The Sims 3 Hands-on Fan Event
May 15, 2009
Written by Rosana Kooymans at SNW (Simsnetwork).
Foreword
On May 15, 2009 I went to the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht (The Netherlands) for a Sims 3 hands-on event! We already attended a Sims 3 event in 2008 but that was more or less a demo of the game, shown to us by Ben Bell. This time we could actually play and ask questions to MJ Chun. More about that later! At first I was quite skeptic about the game. I love The Sims 2 so much... I created over 10.000 custom content items I'm currently using in my own game. I created more in the past but re-made many of the items. I met the love of my life because of The Sims (2) and we got a lovely son together. So I guess you can say The Sims in general has been a very important game to me. I still have my legacies in The Sims 2 and I bought each and every expansion and stuff pack available. I don't want to let that all go to waste once The Sims 3 comes out. That doesn't mean The Sims 3 isn't a fun game. I had a chance to play it now myself and I will tell you all about it in this preview!
I also want to add beforehand that I got to play a Dutch version of The Sims 3. There was only one PC with an English version and someone else got that version. So it's possible I use certain words that do not match with the actual game you'll get to play once it's in stores.
We did not get to take any pictures from the game. So we'll be using official screenshots instead.
Cheats
Of course, in each Sims game there are a bunch of cheats and we found out many of them while playing. I'll have to add that some other fansites also discovered some cheats. So we're posting them at the same time and none of us "stole" them from the other. We do have some exclusive cheats though. Ones you haven't seen before! Opening up the cheat console is the same as before; CONTROL + SHIFT + C. When you've made a mistake, the ESCAPE button will set you free.
- constrainFloorElevation true/false
Allows terrain adjustments regardless of objects/Sims/etc on them.
- disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt on/off
When on, objects will not snap to slots while holding the ALT-key.
- enablellamas on/off
Not sure what this does. I tried it during the event but I didn't see any llamas.
- fadeobjects on/off
Toggles whether objects fade when the camera gets close to them. Does not affect Sims.
- fps on/off
Turns the frame rate display in the upper right corner on or off.
- fullscreen on/off
Changes your game to fullscreen or windowed.
- hideHeadlineEffects on/off
Shows or hides talk/thought balloons above Sim heads.
- jokePlease
Prints a random joke to the console.
- moveObjects on/off
Removes limitations for placing/moving objects.
- quit
Exits the game.
- resetSim <firstname> <lastname>
Returns Sim to a safe, neutral state at their home location.
- slowMotionViz 0-8
Puts visuals in slow motion. 0 = normal; 8 = slowest. Does not affect the speed of the time in-game.
- unlockOutfits on/off
This must be entered before going into CAS. Shows career outfits and service uniforms.
Of course, we tried the famous boolprop cheat. But at first it didn't work. It's still in the game though! But in The Sims 3, there is no boolprop. It's just:
testingCheatsEnabled true/false
When you have that cheat enabled, you'll have all kinds of options. I'm not going to explain each of the functions. But we did discover more cheats when the testingCheatsEnabled was set to true:
- ageuptonpc
Toggles option for toddler who is aging up to be a non-player-controlled Sim in the household.
- familyFunds <household_name> <amount>
Sets family funds of named household.
- maptags on/off
Toggles map tags on and off. This is noticeable in map view.
- playsounds on/off
Toggles all sounds and music on and off.
- recordvideo small/medium/large low/moderate/high/max
Start recording video with specified size and quality.
- speed 0-4
Sets game speed. 0 = paused; 4 = ultra speed through current action.
And then there are some cheats that were not visible in the cheat console. But they do work:
- motherlode
Gives a household §50,000.
- kaching
Gives a household §1,000.
There is a good possibility that there are even more cheats in the game. But we didn't discover any more while playing at the event.
Traits
Personalities and aspirations no longer exist like we used to know them in The Sims 2. In The Sims 3, you have traits instead. These traits decide what kind of personality your Sim will have. With over 60 traits to choose from, none of your Sims need to have the same personality anymore! Adult Sims can choose 5 traits. Babies and toddlers have just 2 when they're born in the beginning (but get more traits as they get older); children have 3 traits; teens have 4; young adults, adults and elders have 5 traits.
Some traits are complete opposites of one another. So that means you if you choose certain traits, others will be disabled and can't be chosen, for example 'Good sense of humor' and 'No sense of humor'. Of course, your Sim can't have both at the same time. Different traits will also give special different (social) interactions. Here is the list of traits you can choose from in the game, divided into 4 different categories (mental, physical, social and lifestyle):
Mental
- Absent-minded
- Artistic
- Bookworm
- Can't Stand Art
- Computer Whiz
- Excitable
- Genius
- Green Thumb
- Handy
- Insane
- Natural Cook
- Neurotic
- Virtuoso
Physical
- Athletic
- Brave
- Clumsy
- Couch Potato
- Coward
- Heavy Sleeper
- Hydrophobic
- Light Sleeper
- Lucky
- Neat
- Never Nude
- Slob
- Unlucky
Social
- Charismatic
- Commitment Issues
- Dislikes Children
- Easily Impressed
- Flirty
- Friendly
- Good Sense of Humor
- Great Kisser
- Grumpy
- Hopeless Romantic
- Inappropriate
- Loner
- Loser
- Mean Spirited
- Mooch
- No Sense of Humor
- Party Animal
- Schmoozer
- Snob
- Unflirty
Lifestyle
- Ambitious
- Angler
- Childish
- Daredevil
- Evil
- Family-Oriented
- Frugal
- Good
- Hates the Outdoors
- Hot-Headed
- Kleptomaniac
- Loves the Outdoors
- Over-Emotional
- Perfectionist
- Technophobe
- Vegetarian
- Workaholic
Most of the traits really don't need any explanation. But in case you don't know what a certain trait means, it shows a description in the game.
Moodlets
Moodlets are like perks, except you automatically get them while playing. You can get moodlets for all kinds of things that happen in your game, positive and negative happenings. The moodlets determine your Sim's mood.
Wishes and Lifetime Wishes
Wants and fears have been replaced by wishes. Wishes are the same as wants, but you no longer have to worry about the fears. When fulfilling a wish, you still get points. You won't be able to buy aspiration rewards. You can save the points to to get certain benefits. I don't have a complete list of these benefits. You should check other fansites if you want to know all of these benefits!
Lifetime wishes are the new lifetime aspirations. Lifetime wishes could include reaching a certain level of a career, having a certain amount of children, maximizing skills and stuff like that. These lifetime wishes give a boost of Lifetime Reward Points and they can also be used to get certain benefits. I don't know all these terms for sure, nor do I know exactly what you can reach with the Lifetime wishes. So it's a good idea to just play the game and find out yourself.
Careers, Career Buildings and Skills
Of course, the base game of The Sims 3 doesn't have as many career paths as we're used to with The Sims 2 and all its expansions. But I'm pretty sure EA will release many new expansion packs in the future with more careers. We found 11 normal careers while playing. I don't know if we're missing one. I thought there were 12 career paths. Anyway, a word about careers in The Sims 3 first.
In The Sims 3 you have a neighborhood called Sunset Valley. In this neighborhood there are various buildings. Among those buildings are career buildings. The huge difference between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 is that you can now actually just click on one of these buildings and apply for a job there!
There are more cool features with these career buildings. Each one of them has the option to follow a certain lesson for a skill, like cooking, writing, gardening, handiness and so on.
Badges no longer exist, as far as they included these from the Sims 2 expansions into The Sims 3, they have been turned into skills rather than badges.
Something I thought was quite funny that I noticed was that you no longer see the empty skill bars in the panel. So if you never gained a cooking skill, you can't see this on your panel. As soon as you get a skill for something, the skill bar appears in the panel. This gives you more an idea of what your Sims can do instead of what they can't.
Here is a list of the careers I could find:
- Science
- Criminal
- Military
- Professional Sports
- Law Enforcement
- Culinary
- Music
- Political
- Medical
- Journalism
- Business
Teens, young adults, adults and seniors can also get a part time job at certain community buildings (like the supermarket, bookstore, spa, diner etc). These part time jobs are great for teens as the working hours do not overlap the school hours. But like I mentioned other age groups (young adults, adults and seniors) can also have part time jobs.
With normal careers you can get many promotions. The part time jobs do have some promotions but are limited compared to the normal careers. If you really want your Sim to earn lots of money, perhaps a part time job isn't the best choice.
Here is a list of part time careers I could find:
- Receptionist
- Grocery Store Clerk
- Spa Specialist
- Bookstore Clerk
Here is a list of the classes Sims can follow:
- Logic
- Gardening (previously a badge skill)
- Handiness (previously known as the Mechanical skill?)
