend most of their time just standing by the door in their house. I spotted this through a window and have now seen it in many houses. Not quite the open neighbourhood I was expecting. I thought they would be able to chat over the garden fence type thing. Sims not in play will leave and return to their house at specific times dictated by work but that’s it. If the Sim you are playing visits their house they then come into play and it changes. Essentially you are still just limited to the same restraints as in Sims 2 with interaction, you still get the occasional person walking past the house (not as many as in Sims 2), but you don’t get more interaction out of this open neighbourhood. I have yet to have another Sim knock on the door of my in play family without being invited.

Curfew: Now what is that about? My sim family were at the beach together, two adults and their son. I got a flash up that said the kid was out after curfew and I had to watch for the police. He was with his parents. Their evening picnic was spoiled and I had to send them home. Curfew stinks. My kid also had a task to do. It was to work in an office block for an evening. When he came out I was informed that he was out after curfew. He was doing a challenge set by the game. Luckily teenagers can drive cars (whatever) so he was able to drive home quickly.

Inability to switch to another family without losing the one you had, you never know if they are going to leave town if you leave them.

Good points

No longer do they cancel things in their queue when you queue them up with something else. You really can have a queue. They will however drop things if they aren’t high enough in mood, just because they don’t want to do it.

Kids just do their homework when they come home and don’t need help with it. If they are tired or stressed, a quick nap or watching tv for a while makes them want to do it when they feel better.

Opportunities: They get opportunities in town to do things for other Sims. This can be good for handy Sims who can fix or upgrade other Sims’ appliances . They can train each other in skills like athletics. All of these things bring them not only pleasure but simoleans. They get opportunities to advance their career by doing tasks, they can advance their education the same way.

Jogging: The Sims can jog, you can go follow them and see around the town.
Business. Your sim can own a business without the hassle of employing the staff themselves. My sim owns the supermarket and he just has to pop in when he feels like it to collect money.

Classmates and workmates: You are asked if they can bring a friend home from school or work, they also ask if they can go over to their friend’s house after school.

Favourites: I like their favourites, in particular the custom music choice which they all are made to like when I build sims. This lets me play my own music in the game.

What I miss

Pets: I really hope pets are in the first EP for this game. I would love them to have a dog as they can now really take it for a walk and you can go with them.

Hang out: Originally introduced with university, this interaction was particularly good for families and friends on a summer day; they could sit and chat on the grass together for hours. This was a great relationship builder, but it’s gone now.

Weather: With so many elements of past EP’s like the gardening of seasons, it’s a shame weather isn’t there too. So much more fun could be had with the snow in an open hood.
Neighbourhoods. The inability for Sims to visit or move to another suburb. I do miss that. I played with half a dozen suburbs before and different financial levels of Sims lived in different suburbs.

Smuzzle: Yes, believe it or not I miss the smuzzle.

Overall
Many of the features, as I said above, from expansion packs for Sims 2 are in the game already as a base game starter. This is good as there are common elements that remind us of the old game. I really wish the open neighbourhood was more open, perhaps we all expected too much. I would say at this point, that I feel too much was sacrificed in order to have this. The lack of memories is tragic. All that game play we came to love is gone, and really the only reason they did it was to stop the loading screens. It still takes the sim almost as long to drive to their destination anyway. I didn’t have a problem with the loading screens and the time it took was dependant on my own greed for cc, which I could handle. For as much as we have from old EP’s in the base game already, there are so many things we had to sacrifice in order to have them.
I have enjoyed the game for the past couple of weeks and have learned so much about it. I’ve already slowed down in playing the game though as it isn’t holding my attention as much as its predecessor did. Already I’m wishing there was an expansion pack out to fix some of these missing features and perhaps to even correct some of the issues a lot of us have with the game. It just isn’t rocking my world as much as I thought it would. Hopefully more hacks and some EP’s will follow really soon, before it ends up on my shelf in favour of Sims 2 being my main source of entertainment again. Of course I haven’t given up yet, I’m well aware that there will be so much more in this game I haven’t explored yet, so this is just an early review of my findings so far as opposed to an overall review of the game in its entirety.

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS