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Simulators seem so common now but back in 2000, Maxis and Electronic Arts released the life simulator “The Sims” for PC and Mac. The Sims blew away gamers with its addicting style of gameplay simulating everyday life like jobs, relationships, and even chores. The series was a spiritual successor to the popular series “SimCity” in which players simulate building a city but The Sims out-performed its predecessor and is still going strong over twenty years after the first game. Let’s take a look at the original life-simulator that engrossed players with its simple and casual style of gaming. I’ll try not to burn down the house in The Sims review.
The Sims Plot:
The Sims is so unique in that every player will experience a different life when playing through the game. There are no goals, objections, or rules to follow when playing. If you want to be a slob and eat every five minutes, live in your underwear, and go broke, that’s your choice. If you want to start a career, work your way to the top, and become a millionaire, that’s all up to you. You can live nearly any life you want to have which makes the game so addicting to players. You’ll be able to do pretty much whatever you like which makes the story yours to shape.
The Sims Gameplay:
Customization is such a big part of The Sims that it’s the first thing I’m going to start with. First, you’ll need to build your sim. You can choose to play as a man or woman, and customize them with their appearance starting with their hair and head. You can choose an outfit that ranges from classy, sexy, trashy, athletic, and many more. Once you are happy with your sim your next task is to select their traits. You’ll have points to distribute to shape how they behave like how clean, playful, nice, active, and other traits that the sims use to interact with each other. You can even add a bio to them if you please.
Once you’ve created a Sim, you can decide whether you want to make a family or live the single life. Next, you’ll need to purchase a property and start building a house. Building houses and buying furniture is one of my favorite things to do in the game. Everything is so detailed as you purchase things from windows, floor tiles, wall paint, lights, and even plants. When the house is built you’ll need to fill up the house with furniture and other necessities. The Sims make it all very easy on the buyer with categories like plumbing, electronics, chairs, etc. Starting out you’ll be purchasing crappy items like small beds, black and white TVs, and uncomfortable chairs. You don’t need to upgrade if you don’t want to but once you start earning money you can pause the game whenever you like and buy a better bed, chair, TV, or splurge and buy a butler robot!
As you play the game your sim will need to do certain tasks to stay happy. There’s a diamond above their head that indicates how happy they are with bright green being the happiest and dark red being the most depressed. There are a few factors that change your mood. Your sim will need good hygiene so they’ll need to shower daily. Their bladders will get full so even things like going to the bathroom are a requirement. If you neglect this your sim can piss themself in an embarrassing fit! Fun fact, my wife was rewarded for not wetting the bed until she was like 17 as her parents took her to Toys R Us and let her pick out a toy each night she didn’t wet the bed.
Anyway, getting back to what your sim needs…they will need social interaction! Build friendships with other sims who come and visit your house. Have your sim talk to them, or dance with them. You can do so many things from hugging, telling jokes, kissing, playing basketball, and even fucking! Although that’s censored. You perverts hoping to see the sims bang will be out of luck. You can even buy a vibrating heart-shaped bed if your sims are super kinky. Other things that your sim will need to keep satisfied are their hunger, energy, fun, comfort, and even “room” which improves with the decor in your house.
Your sim can pick a career but you’ll start at the bottom. There are about ten careers to choose from like being a movie star, scientist, detective, sports star, and others. The jobs you start with are terrible but you can work your way up the career ladder by accomplishing goals like making your body stronger, improving your cooking, or charisma. When your job improves you’ll get more money and usually have better shifts but it’s hard to maintain. Each job advancement takes a lot of work and sometimes you’ll lose friends or lovers over it which can result in demotions. Speaking of lovers, you can even get married! You can have kids and you can even die! Your sim can drown or die in a house fire. The amount of situations and details that Maxis put into this game is crazy.
The Sims was so popular that expansions started being developed almost as soon as the game was released. This was the original DLC! You can buy expansions that provide more options in the love department, providing pets, going on vacations, and new places to explore downtown. Here’s a list of the expansions:
Livin’ Large
House Party
Hot Date
Vacation
Unleashed
Superstar
Makin’ Magic
The Sims is a near-perfect game that demands nothing of the player. In fact, if you don’t control your sim they will live their life on their own and you can just watch like God. I would kick myself if I didn’t mention the music either, it’s so catchy and well put together. It stirs exactly the right emotions when building a house, or picking out furniture.
Memories:
I’m not sure the first time I played The Sims, but I remember I bought it as a kid and had my dad install in on the computer. I played this game so much, it was amazing to see what I could do with the Sims. Sometimes my friends would come over and they’d get addicted to playing it too. My favorite thing to do was input the cheat that gives you tons of money. I’d blow it on all the crazy things you can buy and just throw massive parties. Truly, the Sims is a unique experience for everyone that plays it. Now my wife plays it at least once a year.
The Sims Review Score:
The Sims was groundbreaking in the simulating casual gamer genre. You won’t find a better life simulator as you truly play as God as you watch your sim live their life with a bit of help from you, or if your evil heart chooses you can ruin their life. It’s all up to you.
The Sims scores a 9.5 out of 10.
What would you write in your Sims review? Do you remember when The Sims first came out? How did you play? Did you make your sim like you or were they a fictional character? How did you live and what career did you choose? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!
Tiger Chainsaw 