The Sims (PC)

Developer:

Maxis

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Release Date:

2000

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Systems:

PC, Mac

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing The Sims! The original game from the year 2000, installed right off the CD I bought and played it from years ago. In fact I don't even think you can buy this digitally, which sucks. I haven't got any of the expansions but from what I've heard I'm probably better keeping my installation light. At least if I want to avoid suffering long loading times and crashes.

My Super Adventures gimmick for this year is 'games that have appeared on a top ten list' and I found The Sims on an old list of bestselling PC games ever, right up at number 1. It kicked the ass of all the previous 'Sim' games like SimCity and SimAnt, and I can see why. It's pretty much the most relatable video game ever made as it's simulating everyone's normal life, to a degree that no game had ever managed up to this point. This time you're controlling the people who live in the SimCity, the tiny Sims that complain about crime and traffic all the time, and you get to dress them up and buy them microwaves and stuff!

To be honest I've been meaning to write about the game forever, but it's always been too daunting for me. Other people always manage to construct insane narratives around their Sims' lives and I know my own playthrough is going to be depressingly sedate and uneventful by comparison. I just don't have it in me to torture my little computer people! I'm not going to let them use the oven and burn the house down, I'm not going to seal them up in a wall in a puddle of their own urine, and I'm definitely not going to build a swimming pool and then delete the steps when they're in. So really, what's even the point of this?

But eventually I came to an epiphany: if nothing interesting happens then that's the game's fault, not mine! I'm just going to play it as boring and normal as possible and if see if the various interacting simulations can give us some entertainment. C'mon game, amuse me!

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Hey you did get to see a burning stove after all, thanks to the intro video at the start. This is basically just showing clips of gameplay to demonstrate what the little Sims can get up to.

Those kitchen counters are making me so nostalgic and so is that fire, but there's something off about the 3D arrow above Sim #2's head. That's not an official The Sims™ Plumbob!

In real life a plumb bob is a weight suspended from string used in construction to check if something is entirely vertical, so there's a bit of connection there with making your own houses if you squint. In the game however it serves a very different purpose. A legit crystal-shaped Plumbob hovers above the active Sim and shows you how they're feeling, with green meaning happy and red meaning sad.

Alright, this is what you get when the intro's finished. No menu screen, just this. I like the pretty animated water. I also like that huge mansion at the top, which is currently unoccupied and entirely unaffordable. I guess it's there as a goal to work towards for players who are more into making money than making buildings.

The buttons along the top are 'Make a family', 'Evict a family', 'Quit' and 'Internet', so there's something there to suit everyone's interests. I tried clicking the button on the right and a box came up assuring me that it was updating the web pages for each of the families in the neighbourhood. Uh, good to know?

I could just click on an occupied house to start playing as one of the existing families, but I'd rather make my own.

The later Sims games have some fairly powerful character creators, but The Sims 1 really doesn't. There's no face editing at all, and all the clothing comes as one complete outfit without even giving you the option to tweak the colour.

There are three skin tones though and you can choose to make a child or an adult. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to set up the relationships, so I can't connect people as parent and child, siblings, or couples.

It's also lacking in ways to really make the Sims into distinctive people, as all I can do is assign points to those personality categories on the left. I can't pick traits, or aspirations, or turn-offs, or anything like that.

The Sims FaceLift

Fortunately Maxis at least made up for the lack of face options by releasing a free face creation tool called FaceLift! Each of those faces around the outside are variations on the one in the centre. You click the one that looks closest to what you want and that becomes the new middle face.

Then once you're close to what you want you can fine tune some of the features with sliders.

The Sims FaceLift

It's nowhere near as good an editor as you get in the later games, but you can create some real monsters with it.

There are zero options here for editing the rest of their body, but there is another tool called The Sims Creator which can help there.

The Sims Creator

It lets you pick from a (limited) set of different upper and lower body garments and even give them different patterns. What makes this pretty unique as character editors go is that you can just keep layering new clothes on top. If you want your Sim to be wearing a shirt, a leather jacket, a vest over the top and a bow tie you can make it happen.

The Sims Creator

You can also scribble all over the clothes afterwards, though it's not the most responsive 3D paint package I've ever used. Still, it's pretty impressive considering that this was released at a time that the PSX was struggling to stop textures from wobbling and the N64 could barely load them at all.