- Athletic (previously known as the Body skill?)
- Cooking
- Fishing (previously a badge skill)
- Guitar (I think Guitar and Painting are the replacement skills for the Creative skill)
- Painting (I think Guitar and Painting are the replacement skills for the Creative skill)
- Charisma
- Writing
- Photography (Not too sure about that one. But all the teaser applications have each of the above, and photography. So I'm guessing that's also a skill? I'm not too sure about this one so please keep in mind that I could be wrong about that one, okay?)
I didn't see a Cleaning skill. Perhaps it's there. I just don't know for sure. So as you can see, pretty much any skill is still in the game. Some changed names and some have been divided into more skills.
A little note about the career buildings and the community buildings (supermarket, spa etc). You cannot actually see your Sim in the building. You just can't see inside the building. There's nothing to see. It's a shame, because storytellers love decors to tell their stories. And I myself am used to seeing my Sims go shopping for clothes, games, groceries etc and that's all gone now. I'm wondering if this will be brought back. I sure hope so!
A few facts I thought were worth sharing also are the fact that when your Sim gets hired somewhere, your Sim immediately knows their boss. And having a good relationship with the boss never hurts!
If your Sim has enough money, there is an extra option on each of the career buildings. You can become a partner. This sure costs a bit of money. But you will earn money since you own part of the company. You can outsell every other partner and make the building all yours!
When your Sims have jobs, they can choose (while already at work) if they will work normal or hard. I believe working harder does mean that your Sims have more chances at getting a promotion. Seems logical, but I don't know for sure.
Needs
Sims in The Sims 3 still have needs. But some of the needs have been removed. Environment/room doesn't matter anymore and has been taken out of the game. Comfort has been removed as well. All the other needs are still there; Hunger, Bladder, Energy, Social, Hygiene and Fun. In The Sims 3, Sims are smarter and just go to the bathroom when they have to go. This also depends on the Free Will settings in the Options panel.
I myself had some problems fulfilling the Sims's needs during the event. I know it has something to do with the traits chosen for the Sims you play with. But it's harder in my experience. This of course does mean it's more challenging to play the game.
Free Will
In The Sims 3, you can determine how much your Sims will do on their own while playing. You can give them a normal free will, high free will or no free will at all. It's up to you.
Generations and Aging
In The Sims 2, you had 5 different age groups; toddler, child, teen, adult and elder. In The Sims 3, there are 6 different age groups, all of the mentioned plus young adult, the stage between teen and adult. We did have this age group in The Sims 2 University. In The Sims 3, young adults don't go off to college like in The Sims 2 University. There have been rumors that there is a university in The Sims 3. But I haven't seen it. There is a community school but you can't exactly compare that to university at all.
Aging in The Sims 3 is more flexible. You can change the settings for aging in the Options panel. Sims can have 5 different life spans. Short - 25 days; Medium - 50 days; Normal - 90 days; Long - 190 days; Epic - 960 days. Normal (90 days) is pretty much the same as in The Sims 2. So you can choose how long your Sims will live. Which is a pretty cool feature.
If you prefer to not have your Sims age at all, this is a setting as well in the Options panel. So you don't need to use a cheat in order to prevent your Sims from getting older.
Now, about the neighbors aging. The idea of The Sims 3 is that everyone ages at the same time. This prevents situations where kids who have moved out grow to be older than their parents and similar situations. I love that it's an option but I don't know if I'll be using this default setting much. I kinda like controlling each family myself. That's still possible in The Sims 3. Also a setting in the Options panel. You can decide if Sims in your neighborhood grow older and live their lives with or without your help.
Death and Creatures
Death is still present in The Sims 3. The Grim Reaper is still the one to pick your Sim up once he/she dies. There is a funny surprise in The Sims 3 though. Ghosts are the new creatures in the game. Ghosts can even have families. I haven't tried this out myself but MJ Chun told us this is very funny and we should try it out. I'll be sure to do this sometime.
As for other creatures. I don't really like how aliens have been removed from the game. You can't have aliens in your game, as they are just not part of the game anymore. I personally don't like this. I loved having aliens in my neighborhood. Other creatures are not in the game either. There are no zombies, no vampires (even though there have been rumors about this before), no Servo's, no werewolves, no plantsims, no Big Foot's and no witches. Now I know pretty much all of these creatures were not part of the base game in The Sims 2. And I'm not saying they won't make a comeback in an expansion pack. But the base game doesn't even have aliens. So I'm wondering what we can expect in the future. I hope EA will bring some creatures back.
