By Brian Perry

If I told you one of the most anticipated titles of 2009 was a virtual dollhouse, you would give me some strange looks, however if I told you it was The Sims 3 you would instantly understand. The Sims franchise to the love and hate of many has captured the hearts and minds of hardcore, and casual gamers alike. The Sims simplicity, building a home and populating it with virtual people then guiding them through their lives hides the depths the game holds.

Gone are Sims 2’s astrology and 1-10 traits system, instead each sim gets 5 “perk” like traits selecte3d at creation, or randomized at birth. Each trait carries game altering plus’ or minuses like the bookworm trait that makes learning skills by reading faster, or the hydrophobic trait making the sim afraid of water, awkward at pool parties, and shower time to say the least.

With these new traits the life time goals and rewards system returns as well, but with equal lateral shifts to a perk based system instead of the absurdist contraptions (with a few notable high end exceptions). By completing promised goals, or achieving your sims lifetime wish, ranging from being the ultimate artist, or mastering a profession, your sim can earn additional reward traits to aid them in their lives, but like all bonuses some are more useful than others. Iron bladder for instance, removing the sims need to ever use the restroom can be seen as far more useful than Midlife crisis that lets you repack your original 5 character traits.

Speaking of your sims’ bladders, thankfully the shepherding of your sims through the ultra mundane tasks is greatly reduced as new AI kicks in, as well as rebalanced needs gauges easing the absurdity and allowing you to focus on the important parts of your sims lives, like their social interactions.

One of the previous Sims games’ faults was the social interaction system was overly simple, and easily gamed. I’m afraid to say not much has changed here. Playing Sims 3 even without the “social” traits available my fellow sims were like putty to be molded into a bizarre death cult without much thought. While you can’t spam the same action over and over again, simply mixing in 1 to 2 other similar actions will get you quick results and best friends all around.

The Sims 3’s major change is the integration of the entire town into the game. In previous editions if you wanted to visit a community lot, or visit a friend’s home you were forced to take some form of transportation there, and a 2-3 minute waiting screen ensued for travel each way. With the new system the entire town is seamlessly loaded into your game on the first load up making your sims significantly more mobile, while sparing your sanity along the way.

Despite this advancement, The Sims 3 has two glaring flaws. The most prevalent one is your sims’s life cycle. While you can completely turn off sims aging, or extend the lifespan of your towns sims to epic proportions (something in the range of 1000 sims days,) it can makes it difficult to stay attached to the sims you have become attached to, but grow your family further. Unless your sim starts breeding from the moment they reach young adult hood you’ll find them into old age before their children reach their teens. Sims 2 alleviated this problem with an “Elixir of Life” reward that would extend a sims life, this item however did not make the transition to the newer title leaving an annoying gap it Sims 3’s game play.

The second glaring flaw is the game’s diversity, or the lack there of. While newer players to the Sims probably wont notice, franchise veterans will immediately notice the lack of content, compared to what the “full expanded” sims and sims 2 games offer. Limited options for hobby items, such as only one guitar for musicians instead of the full band kit available previously, and limited hair styles for sims are oft seen complaints.

While the sims 3 offers an online store to purchase additional items, the prices are steep, and give you the impression that EA’s goal relies more on nickel and dimeing you than providing a comparable product to the last entry to the franchise.

Despite these complaints, the sims still manages to hold on to the charm that captivated the audience that has faithfully purchase game after game and expansion after expansion. Perhaps it is something about playing god to the simulated residents of your town, or perhaps its because in the end the game is still more fun than not, but in the end what is important is that the game is still fun, and lots of it. And if the last two entries into the franchise are any example, it will only get better with the expansion packs destined to come.

Score: 7/10