The Sims Creator also has one other trick:

The Sims Creator

It can turn photos into faces! The thing doesn't work as well as it could have though, as it's hard to get the tone to match the rest of the face without a brightness slider. It's still fun to play around with.

I won't be needing either of these tools however, as if I'm going to write about the game I want to do this properly! The game was designed to make it easy for players to add their own content, so I'm going to Photoshop up some famous low-polygon video game characters for my family and drop the texture files into the skins folder.

In fact I'm going to make some classic VG characters to populate the neighbourhood as well, so that I have someone to invite over. Shouldn't take too long.

LATER

Man, these skin textures are taking forever to make! I couldn't pick any characters with interesting clothing or body shapes as I don't want to go hunting for meshes that match, but even these basic meshes can be a pain in the ass to work with. Mostly because I'm having to use a lot of trial and error to get everything mapped onto the right polygons. I'm sure there are probably unclothed skins and proper templates I could be working from, but I haven't bothered to do the research and I'm now I'm paying for it.

Though I did find a free model viewer called SimShow, which is really helping. I have to keep tweaking part of the texture, saving it, then refreshing SimShow to check if I've got the straps on the legs lined up and make sure the collar isn't getting stretched over the entire neck.

Alright that's one texture file down... man, how many more of these am I going to need to make?

EVEN LATER

Alright I've made my family and bought them a plot of land for $10,500. Hang on, that's not a dollar sign, that's a § simoleon symbol... and that text is all Comic Sans.

My custom-made Sims have started off standing on the street with nothing but a newspaper, a weird American-style mail box with a little red flag on it, and a rubbish bin. Their brains kicked in right away and they started looking for something to do, but Claude got to the newspaper first so the others will have to talk to each other or something. Free will is actually optional, there's a checkbox for it in the settings, but I was raised better than to remove a person's free will (even if it only affects the family you're controlling, not the entire world).

Each character has their own separate set of needs, indicated by those eight bars on the bottom left, and I'm going to struggle to satisfy them without a house. Fortunately the game has three modes: simulation, buying and building, so I can switch over and get started on the construction immediately.

Oh man, this build mode theme is so nostalgic! I feel like I should hate the game's soundtrack, it's really not what I'd typically listen to, but it suits it so perfectly.

Build mode is easy, I just click a category icon in the middle, click what I want to put down from the pictures on the right, and then put it into the world. In this case I'm dragging to draw walls.

Time is frozen in editing mode so I don't have to worry about my Sims dying of starvation and pissing themselves. Well I mean I do, that's definitely a thing that could happen, but I get to relax and build my house first.

The architecture editor was actually going to be the core of the game at first. Creator Will Wright lost his home in a fire and was inspired to make a game about building a new house. But during development the developers realised that controlling the people living inside the houses would be even more interesting, so that became the focus.

This is a really slick editor and it didn't take me long to come up with a layout I liked. A living room, a kitchen/dining room, four tiny bedrooms and two bathrooms. Everything's kind of small right now, but I'll be able to expand the place once some money starts coming in. Alright now I need doors, windows, wallpaper, floors and lighting, and then I can think about buying some cheap furniture.

Oh crap, I just realised I've only got §708 left over after building the walls! I have massively overestimated how much my §9,500 was worth. Not a problem, I'll just delete them all and then start over with a less expensive layout.

Damn, it didn't occur to me to use 'undo' instead of selling the walls, and it turns out you don't get all you money back! Now I only have §7,540 to build my first home. I'm even more screwed. Alright, new plan: I'll put the essential furniture down first and then use the cash I have left over to build whatever walls I can.

SOON

Okay this looks bad, but I think we'll be alright as long as it doesn't rain. They've got everything they need: chairs, beds, a microwave, a fridge, a bathroom, and a phone. Sims don't have mobile phones in this so they'll be relying on that.

I don't know how obvious it is in a static screenshot, but all the walls and objects in this are 2D images. Only the Sims themselves are 3D models. I think it looks pretty good, but it does mean the game's locked to this diametric projection and you can only rotate the camera 90 degrees.

Alright my next goal is to bring some money in so I can literally afford to put a roof over their heads. Fortunately they started off with the exact tool I need for that: the newspaper.

