So EA has a page up for Sims 3, designed to make all of the goofball Sims fanatics–like me–salivate for the next year and a half until it actually ships.
They better spend that year and a half making the new game look like more of a new game and less of an expansion pack for Sims 2.
I’ve been Simming since the games were developed for the Mac platform by Maxis–before it was a “division of Electronic Arts” and it was goofy stuff like SimTower, striving to build a tall enough building to earn the little Wedding Chapel on the top floor. I’ve invested quite a lot in my Sims habit, and I’m ashamed to say that I’m probably their target customer.
That’s why I’m (perhaps preemptoraly) pissed off about Sims 3. It looks like the big things they’re bragging on are a larger personality engine and a larger graphics engine. The big selling points are that these new-fangled developments will let the players fine-tune their Sims even more than before. Personalities will be more unique, there will be a wider variety of skin tones and a wider variety of patterns to customise your furniture.
Other than the personalities, any Sims 2 player can do this on their own by adding new skin tones and recolours from any of a billion and two download sites. As far as I know the personalities can be rejiggered the same way, but I’ve never tried it.
In short, all they appear to have done with this new version is to mainline options that have already been out there for the current game. Other rumoured changes not yet on the website but talked about in various underground hacker forums include the ability to put objects anywhere [which you can do in Sims 2 with the cheats boolprop snapobjectstogrid false and move_objects on] rotate objects at a 45 degree angle [boolprop allow45degreeangleofrotation true] and have fancier graphics [boolprop useShaders true].
Don’t get me wrong–these are all nice touches that I use frequently. Are they nice enough to pay the extra money for the new game and the machine that will be required to run it? No. I’ve invested a lot of time and money in Sims 2. I have characters in the 10th generation living in neighbourhoods that are just as old and have rich histories. Right now I’m not interested in what EA’s thrown out there. So if you developers and marketers chance upon this allow me to say that you’ve got about 18 months to start wowing me, or I’m sticking with the game I’ve got.
Give it a miss and go directly to Spore! If anything is going to derail my rekindled WoW addiction it’ll most likely be Spore.
I was all set to whine about it not being released for Mac. And then I looked it up ..
AND IT’S BEING RELEASED ON MAC!!!!ELEVENTYONE!!!!
I hope my husband doesn’t file for divorce by Christmas…
I’m officially gone.
Your husband just punched me for some reason.
Oh wow. I broke myself of my Sims habit not too long after Sims 2 came out. I was pretty hooked on the original, and at the time 2 came out, the computer I had at the time couldn’t really handle it so I really never got it going. I went back to playing the original for a while but I eventually kicked the habit, and even after I got a new computer never got around to reinstalling Sims 2. I COULD now but… I don’t freakin’ have time for it. The Sims are the biggest time sucker ever invented.
But oh so fun. My favorite period ever (and I think I still have the files on this computer) was when I built an entire Twin Peaks neighborhood. Several of the families in pertinent houses, and the entire Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department in the best ever house (I made it look police-stationy on the outside). That house was freakin’ awesome and it had EVERYTHING.
[...] by Lynnster on June 17, 2008 Kat Coble posted the other day about the coming release of The Sims 3. I have a love-hate relationship with [...]
I’m wondering if they will release the game later because they also are releasing Spore.