A Sims 3 Mega Post

Wired: 4 Ways to Make the Most of Sims 3’s Massive Upgrades

The Sims 3 arrives Tuesday, and fans of Electronic Arts’ mind-bogglingly successful franchise are going to want to set aside some time to take in all the upgrades.

Quite a bit of time, actually: The Sims 3 is a sprawling mass of a game, building upon the success of its predecessors and taking the virtual-life simulation series to entirely new heights.

The title has received a graphical face-lift and more new features than you can shake a stick at, including an open world, personalities for your characters and enough customization options to make the hardiest of creative types light-headed. And if you never saw much point to carrying out mundane tasks virtually, a new goal-oriented structure means there’s likely to be something here for you, too.

Here are four tips to mull over while you’re installing the game on your PC or Mac.

1. Roll Your Own Life, Then Brace for Impact

When it comes to designing your virtual citizens, Sims 3 offers an unprecedented amount of freedom. A dizzying array of sliders and color wheels lets you customize just about every aspect of your Sim, from the roots of their hair to the socks on their feet. For the first time, you’re also able to design your Sim’s personality.

There are 63 different traits to choose from that will determine how your characters behave. But choose wisely: A neat Sim will wander about the house performing menial chores, but an absent-minded one will probably forget all about those cookies in the oven.

If you’re not very creative, or can’t be bothered with tweaking so many options, you can have a random family of Sims generated for you. There are also quite a few premade families packaged with the game. If you’d like to avail yourself of the hyperactive Sims fan base, you can also download characters made and shared by other players.

2. Let Your Little Ones Roam

What better way to explore the new, seamless world than going out for a jog? Sims 3 gets rid of all those pesky loading screens, allowing players to explore every nook and cranny of their towns.

Feel free to call a cab if you’re in a hurry, but Sims who wander will meet new friends, find the occasional seed to plant in their gardens or stumble upon a quiet spot to do a bit of fishing.

Your Sims are a also bit more independent than in previous versions of the game. Icons called Moodlets will help you keep track of which needs aren’t being met, and your characters will address these problems when possible. That means you can spend less time shepherding them and more time playing the game. While you’re still free to lead Sims around, it’s often far more interesting to see what the ones you haven’t been watching have done with their time — whether it’s buying a few groceries or stealing all the light fixtures and potted plants from their neighbors’ houses.

3. The Happy Sim Gets the Goods

While most Sims fans have been content designing elaborate homes and lives for their virtual personas, the Sims 3 has something in store for the goal-oriented gamer, too. As you play, your Sims will earn Happiness points by staying in a good mood and completing the occasional mini-objective, determined by their traits.

Take a Sim who is granted the Evil and a Bookworm traits, for example. This Sim might earn a few points by heading to the library and swiping candy from an infant along the way. Sims also have a Lifetime Wish.

Completing these will net you thousands of Happiness points, but they require enormous amounts of effort — becoming Leader of the Free World isn’t for the faint of heart. Happiness points can be cashed in for prizes that can make life a bit easier, from a steel bladder that cuts down on bathroom visits to a Teleportation Pad that (usually) gets your Sims where they need to go.

4. So Much to Do, So Little Time

The life of a Sim isn’t all about telling jokes and throwing parties — unless you want it to be. For Sims who like to stay occupied, there are a number of careers to choose from, with success determined by your ability to work hard, stay in a good mood and make friends. You’ll need the simoleons you earn to shop for groceries, buy furniture or keep the bill collectors at bay.

A work and no play makes a depressed, unproductive Sim, though, so when the weekend won’t come soon enough, don’t be afraid to skip work and play videogames. But remember: The clock is always ticking. Sims will eventually grow old and die. The game will track the progress of all households. After a few weeks of play, your town will likely be unrecognizable. So be sure that your Sim goes out and makes its mark on the world: You don’t want to have spent your entire virtual life wasting away in front of a computer screen, right?

CNET: 'Sims 3' ready for prime time

OS ANGELES--Start saving simoleans, everyone: "The Sims 3" has finally launched.

The latest full iteration of the famous "Sims" franchise--"The Sims" launched in 2000 and became the best-selling PC game of all time, and "The Sims 2" released in 2004--the new game presents a chance for its publisher, Electronic Arts, to bolster its bottom line, even while trying to push the boundaries of what game players are used to.

The original "Sims," from the hit-making game designer, Will Wright, was a game in which players could control a household of, yes, "sims," little people whose daily lives depended on players' attention. The innovations in the game, plus its non-goal-oriented nature, its unique graphics, its ahead-of-its-time game play and a number of other factors quickly made it into a success far beyond what anyone could have imagined. It also spawned a series of expansions that were also successes.

Then came "Sims 2," which improved upon the original title's graphics, incorporated more user-generated content--players could now use a movie feature that allowed players to script and make films starring their sims, while players of the original version figured out a way to do so themselves using the game's "family album" feature--and also spawned a series of hit expansions.