There's only one job on offer here, but that doesn't mean they can't all take it. And they don't even need to pass a job interview!

Each different job in the game puts you on a different career track, so you can theoretically start as a mailroom clerk and get promoted all the way up to CEO. I hope so at least; I want to bring in some CEO money.

This job's 9 to 3, but it's only 7:42 am right now so if I'm quick they'll all able to start work on the same morning they applied.

Look at this beautiful beat up old Chevy Bel Air that just turned up! Better jobs get you better cars, so I'm going to have to enjoy it while it lasts. It's not my car though. Folks in this neighbourhood use carpools to get to work, and right now everyone who has to leave has put 'go to work' in their queue of actions (shown in the top left), and they'll be making their own way down here as soon as possible.

Once a Sim leaves the lot they're out of your sight and your control. By The Sims 4 the games let you can choose whether your Sim focuses on the job or chats with co-workers etc., but this just gets rid of them for a third of the day.

Weirdly whenever neighbours show up to visit they're always on foot, and two of them just arrived to welcome us to the neighbourhood!

It's Duke and Ranger from the Shooter household! I should've known one of them would be the first person to turn up.

I decided to give Squall and Snake the mailroom job to bring in some cash while I keep Lara and Claude at home for now. Their job will be to invite the guests into our grassy abode and win them over with their charm.

The game keeps track of each Sim's relationships with other Sims and it's my interest to make friends. You can see how well a conversation is going by the plus and minus signs appearing over their heads as they talk. I tried giving Ranger a compliment here and it backfired, sending him into the minus numbers.

When I tell a Sim to interact with something or someone I get this wheel of options.

It's a pretty straightforward and intuitive system, and it's certainly giving me all the options I could want for the newspaper (I think I'll keep it around, it's the only entertainment they've got right now). Unfortunately my conversation choices are incredibly limited, and kind of weird sometimes. I mean these guys are almost complete strangers and they don't even like each other, so why is 'tickle' one of my four options?

The Sims 2 (PC)

Later games increased the amount of options dramatically, and even though it can feel a bit overwhelming it's definitely better than the alternative. In The Sims 2 you can even choose what meals to cook instead of just 'grab a snack', 'prepare dinner' and 'prepare dinner for everyone'.

The Sims 2 also has a shinier interface that looks even more like a Winamp skin. I love that semi-skeuomorphic style, it makes it easier to mentally compartmentalise that overwhelming array of icons and meters. Oh, by the way, that meter under the character image wasn't introduced until the sequels, and it measures a Sim's age.

In the later games Sims will eventually become elderly and die from natural causes, unless you take steps to prevent it (like disabling it in the options). In The Sims 2 the trick is to get the Elixir of Life, which gives you a maximum of 15 extra days. It costs a ton of aspiration points though, so you have to help your Sims live their best life, or they'll die! That's a lot of stress that The Sims 1 doesn't have.

Man, that's such a Duke Nukem move: to walk into the bathroom while someone's taking a crap. Ranger is absolutely furious with him, so this can't have helped their relationship any. They're both visitors though, so I can't check and see their own relationship meters. They're in my house but I don't control them.

So now they're both stuck there until Duke can figure out how to step out of the way and let Reaper out, which isn't great seeing as it's our only toilet. The game is at its most awkward when two Sims get jammed like this and it can take them a surprisingly long time to resolve it.

Lara's AI is being much more impressive right now as she's decided to go to the fridge and prepare food all by herself. She automatically put the ingredients down on the nearest empty kitchen counter and she automatically used the microwave as well. She also automatically paid my last §20 to do it, so I guess the fridge is more like a vending machine in this. I hope she's making enough for everyone!

She's got zero cooking skills, but that's okay as there's nothing here for her to burn down the house with. There's barely any house in fact. I need some money so I can make my screenshots more interesting!

Lara did automatically make enough food for everyone! That's not a sure thing, so I'm glad her particular arrangement of personality points pushed her into making that choice. It wasn't the best meal, I've got a cheap fridge, no cooking skills and a microwave, but it was enough to fill their hunger meters. Plus Bella Goth dropped by so we all got to have a chat around the dinner table.