CAS (Create a Sim)
Remember how happy we were when we got The Sims 2? The original game, The Sims, was very limited when it came to skins. For The Sims (1), creators had to create 3 different skins, one for each skin tone (light, medium, dark). In The Sims 2, we had seperate skins to put on our Sims bodies. This was a huge improvement.
In The Sims 3, it's even better. You can customize each part of the skin (top, bottom, shoes) with patterns and colors. No Sim will ever have to look the same again. The same goes for hair. Although I have to add that skins have limits to which colors you can pick. I hope this will change in the future as well. I'd love to be able to create literally white, black and purple Sims. Nonetheless there are tons of possibilities. Ones we've never had before. There are items like glasses, jewelry, socks in CAS. Make-up is easy to customize like any other item in Create a Sim. You can make your Sims look really natural or complete whacky. Eyes are also customizable.
One clothing category has been removed, the underwear category. This is now just included in the nightwear category. Each clothing category has the clothing pieces divided into bottom and top. The one piece outfits are still present in each category, except for the sports clothing.
Sims can be modified in many ways. You now have sliders to make your Sims fat, or thin, or something in between. Sims can be really thin, or really fat. You have also a slider for muscles. Hair can be chosen per outfit. You can choose a voice for your Sim. You can choose from several types of voices and the pitch.
Favorites
In Create a Sim, you can choose a personality for your Sim. This contains traits, lifetime wishes and also favorites; favorite music genre, favorite food and favorite color.
Homes
Looking at Sims 3 it sometimes feels as if we're going back to The Sims. Especially when it comes to houses and placing them in the neighborhoods. I don't know how to bring this and stay optimistic about it. But in The Sims 3, you cannot freely place a lot like you can in The Sims 2. There are fixed slots you have to put them on. There are many slots, but it's still somewhat restricted.
You can make lots of homes though. These homes can be shared on the Exchange or with friends, or on your fansite if you have one.
In Map View, you can click a home and make it a community lot. This also works the other way around.
An awesome new feature is that you can choose a home furnished or unfurnished when you move your Sims in. This can come in handy sometimes.
Buy Mode and Build Mode
The cool new tool in the game is create a style, where a player can style everything in the house with a single click. You create a style in a panel with patterns and colors. You drag this upon another object and boom, it's looking great with your other objects. This saves people a lot of time recoloring. But at the same time it doesn't leave too many things to do for creators.
In general, there aren't too many objects in the base game compared to the Sims 2 base game. Most items come from The Sims 2 (or its expansion packs). But the big difference this time is that you can customize them anyway you like. You can literally match everything and that opens up a whole new world.
The build mode has the same create a style tool. It works on almost any item, except for fences, stairs and roofs. Too bad because it made it harder for me to match them with the house I was creating.
There are no podiums and half walls in the game. I'm hoping they will come back in an expansion. I am so used to half walls now. I don't have too many homes that do not use half walls. And I often use the podiums inside homes when creating a staircase.
I noticed the weirdest thing when creating a pool in the game. I didn't spot a diving board. I'm wondering if I just couldn't find it, or if it really isn't in the game. You wouldn't think EA has forgotten to put one in the game right?
The most awesome feature in the game has got to be the 360 degrees option for objects. In The Sims 2, we got a cheat in one of the first expansion packs where we could turn objects 45 degrees and we thought it was really cool. It didn't always work well. The objects would bleed through walls, so you'd have to use other cheats for moving the objects a little. Or they wouldn't function well. In The Sims 3 it's so much better. You can turn objects with the ALT-key (while turning the object with your mouse of course). And you no longer need to use a cheat to move objects without having them snap to the slots, also use the ALT-key for this. And now we're talking about slots, you can place many items on different slots on tables and counters.
Did I already mention there is a half grid you can use to place objects? There is still the old style grid, but you can place objects half on a grid. This adds some possibilities.
If you are changing bits and parts of your Sims homes, and you need to add an extension to the building, use the Hand tool. The hand tool can easily grab and drag a wall to make a room bigger or smaller. Wall paint will also be copied, so you don't need to add or remove this yourself.
The mailbox and garbage bin can be styled with the create a style tool. This adds a personal touch to each home. You can also place them on other places on the lot, so you don't need the moveobjects on/off cheat anymore to be able to do that! Ceilings have been included in The Sims 3. But as far as I know you can't customize them.