As a result, EA spun "The Sims" off its original studio, Maxis, and turned it into one of the company's main labels. And now, with the release of "Sims 3," EA has both a chance to prove it can continue to maintain its most popular and lucrative franchises, and to win over a new generation of players unfamiliar with the little green diamond that floats over players' characters' heads.

But EA has had a series of layoffs, its much-anticipated "Spore" franchise, which moderately successful, has not been the mega-hit the company likely hoped it would be and it is facing an environment in which the games industry, while still stronger than most, is finally starting to show some cracks.

So how important is "Sims 3" to EA? Well, it's not bet-the-house important--no game could be to such a large company--but it's certainly got to be up there.

And now, as the latest iteration incorporates even more social media, and more user-generated content--players can now not only make films starring their sims, but can also have full editing control over the footage--EA has to deliver with bottom line figures. Will it? Only time will tell. But there's certainly a lot of excitement around the game. And given the franchise's history, it would be tough to bet against them.

MTV: The Sims 3: Final Look

Five years and eight expansion packs after “The Sims 2,” Maxis has finally stepped away from the drawing board to deliver a new approach to their popular life simulation franchise in “The Sims 3.” The changes range from subtle to dramatic, though ultimately it all still boils down to running partially AI-controlled rats through a maze. In the case of “The Sims” of course, those rats are actually human beings and the maze, a small-town community.

The Basics

There is no story in “The Sims 3” except for the one that you create yourself. The first step is to create a Sim or a family of Sims to be your own, a process that now results in a much more realistic approximation of real people. This is largely thanks to five assignable Traits slots (ie evil, slob, party animal, lucky, loves the outdoors, never nude) which in turn informs the created Sim’s Lifetime Wishes, long-term goals that earn you points which can be spent on a variety of tedium-killing perks.

As for the game side, play is no longer explicitly focused on managing Needs meters such as hunger, bladder and so on. The needs are still there, submerged behind several menus, but they all inform a new, constantly visible meter that indicates your chosen Sim’s Mood. Performing different activities opens up Moodlets, which function as time-based buffs or penalties to your Mood. Lifetime Wishes provide definable goals for each Sim to work towards while randomly occurring daily Wishes offer smaller, easily achievable goals, acts as minor as giving your significant other an amorous hug.

The Highs

Endlessly Replayable: Like every other “Sims” game, “The Sims 3” is designed to deliver radically different experiences on repeat visits. New elements such as randomly occurring Opportunities ensure that even identical Sims will experience different life stories.

We Got To Live Together: The neighborhoods of old are gone. Sims now dwell in one contiguous space as part of a whole town. Your home, place of business, shopping centers, recreational & learning facilities and more are all visible and accessible on the same map.

Streamlined Tedium: Each Sim still has Needs, but the Mood meter and associated Moodlets make keeping track of it all a snap. Rather than watching for one need or another to dip, you instead respond to negative Moodlets as they appear; if you get slapped with a penalty because your Sim has to pee, then send him to the bathroom. The expectation is that you’re eventually performing routine, lifelike actions to preemptively eliminate negative Moodlets.

If Wishes Were Fishes: Daily and Lifetime Wishes, and the Lifetime Wish Points you earn for completing them, add an almost RPG level of carrot-dangling and long-term customization to the game. Earned points are spent on Lifetime Rewards, each of which functions to make your Sim’s progress through life easier. You’ll make friends quicker, spend less cash in stores, have an easier time picking up new traits; it all depends on what you choose to “purchase.”

The Lows

Great Power, Great Responsibility: Like its predecessors, “The Sims 3” still boils down to lots and lots of micromanagement. As more people enter your family circle, managing them all becomes quite a chore, especially since every Sim has an annoying tendency to do what he or she wants if left unattended. There are a lot of wheels to keep spinning in your typical Sim’s life and managing them all for even a single person can be a daunting experience.

User Unfriendly: “The Sims 3” is certainly bright and colorful, filled with whimsical imagery and sly pop culture in-jokes, but the non-stop stream of tutorials which pop up to confront newcomers is daunting. Even longtime fans are going to experience a learning curve as they adjust to new gameplay systems. Series noobs are in for a slow learning process as they come to grips not only with the complex underlying meter juggling but also the series’ unique pacing.

Microtransactions: The Exchange, where user cans freely trade created items, is now joined by an official Sims Store. Here you can spend real money on points, which can then be used to purchase a variety of household items, pre-made Sims, even (eventually) whole neighborhoods. The new feature isn’t terribly surprising, but it also leaves players with an extremely limited collection of household stuff to choose from. A robust pattern creator allows players to put in the time to make each object distinct, but those coming off of “The Sims 2” and its many expansions will quickly want for more crap to choose from.

Final Word

“The Sims 3” remains the unique experience it has always been, albeit with some welcome streamlining. The changes aren’t enough to make the game completely accessible to all, but mass appeal really isn’t what a proper “Sims” game has ever been about. Fans will certainly appreciate the more focused approach on simulated living, but newcomers will similarly be just as mystified as they’ve always been. Although it remains a “Sims” game through and through, “The Sims 3” is without question the best in the series so far.

Wired, CNET, MTV