Will Wright could probably teach the big tobacco companies a thing or two about marketing addictive products. In fact, I’m seriously considering reporting him to the ATF or the FCC or whoever the heck is handling that sort of thing these days. Well, as soon as save enough money for Walter to buy a hot tub so he can have a party so he can make some new friends so he can advance in his career.
Hmmm, I should probably explain what I just said. No, there is too much. Let sum up. I put this computer game on my Amazon.com wish list. My sister brought it for me. I played said game and pretty much everything else in my life came to a screeching halt. That’s probably not enough so I’ll give you some more detail. The computer game in question is called The Sims. It was created by an evidently sadistic chap named Will Wright, who had previously contributed to the decline of productivity in this country by creating the hugely popular Sim games.
For those who are not up on the computer gaming world (and I don’t pretend to be either), Sim City is a simulation game that allows you to build and control a major city from the ground up. You build buildings, design neighborhoods, fight crime, control the power supply, etc. While the Sim series has been enjoying tremendous popularity for ten years, The Sims has only been around since March 2000. However, most people who find themselves unable to turn the game off at three or four o’clock in the morning (present company included) don’t seem to mind its relative infancy.
Basically, with The Sims, instead of controlling cities, you control people. That got your attention. The game takes place in a neighborhood, according to the game literature, actually a suburb of Sim City. There are several predefined homes, some with predefined inhabitants. There are also other lots available for the user to add new homes. Your task: create or import new Sims (people) into the neighborhood, find them jobs (or not), acquaint them with their neighbors, and keep them happy.
How do you know if they’re happy? Well, there’s this slick-looking dashboard on the bottom of your screen that keeps you informed of each Sims’ needs: hunger, bladder, (you don’t actually have to watch them go, the bathroom scenes are mostly censored), energy, social, room, hygiene, comfort, and the all-important, fun. Depending on your Sims’ personality traits, these needs can move up or down pretty fast, and it’s up to you to direct your Sims to do what it takes to meet their needs. So, if your Sim is hungry, you can direct them to cook a meal, have a snack, or call for a pizza. But wait, Mr. Wright has thrown in another curve: if you haven’t directed your Sim to bone up on his or her cooking skills, he or she just might burn the kitchen down if they try to cook. Or, if your Sim hasn’t been going to work regularly, he or she might not have the cash to afford the pizza. I made the unfortunate mistake of directing a mechanically inept Sim to change a light bulb; the poor shlub was electrocuted. Oh, I should have mentioned, your Sims can die if their needs get perilously low. You’d think they would have put that in larger print somewhere on the box.
As you’ll quickly discover, playing The Sims becomes a race against time. You need meet all your Sims’ needs while still getting them to put in a good seven-hour workday so they can advance in their careers. Not an easy task, and the Sims’ get very cranky when their needs are not met. Sound familiar? Say you’ve got a Sim on the Pro Athlete career track (one of ten tracks offered in the standard game), unless you keep your athlete in a good mood, he or she will refuse to work out, a necessity in moving ahead or even keeping a job in that field. One of my Sims flat out refused to use the home gym I directed him to buy. Can you believe that guy?
Which brings me to what are probably the most addictive options in the game: Build and Buy modes. If you are so inclined, and your Sim has the requisite cash, you can build the home of your dreams or at least a reasonable electronic facsimile thereof. The standard game comes with dozens of flooring, wallpaper, and landscaping options as well as over 150 items to furnish the home. Believe me, I was knocking down walls and re-tiling patios until all hours of the night just last week. The kicker is, generally the more expensive the item, the better it will meet your Sims’ needs. Sims who sleep in the priciest beds don’t need to sleep as long, which gives you more time to battle their other seven needs.
There is no “end” to this game, no real goal per se, except to keep your little community moving along and keep the interactions between your Sims (they can fight, get married, have kids, etc.) into infinity. And to make matters worse, Maxis, the company behind the game, has started putting out expansion packs with more items to buy, more housing options, and more career tracks. Yes, I have one. The Sims: Livin’ Large Expansion Pack followed me home from the store one day. Freakish thing. Maxis even offers a Sims Exchange portion of the game’s website, where registered users can upload and download Sim families, publish family albums, and chat with other gamers. (Editors’ note: Pattie will be happy to learn that Electronic Arts will soon be releasing another expansion pack, The Sims: House Party along with a game that supposedly mixes Sim City with The Sims, called Simsville.)
From the web site, I’ve learned that The Sims is a game that’s very dependent upon the player’s personality. Having played the game (virtually nonstop) for the past month I’ve developed a key strategy on maintaining happy Sims (one that will probably not surprise anyone who knows me): multitasking. Listing to the stereo will boost a Sims fun level but dancing with a neighbor boosts both social and fun needs. But all this multitasking doesn’t leave a lot of time for decorating so my Sims live in modest-sized homes furnished with the whatever necessary items they can afford at the time. It was not until I downloaded a house created by a fellow gamer that I was apparently not fully appreciating the Build and Buy modes. This Sim home had among other things, forty bedrooms, half a dozen bathrooms, and a casino. I think there’s a reason this is not a multi-player game.
So before I get back to my pal Walter and his woefully inadequate social life, a few final words about this game:
- It should come with a warning from the Surgeon General and not one of those wimpy cigarette ones, either, a real one.
- I hope the folks at Maxis have had fun laughing at the irony of selling a game that depends upon the characters honing their efficiency skills to consumers who will likely spend hours upon hours at their computer while they should be doing laundry. Real funny. Ha Ha. (I will find out where they live, I swear it.)
- If you read too much into the game and extrapolate what it says about our society and our consumerist culture, you will begin bleeding from the ears. Just play.
- Simply playing Life when you were a kid will not prepare you for this game, you do need to read the instructions lest your Sims start dropping like flies. It’s quite like the game of Life if you think about it, if the game of Life were designed by mad scientists on steroids.
- If you do purchase this game, do yourself a favor and pick up a newspaper or call a friend once a while – just to remind yourself where you are.