Claude automatically gathered up the plates afterwards and washed them, which helps. Gotta clear them away or else they attract flies and that lowers the room score. Now that they've eaten and cleaned up my Sims' biggest issue is their lack of fun. Not much I can do about that though, as there's no activities like jogging in this that I can send them off doing on their own. I suppose they could take turns reading the paper again.

The Sims (PS2)

Here's the same scene in the console version of The Sims, which came out on PS2, GameCube and Xbox, and was kind enough to start me off with enough money for walls and floors!

I'm surprised by how similar it is as a game, but it's not quite the same. For one thing the default mode gives you a series of goals to complete and I didn't realise the classic free play Sims mode was even in the game at first. For another thing, it's full 3D!

Unfortunately the interface takes all the fun out of building houses, at least for me. Maybe there's a way to make build mode fun with a controller but this has just been frustrating. It's a shame, because after playing with the game for ten minutes it seems like it can do everything the PC game can.

Snake and Squall both got promoted on their first day! This means I have some money to build walls and doors! Well okay, maybe just a bit of a wall. I also need to do something about their empty fun gauges so I'll buy them a TV.

Oh no, I forgot about saving some money for food!

Now Lara's gotten caught in a 'no food' cycle of walking to the empty fridge and coming away with disappointment and it's making her sad. Still, at least there's plenty of people here to talk to now. Lots of visitors and voices speaking in simlish.

Alright, that's the end of day 1.

Oh come on, we're literally asleep and the TV isn't even on!

Time acceleration kicks in automatically once all the Sims are sleeping or at work (though it can be activated any time you want), so I just had to wait a minute or so and it was morning again.

They all went to bed at the same time so their energy meters reached full at the same time. Now they're all up and starving... and we still have no money for food. I keep hearing the 'WA WA WAAAAAAA' sound of failure over and over again as they open the fridge door. At least the empty fridge will keep some of them distracted and prevent a queue forming for the bathroom.

I got Lara and Claude jobs this time, and when everyone was at work the time acceleration kicked in again. This time around I know better than to spend their entire income on walls and TVs and leave nothing for the fridge. A second bathroom is definitely high on the list of priorities though.

A FEW DAYS LATER

We're doing well so far. Not quite well enough for a new bathroom, or a floor, or a front door, but well enough for food and a brand new chess board!

If we want to keep increasing our income, we're going to need more promotions. Trouble is that the higher you get in a career track, the more skills and friends you need to have to make it to the next tier. The game's telling me that right now Lara needs two points of logic to move forward in her career, and that a few hours of chess should sort that out.

Meanwhile Claude's working on his mechanical skill. Not for his job, I just told him to unblock the toilet. You can see the meter above his head filling up as he works. It's nice that activities increase skills in this (except cooking, inexplicably), so doing jobs around the house actually benefits you in some way.

You just have to be careful, as trying to repair something with low skills doesn't always have a happy outcome....

The Sims 2 (PC)

Like in this shot from The Sims 2, where Squall tried to fix his PC, got electrocuted and nearly burned his house down. Fortunately Snake was outside the room away from all the panic, so he was calm enough to phone up the fire brigade. And no one died! Though now I have to save up enough money to buy a replacement PC.

Oh hang on, there's bills to pay as well! Man, I need more money, not less! I'm going to tell them to turn the TV off when they go to bed, see if that helps.

It seems like bills are pretty much the only purpose of the mail box in The Sims 1, and you have to remember to bring them in yourself; no one seems to do it automatically.

I was able to finish the outside of the house thanks to a random §1000 reward! Now I have to punch a few window holes into my beautiful new walls to let a bit of a light in during the day. I've also bought some lights for when it gets late.

Later games let you construct towering monstrosities (once you have the cash) but I think two storeys is the limit in this first game. I like the idea of having a second floor, it'd make it feel more like a real house, but I have vague traumatic memories of trying it in the past and it not working out great. The last thing I need is to give these Sims is a place to hide and a trickier route to the bathroom. It probably wouldn't be so bad if both floors were visible on screen at once somehow and I could scroll over, but flipping between them with buttons doesn't work great for me.

Okay, now I'm ready to... wait a few more days for enough money to come in to afford to decorate the place! More money, more flooring. Lara's just gotten her second logic skill point so that promotion should be coming along any time now.