I myself loved the Quarter Tiles tool that was ported from The Sims 2 Pets. Just press Control+F and you'll be able to place quarters of floor tiles. Rotating tiles is still possible as well. Just use the < and > buttons and you will be able to turn floor pieces around.
When you create a Sim and move them into a home somewhere, you will notice that they immediately have a cell phone in their inventory. I don't know yet if other electronics like the handheld and mp3 player are also in the game. But cell phones are.
The sledgehammer is back in The Sims 3. This gives you the opportunity to delete items easily with a single click.
The user interface of the Buy and Build Mode is completely different. Before we had the choice between Room and Function. Those are both still available. But the Room view really shows the illustration of a room with all the furniture types. You can click these items and you'll get the catalog. Some people think this looks cluttered. Some really love it. I'm one of the people who love it. I don't know why but I just do. It's cute and each room type has a different illustration. The build mode also has an illustration.
Cars and Bicycles
A little chat about cars. There are cars in the base game! That's definitely good news. There are plenty of cars to choose from, cheap ones, expensive ones. You can of course also use the create a style tool on the cars. And a major positive point for cars is that you can place them anywhere on the lot. It's possible now since cars no longer drive away from the lot. They fade away from the lot. So you could even place a car on foundation if you'd like.
In The Sims 3, we have bicycles! Sims can use a bike to travel some place. It looks very cool as well. If you don't like cars or bicycles, you can always walk or run somewhere.
Neighborhood
In The Sims 3, there is one default neighborhood called Sunset Valley. It's a pretty neighborhood, a bit town like. Right after the release you can download another official neighborhood on www.thesims3.com called Riverview. Riverview is more a farmers neighborhood, also very pretty.
A downside to the neighborhoods in The Sims 3 is that we cannot actually make our own neighborhoods. I don't know if EA will release a tool in the future to make your own neighborhoods. I do hope so. I really want my own neighborhoods as well.
Don't worry too much though. You may not be able to create new blank neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has several slots you can play on. So you could divide them into a neighborhood you play with, one for your legacies, one for testing and so on.
The community buildings are really nice to see. I went to take a look at them, to see what we could change about them. Sadly we can't change anything. So they will always look the same. I found out that the buildings are in fact objects - ones you cannot modify in any way. Looking at some of the screenshots before it made me very happy because it looked like we could use the French roofs and decoration items from Apartment Life. But those are not included in the game.
Because the neighborhood is so open, your Sims can go anywhere and you don't have loading screens anymore while playing. The only loading screens you will see is when you start your game and switch between editing the town and creating a family in CAS. The neighborhood is seamless. You can visit community lots and you will see other neighbors walking, reading, traveling, doing all kinds of things you never saw before. Not like this anyway. You can also visit your neighbors.
In your Sims friends list you can see family, friends, acquaintances and when you click them, you get the option to chat with them or invite them over (both are telephone actions). Perhaps this is only available when you have a cell phone. But it's a cool feature nonetheless.
Families
Those of you who played The Sims 2 and perhaps even The Sims, know a little bit about the families in the games. In The Sims, you had the Goth family, the Newbies, Bachelor, Pleasant and a few others. In The Sims 2 we also had all of these families. But in The Sims 2, the families were older. Mortimer Goth was an elder and his wife Bella had magically disappeared. Their daughter had grown into a beautiful woman. As for the Newbies, they had gotten a daughter Brandi who married the Broke guy who mysteriously passed away. The Pleasants were also in the game, all with their own families. As for Mrs. Crumplebottom, does she need any explanation? I don't think so.
In The Sims 3 some of the families are still in the game. The Goth's and Bachelor's of course. Mortimer and Bella are kids in The Sims 3. So you could bring them back together, or hook them up with completely different Sims. That's all up to you. Mrs (Agnes) Crumplebottom is also in the game. She actually seems like a nice person in The Sims 3. But of course, you could make her all grumpy and evil. A few more families in The Sims 3 you may recognize are the Landgraabs and the Langeraks. There are some old families in de game and a bunch of new ones.
NPC's and Characters
Of course there are non player controllable characters in this time. The maid is one of them. There are more NPC's but I'll let you find out about all of them when you get the game. Something I thought was rather funny I discovered in the game is the newspaper delivery guy who brought my Sim the daily newspaper, is that he was on a bicycle. That's very American. Although I didn't see him actually throw the newspaper in front of the house. He got off his bike and put the newspaper down nicely. Funny!
