I’ve been a fan of The Sims franchise for a good while now. I ignore what people tend to say about the ‘type of gamer’ that enjoys these games just like I ignore the comments others make about WoW players. Truth be told there are very few games out there that I don’t enjoy and I really like the number of choices games like this one give to a player. I enjoy creating, and watching the action / reaction that goes along with it. The Sims 3 is a beautiful game. There are so many actions you can chose, and many paths of character “progression”. Sadly, there are also (lately at least) a lot of bugs. One really annoying one causes my previously created sims to bug any time they require rest. They end up sleeping like zombies through the bed, and refuse to move after that point, even if they require some other daily need like food, or a bathroom. I browsed the forums and discovered that many other people also had this new bug. Great. Creating a new family solved it temporarily, but that means my previous house hold is out of the picture.
The point of this post is the screen shot above. My little sim is doing – you guessed it – laundry. Washing machines (and dryers) are new to the game, and if you own them any time your sim changes an outfit or disrobes (shower for example) a little pile of laundry will show up on the floor, which you can collect and bring to the washing machine. It takes some time for it to process the clothes and you can even select which cycle to use. After the wash is done you transfer the clothing to the dryer, and then after a little more waiting your sim can enjoy fresh clean clothes.
I’m not sure what to think of this feature yet. On one hand I think it’s incredibly neat and cool. The animations are fantastic. On the other hand do I really want to play a video game and do laundry?! I could hire a maid to wash it all for me but at the moment my little sim can’t afford such luxuries. I’ve already sold off every spare piece of furniture in her home and a fire in the kitchen last night put her stove out of order.
As an indication of how many choices your character has. My little sim has the environmentally-friendly trait. Any time she rides in the taxi by herself (ie: no car pool) she gets a little sad. Any time she does laundry with only one load, again sad. All of her fridge food is organic (and even says as much on it). She lives in the bayou and any time she spots any land being wasted she gets a little frown and feels bad. I find myself making choices in game that are eco friendly in order to keep her moods from plummeting. It doesn’t help that she’s also dramatic, and I shudder to think what would happen if she went out and visited the city sewage plant or dump.
I haven’t picked up the latest expansion yet, but I do plan on it before too long. I haven’t read up on it very much (It’s Night Life) but I own all of the other expansions, so I do plan on picking up this one too.Any one else a sims player?
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
I love Sims! I have everything (except some stuff packs) for both Sims 1 and Sims 2, but haven’t yet started up on Sims 3. When Sims 3 was first coming out, I had a computer that really couldn’t run it and there was some controversy about Sims 3 including some version of copy protection that could be damaging to the computer. I think they changed their mind about that type of copy protection later. I have a new system now and may go ahead and catch up on getting the Sims 3 games.
The very *first* thing I do in any Sims game is to get a fire alarm. They may have no furniture, but they will have that fire alarm! :)