Sims 3

Sims 3 came out yesterday - I think we all know what that means.
I have actually managed to cook supper, vacuum, do a load of dishes, and make sure that the animals didn't die - so it's actually not all that bad. I did stay up until 1:30 last night, but I'm going to try very hard not to do that again, because I was just getting to a point where I was functioning better on an early AM schedule. I'm really impressed with what they've added to the game. They have a system of "wishes", which are similar to the "wants/fears" of sims2, but these are slightly different. Wish fulfillment results in a better mood for a sim, points towards their "lifetime wish points", and and immediate mood status effect. The mood status effects (I'm not sure what they're officially called) are possibly one of the best upgrades, because there's a tangible benefit/punishment for some decisions. For instance, if you choose to let your sim sleep the full 8 hours, they'll receive a +50 to their mood for the next 10 hours. If they're woken up by a screaming baby though, they might have a -15 to mood. Not feeing your sim results in a grouchy negative penalty that can be negated when you feed them. Some life events (weddings, babies) raise their moods for days, and others (moving) lowers them.

Also, you can directly affect your sim's performance at work. At first I was slightly peeved that I couldn't SEE what my sim was doing once they entered the work building, but I'm fine with it now that I have multiple sims to take care of. You can choose to have your sims slack off, work harder, or even kiss up to the boss, each with different effects on their moods. Your sims also now come with "traits" that can range from a very simple "natural cook" to "technophobe" to "loner". My loner sim gets really stressed out when there's more than 3 people in the room at the same time. I wonder how this is going to affect her lifetime dream of raising 5 kids.

All in all, the pace of the game seems to have slowed down. Relationships take a bit longer to develop. Your sims are babies for much longer now, and (unfortunately) require a bit more interaction. But with things like the lifetime reward points, the mood status effectors, and things like that - the game also feels more complex. On the bright side, I notice that the sims typically only have to use the bathroom/eat once or twice a day, depending on how things go, which is great, considering how much other time you'll want to pump into going places, (which is now really easy), learning skills, and stuff like that.

Also, the lifetime skill points - I love them! The rewards this time around are so much more USEFUL than in sims2. At 5,000 points, you can get things like eating at any restaurant for free, the ability to clean twice as fast, natural charisma with your co-wokers, stuff like that. At 10,000 you can get natural fertility, the ability to skip work for a day without penalty, etc.

Really, all in all, it's not as BIG of a technology jump as it was from sims 1-2. They really just tweaked and expanded on concepts that were in sims 2, and made them better. But major kudos to them, for tweaking everything just enough so that it feels fresh and challenging again.

My only two complaints are these:

- Sleeping takes SO LONG now, because it doesn't seem like you can fast forward as quickly. I actually end up getting up and going to do something for a minute every time my sims sleep.

- I'm not sure how it will work when you want to have multiple households. You have four "game files". On the other hand, it seems like you might be able to start out with one household, split them up, and decide what one is your "active" household. But I'm not sure how that works...I'll figure it out in a few days/weeks when I actually have kids old enough to move out on their own. It feels really restricting, though. I'll let you know whether it actually winds up being that way.

Basically though, if you love sims 2, you're going to love sims 3. Just make sure your computer can handle it. :)