The Sims Review

In bringing The Sims to the GameCube, EA makes the best selling PC game of all time available for us console lovers. After all, it only seems fair that a good PC game should make its way over to the consoles since we’re sent Grand Theft Auto 3 and Splinter Cell their way. So how did we do in this recent “trade?” Well I think the PC guys did get the better deal overall, but we did get something pretty good ourselves...

If you’re new to The Sims and wondering what it’s all about, I gotta ask where the heck have you been for the last three years! But after that I will say that it could best be described as a “life simulator.” Think about MS Flight Simulator where you control all of the different aspects of a plane. You need to worry about things like air speed, altitude, angle of decent, fuel, bring up the landing gear, and all sorts of stuff like that.
Now instead of controlling a plane, think of controlling a person. Now you need to worry about happiness, jobs, friends, buying a home, hunger, and even whether you need to go to the bathroom or not. That, in a nutshell, is The Sims. Yet, it is even more as you’ll soon find out...

In The Sims you create your own little “Sim” and start to live in his or her world. It becomes your direct responsibility to provide your Sim with all the good things in life to make him or her happy, and to avoid as much of the icky stuff as possible. As in real life this can all sound rather overwhelming, and at first it may very well be. But in a relatively short amount of time you and your Sim should be having a blast. The Sims for the GC plays in a lot of ways like its PC sibling, but with a couple of welcome additions and modifications. The most useful is the “Get A Life” mode. This is a goal-based version of the more free-form “Play The Sims” mode. The Get A Life mode is a great way to get accustomed to the controls and also to get an understanding of what you actually need to do in order for your Sim to be happy and for it to advance in life. There are many different chapters in this mode, each with a set of goals that you need to accomplish in order to advance to the next chapter. For example, you may need to get a promotion in your job or show your decorating skills and add some style to your pad before you can go to the next level. You can look at the Get a Life mode as kind of training for the much more open-ended “Play the Sims” mode. In this mode there are no goals to speak of. In fact there is really no end to the game. It’s possible that some may be turned off by this lack of finality, and in some ways that’s understandable. I think that in the console world we like to know when we’ve accomplished our goals so we can move on to the next great thing. Maxis, the developers, understood this and that’s one reason for the Get A Life mode. So, you see, you get the best of both worlds!

OK, so what does it mean to be responsible for your Sim? Well you start out creating your Sim by selecting everything from the gender to hair and eye color, from the body shape to clothes. Once you get a Sim you’re happy with you start to ... well, you start to live life. You go and find a place to live and search through the paper, or computer, for a job. You meet other Sims and start relationships with them. You may even find the Sim of your dreams, fall in love, and get married. Or every Sim you run across may reject you. Your Sim is driven by Motives that you need to help fulfill for him or her. These include hunger, energy, social, and fun, among others. You can check how your Sim is doing in any of these areas by simply pressing up on the control pad. These motives are very important to how happy your Sim is and you spend most of the game maintaining these motives in different ways. For example, if your Sim’s Hygiene gauge is really low this is a good indicator that it’s time to take a bath. Once you’re all clean the gauge is filled up again. While you can always check these meters by using the control pad, your Sim will also let you know when he or she is unhappy about something. For instance, your Sim may be walking around the house and suddenly look up at you and start jumping up and down “screaming” at you. This is a very good sign that at least one of your Sim’s motive meters is low. You can usually tell by the thought balloon icon that accompanies said tantrum what your Sim wants.

The real trick is to maintain a decent level of all the motives. You can, for example, invite another Sim over for dinner and this can actually improve several motives at once. I found it challenging at first to get a good pattern going in the daily life of my Sim that didn’t neglect any one motive for too long. This is one of the more interesting aspects of the game and in some sort of odd way it can actually make you reflect on you own life. Now how many games have you ever played that made you do that? As you get further along in your Sim’s life many things actually become easier. Once you get a couple of promotions and can afford a maid and gardener you free up more time for your Sim to meet other Sims and have more fun. This is another very interesting part of the game. As you go along you can strike up friendships and relationships with other Sims in the neighborhood. Depending on the different traits of your Sims and the other Sims, you’ll hit it off much better with Sims you have things in common with. You can invite a bunch of them over for a big hot tub party, or just call that one special Sim for a little romance. The interactions between Sims can lead to some very funny moments, like when your girlfriend Sim catches you dancing with someone else.

Graphically, The Sims is nothing to write home about. It gets passing grades even if there is the odd slowdown every now and then. The sound is interesting. The Sims talk to each other but not in any understandable way. I would describe it as the sound of adults in Peanuts cartoons. You get the general idea of what they’re saying without actually understand a single word. But to judge this game on graphics or sound is really missing the point of the game. The real thrill is to understand that you actually care about your Sim and that you want to help make him or her happy. It’s very strange, yet oddly cool.