Cooking and Ingredients
Cooking in The Sims 3 reminds me of cooking in The Sims 2 on consoles. It's nothing like The Sims 2 on PC really. You get to buy ingredients in the supermarket. And with these ingredients and recipes you can create meals. I have yet to try all of this out myself. But I'm sure it's fun. It's a lot more realistic than in The Sims 2 were you just buy groceries in general. Of course, in The Sims 2 Seasons certain many ingredients like apples, tomatoes were added to the game. You could add these to the juicer or to the fridge. The juicer could make certain drinks and these would help your Sim make homework or gain skills easily and so son. The fridge would have the freshest (and fulfilling) meals. I don't know enough yet about The Sims 3 to know if we'll have a juicer. But there are ingredients and some of them can even be eaten without using them in meals (like apples).
Music
I got a chance to listen to some of the Sims 3 music before I attended the event. I have to say that I personally like the new soundtrack. The main theme still has the Sims 2 theme in it, but has been revamped completely to match The Sims 3. There are a bunch of nice songs in The Sims 3. Many of them were composed by the same man (Steve Jablonsky) who composed the Desperate Housewives soundtrack. I'm not a huge Desperate Housewives fan. My mom is though, so I got to see the show several times and know very well what that music sounds like. There are a lot of similarities. At least I think so.
There are a few radio stations; Classical, Electronica, Indie, Kids, Latin, Pop and then we have the Build Mode music, Buy Mode music, Map View music (neighborhood) and CAS music. The categories in general don't have that many songs just yet. But this is just the base game. I bet EA will add more music in the upcoming expansion packs.
Sims also have a favorite music genre. I don't know if the Sims will really hate other genres, but they sure have a preference.
You will be able to put your own favorite music in the game. This is even a music genre in the game. Some Sims will prefer custom music!
Custom Content
As far as custom content goes. I'm pretty sure many of the fans are thrilled with the tools that come with the game. The tools in CAS and of course the tools to create styles for furniture and homes in general are very cool for general fans. It doesn't leave to many things for creators and fansites though.
When I asked MJ Chun about this, she did understand where I was coming from with this. Many people already asked for a pattern tool to create custom patterns. There is a chance EA will release such a tool. But I don't know for sure if they will.
It will take a little while for the community to find out how to create meshes for the game. I will make sure SNW offers cool downloads for The Sims 3. But you guys will have to be patient. ;-)
The Sims 3 Launcher
You may know what the launcher is, as we've had a few of them with The Sims 2 as well. But in The Sims 3 the launcher looks a lot better and has more functions. You can manage your custom content with the launcher. But it's also an upload manager at the same time. The base function for the launcher is still starting up your game. It has more functions but you will have to find them out yourself.
Community
Each The Sims game has had a community with cool stuff. With The Sims 3, this is even better. If you register yourself on the official site, you get to chat on the forums, enjoy your profile page (which is called My Page) with your uploads, your movies and your favorites. You can maintain a blog. You can make buddies with your community friends. You can send messages. It's all really cool.
The Sims 3 Store
I am trying hard to stay positive but I've come to a point in this preview where I have to be honest to my readers and I don't think it'll be easy being positive when it comes to the store.
As you may have already seen in the past, EA opened up a store for The Sims 2. It contained some nice items. But many of them were very buggy (curtains that when placed diagonally turn into a completely different curtain from a previous expansion pack, windows that have to be placed inside out in order to let some light into the rooms and more like that). Let's hope The Sims 3 Store is better.
I did get to take a quick peek at the store and its prices and I'm not happy. In general, there are sets with less items than we've had in stuff packs and they cost even more. I don't get that and I can't relate to it. They may be pretty objects but I think it's expensive enough already with all the expansions, at least one every 6 months.
I also spotted some object sets containing objects we've seen before in Sims 2 expansions! That's really ridiculous. I don't plan on paying for objects that - if you really start to think about - I've already paid for in The Sims 2. Even if you can customize them, I still don't like the idea of having to pay for objects I've paid for in The Sims 2. I can't afford if, even if I'd want to buy them.
It's a good thing there are fansites who try to give the community free objects and other items. Because I seriously don't think there will be many Sims fans who can afford to pay for a game with several expansions, perhaps also stuff packs AND all those expensive items in the store. I would love to buy them, but not with these prices. I've spoken to many people about this and it seems everyone agrees. The items are nice, but no one can afford to buy them.