LATER

Lara got her promotion! I could afford a second shower! Finally, my most basic version of the house is completed! I even stuck some daffodils outside, because I guess I want to torment myself with another plate to keep spinning (they need watering every now and then).

I haven't found an eye-dropper tool here to let me grab an object/wallpaper style/etc. from the house and replicate it, but it's still pretty easy to get everything decorated quickly. You can drag flooring to cover a whole rectangle of ground, or wallpaper an entire room in one click.

The Sims 4 (PC)

The original game is missing the amazing editing functions introduced later though. By The Sims 4 you can drag walls, rotate rooms, even duplicate rooms. It makes quick upgrades almost effortless and I really miss it.

In Sims 1 if you want to extend a room a bit you have to demolish the original wall, build a new one, cover it on both sides with replacement wallpaper etc., replace the windows and fill in the missing flooring... without an eye-dropper tool.

Awesome, I just made my first family friend! The trick was to load up Lara's action queue with talking and leave her going for hours. Meanwhile I had Squall busy befriending Duke Nukem to increase the friend count to 2.

A message popped up and told me that if Sims don't spend enough time with their friends their relationship will start to fade. In fact it drops by 2 points a day it seems. So it's not enough just to make a friend, you've got to keep inviting them over and giving them attention. Not that easy when there's no days off and no weekends!

I got them all to bed again, but a sinister theme came on and knocked the game out of time acceleration. Seems that a burglar's approaching!

The sneaky git has already helped himself to my chess table and now he's about to pinch my beautiful CRT television! I've switched to each of my Sims and clicked the bed icon in their 'list of things to do' to cancel it, but they're not waking up! Man I should've bought a burglar alarm.

Still, at least this gives me a chance to show off the game's picture in picture feature. Yay.

I can't let my people live without entertainment, I need to get all their needs met before work to maximise their job performance, so there's only one thing I can do to fix this...

There you go, that new widescreen television will deliver fun at unprecedented rates! My efficiency has been enhanced... though SNES games probably won't look as good anymore.

I also hired a maid at §10 an hour to clean up the plates/crisp packets/bathrooms, because it was getting ridiculous and my Sims need all the free time they can get. Doesn't seem like you can make friends with maids in this however, so there's an opportunity for an extra family friend denied to me.

Lara accidentally skipped a day of work as she was too into her food, but that's fine as you don't get fired unless you skip two days consecutively (in fact that's the only way to quit). I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and had her phone up Ranger to try to make friends with the grumpy bastard. She eventually pulled it off, but she was so tired afterwards that she fell asleep on her way to the bed.

Meanwhile Squall has been working on winning over Sheva from the Resident household.

Huh, this conversation's taken a bit of a turn.

Lara was struggling with Ranger but Squall and Sheva have really hit it off this afternoon. I'm tempted to take a chance and choose 'kiss' at the risk of accidentally tanking their friendship in one move. I mean it's not like I can pick 'talk' anymore, the game has stolen that option from me.

'Propose' is there as well, tempting me. Any Sim can marry anyone else by the way, the devs never implemented sexual preferences. Though can Squall really marry Sheva on the same day they met?

Oh crap, propose worked! Squall and Sheva just got married on the spot, no marriage officiant required! Sheva's moved in! Wait, this is terrible news... it means I've just lost the family friend I spent all afternoon trying to gain and Snake can't get his next promotion! Sheva can't be a family friend if she's part of the family.

I need to buy the two of them a double bed now I suppose. And a bedroom. In fact bedrooms for everyone, why not?

This is weird though: I figured their marriage would unlock the option for 'woohoo' and also let them try for a baby, but nope.

The Sims 4 (PC)

There's plenty of woohoo going on beneath the covers of Squall's bed in The Sims 4, trouble is it's Claude in there with a woman he just met. They just went straight for that bed, it wasn't my choice!

By Sims 4 the Sims have moods, traits and goals, and Claude is a happy mood right now, due to all those reasons listed under his portrait. Squall is... less cheerful. During character creation I decided to give Squall a romance goal, because it seemed to fit. Trouble I also gave him a loner trait, so he doesn't really want to be around people. This complications make things more interesting than in Sims 1, plus it's more obvious why Sims are behaving the way they are.

So how do you get kids in The Sims 1 anyway? Actually here's another, more urgent, question: who the hell is phoning me up now?

