The Sims 3

The Sims 3 Generations - Sims 3: All ages [2011/PC/ENG/RUS]
Genre: Add-on / Strategy (God Sim / Manage / Busin. / Real-time) / 3D / Virtual pets
Year: 2011 | PC Game | Developer: The Sims Studio | Publisher: Electronic Arts | 4.83 GB

The new personality led and goal oriented Sims brings more laughs and surprises than ever before to keep you enthralled.

In real life we all have our own story. What we do is driven by what we desire. Until now the Sims series has done a great job of convincing us that its little computer people lived interesting lives. The Sims 3, however, makes all that has gone before seem rather robotic. It has been genuinely entertaining of course, its ‘emergent’ gameplay engaging even non-gamers in their millions. But The Sims 3 will make not just make your jaw hurt with laughter, it might cause you heart-ache too.

More than ever The Sims feels like a sociology experiment introduced by a mad scientist in which, thankfully, no real humans or indeed animals get hurt. At the start you’ll assign a Lifetime Wish balanced with five personality traits that help or hinder the ultimate goal. Then you let them loose in a neighbourhood where such deep-rooted routines in other Sims similarly boost or stand in the way of success.

Maybe you decide to create a Sim who absolutely doesn’t wish for huge recognition of any kind but happens to be the luckiest guy alive. This is the kind of fun you’ll be having with The Sims 3 and honestly it's so clever you might suspect Electronic Arts of being instructed by ancient Egyptian gods in the art of game design.

Having such long-term goals gives players a handle on each personality, and can be used as a subtle gameplay element to drive a story of sorts. Knowing where they should be going and achieving short-term goals between times – e.g. piano practice, mowing the lawn – allows contribution toward Lifetime Happiness points. These can be used to make your jokes funnier, make you a better cook, etc. within the context of whichever situation your Sim is now faced.

It's actually very hard to go against the grain of a Sim’s personality traits and, for want of a better word, ‘destiny’. You might want to urge a shrinking violet to perform karaoke at a barbecue just for kicks and giggles - but you'll feel guilty about it afterwards though. Once you start rooting for your Sim and getting involved in the sensitive domestic issues at home, you’ll most likely want the best for them.

Family ties, or relationships within a household, are another major addition to the series. You could have an extrovert old man with a bad sense of humour lodging with a couple of meek young newly weds, see how that works out. Or you could have a close-knit family of brothers and sisters who can’t agree on which music they want on the stereo – sound familiar? Relationships, or the longing for another person, continue even after a Sim has passed on. Ghost Sims, like Bruce Willis in Sixth Sense, might not realise they are dead and pursue love interests even though they cannot be seen. It's like Seinfeld and Greek Tragedy rolled into one.

Setting the stage for your new Sim’s life story is also crucial and The Sims 3 allows for extensive customisation of homes and accessories. A modest property might suit a struggling artist, but a high-flying business person would want something more impressive to host dinner parties. The necessity of being ‘worldly wise’ enriches The Sims experience in further surprising new ways.

With the ability to tailor your own curtains and be the architect of your own bricks and mortar this will save money, as it does in real life. However EA has established The Sims Store to purchase swanky items that are nice but not important. Designer sofas and cool guitars cost real world money, so be advised. It could be more fun in the end to create your own fashions and share these online with fellow Sims addicts.

The Sims 3 brings far more to the table than we could ever have imagined. It cleverly strikes the balance between untold depth and giddy dip-in / out gameplay. It makes us dizzy contemplating where EA will take The Sims after this.

OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core 2 DUO@2.5 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200 +
RAM: 2 GB
HDD: 6.3 GB free disk space
Graphics: 768 MB Graphics Memory
Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
DirectX: Version 9

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