Movie Mash-up Tool
In The Sims 2 we already had the opportunity to make our own movies with the game. There were many restrictions though and editing them wasn't always easy. You needed an external program like the Windows Movie Maker. That has changed now.
In The Sims 3, you have an online movie mash-up tool you can use to create awesome movies with special effects, text and transitions. It's all very easy to use and within no time you have a cool movie you can show the entire world, or just your friends.
Teasers
The same day we were at the event, EA released a few Sims 3 teasers. Nothing like Bodyshop in The Sims 2. These teasers are online features you can play with until The Sims 3 is in stores. I don't know how long the features will be online. But I'm guessing they won't be online forever. I personally like SimSocial. Some of my friends told me it's like Kudos? I don't know Kudos but I sure like the idea of SimSocial.
SimFriend
SimFriend is an application where you can choose a Sim (20 random Sims) who will e-mail you. This Sim friend has traits, skills, a career, achievements, simoleons. The goal is that you guide your Sim friend along the way. By doing this, the skills, career, simoleons etc go up. You should try it out yourself on
http://simfriend.thesims3.com as I haven't played enough with this application to tell you all about it. And it's more fun to find out yourself anyway.
SimSocial
SimSocial is an application on Facebook where you customize your Sim and get a job, interact with your friends and skill to get a better job. It seems really repetitive but I've tried it, and once you do, it's pretty addictive. As your Sim works, he or she makes money. You can use this money to travel to and from work, go out with friends, buy items, take classes, do regular items like taking a bath and so on.
http://simsocial.thesims3.com
SimSideKick
SimSideKick is an application where a Sim travels along with you while you're browsing. I tried this myself but I myself don't like it. I don't like applications saving information on where I've been on the Internet. And it's in my way. I'm sure it's fun, but it's not for me. You should check it out yourself first though. My opinion is not necessarily yours. Perhaps you love this application:
http://simsidekick.com
Afterword
I have been negative about certain aspects in the game and relating subjects like the Store. I tried to write a positive preview. And I think it really is. I'm just trying to write an honest preview for my members and readers. If I'd lie to them, they would expect certain things from the game, and they would eventually blame me for not being honest. I'm always honest in my previews and this time isn't any different. I gave my personal opinion on some things. Of course, this does not mean the readers share my opinion. Some people decide not to buy a certain game. You'd be surprised how many people are convinced to buy it anyway, even if they decided not to buy it.
I'm not saying this game isn't worth buying. I myself pre-ordered it and I still want to have it. And once I do, I want to play it. But it feels to me like I won't be as thrilled as I was with the release of The Sims 2. So for the time being I'd say, hold on to that Sims 2 collection. Don't throw or give it away just yet. You may end up missing it.
Overall The Sims 3 is a really cool game. Lots of new features that The Sims 2 didn't have. I think most fans will be thrilled about the new improved create a Sim and of course the create a style tool in the game itself. It will save people a lot of time so they can focus more on playing the game. It's just really cool to make your own patterns with this tool. I'm hoping EA will release a pattern tool someday so the fans can make even more unique patterns.
My main conclusion is, a true fan should buy the game. But you should keep in mind that this is the sequel's base game and it's possible you may miss a lot of things we are used to from The Sims 2 and all its expansions. That's inevitable. The game is really cool, especially with the new create a style tool. I made sure I pre-ordered the (Collector's Edition) game so I get the game on time. And the extras don't hurt either.
The game is truly beautiful. The water looks awesome. The trees, shrubs and flowers look great as well. And they move while playing. The Sims have improved in general, their looks as well as their artificial intelligence. Looking at screenshots the Sims look kinda plastic, but seeing them in the game makes them come alive. The game is fast on mediocre computers. You don't need the best computer out there, this game will work on many older computers as well.
I did not write about everything in The Sims 3. First of all because it's just not possible. Second of all because some other sites found out some things and I didn't want to 'steal' their scoops. Plus, I'd like you all to discover some fun things yourself. I've seen some very funy things in the game. But I just think it's cooler to see them for yourself :)
I really hope you enjoyed reading my preview. I tried to make it an easy to read, honest and extended preview with lots of information. I hope I convinced you to buy the game, if you weren't planning on doing so. I think you should. It's a cool game.