Wow, that's an interesting question to be asked out of the blue. They're really putting me on the spot here. Uh... that sounds like a nightmare that may never end, but okay sure! Let's see what looking after a baby in The Sims 1 is like.

SOON

Man, looking after a baby in The Sims 1 is a pain in the ass. It's like raising an alarm clock that's set to go off at random times during the day, and you don't know what option turns it off so you have to try all of them in a row. It's a little too realistic.

Fortunately I hadn't gotten around to giving Sheva a job yet, so she can be around to look after the baby during the 16 hours the others are at work or asleep. I've also got her studying cookery in the hopes that one day we can get a stove without a risk of setting the whole kitchen ablaze. It should be much better than that microwave.

The more expensive my furniture and appliances, the more effective they are at filling up those need bars, and the more free time my Sims get. Trouble is that all they're doing in that free time is building skills and making friends in order to get promotions. It's a very dull life.

The Sims 3 (PC)

Later Sims games keep rolling new wishes for each Sim that go along with their personality and interests, like 'buy an expensive TV' or 'work out', so you've always got tiny goals to achieve. These games are all about making your own fun, but it helps when the game gives you little pushes towards doing something interesting instead of falling into a monotonous grind.

Oh plus there's one thing I forgot about The Sims 3: it simulates the whole damn neighbourhood at once! Or tries to anyway, it's a bit demanding on your PC. You can scroll the camera over and go check on someone else's house, or you can follow Sims down the street to the gym or the shop, it's amazing. It's also the only game that does this as they took the feature out for Sims 4. In fact a lot of fans would argue that they took too much out of Sims 4, apparently so they could sell it back to them separately.

Oh come on, I've been looking after the baby! I've got a team of people working around the clock looking after that baby! Sometimes they need to take a shower is all. Man, we're going to have to hire a nanny now aren't we?

Damn, there's no nanny service! I can hire a repairman or a gardener, I can order pizza, but I can't get anyone to babysit. This kid's going to drive me insane.

The Sims 4 (PC)

Meanwhile look at how chill everyone is in The Sims 4! Well, except for Squall, he doesn't get on with people.

The Sims 4 is definitely just an evolution of The Sims 1, I'm a little surprised by how much of the game was already in place from the start, but it feels a lot better to me. Little things like how the Sims will sit down on nearby beds to chat with each other makes a lot of difference. They can even cook together.

Another change is how the need meters don't seem to matter so much anymore in The Sims 4. Sure you still need to make sure they have access to a bathroom and a kitchen etc., but it's just another thing in their lives, not the main focus of the game.

And back in The Sims 1 I've got another traffic jam to deal with. I don't even understand the problem here. We're outside, there's nothing blocking Sheva's path, why isn't she moving? Sims will just freeze in place sometimes and not carry out instructions for ages. Gotta cancel them and try again. This game is so clunky sometimes. Like how you have to phone people up several times before they finally agree to come over.

And now the baby's crying. I just wanted to greet Bella and Mortimer so I can work on becoming friends, I didn't know it was going to take up my whole morning. Great, now the phone's ringing as well!

Oh it's just informing me that Snake missed work, because he's asleep. I was so busy I didn't notice! I really need to start treating this as a real-time-with-pause game so I can keep everyone on track. Well okay, Snake can start befriending Mortimer while Sheva makes friends with Bella... right after he's answered this second phone call.

The next phone call was from the game, telling me that we're in danger of losing Duke Nukem as a friend because they need to be maintained. So much work! So many plates to keep spinning! And that baby's crying again. Please grow up soon baby, please grow up!

Alright, Baby Mario has grown into a child! The long nightmare is finally over. Now I need to build a bedroom for him... and I already spent all my money on fancy chairs. Crap.

I thought controlling five characters was a bit much but six is really pushing it, even if children don't actually do anything in this. They don't have skills to learn, they can't ever grow up, they just carry on going to school and getting grades until the day their grades are too low and they're taken away. It's not great.

Alright, what's my goal now? Oh right I'm trying to make 4 family friends to get my promotion and it's dropped down to 2 because Ranger is a whiny bitch who can't take a compliment. Sometimes you only have one conversation option and it's wrong!

I suppose 'make an awesome' house is also a goal, but I need to build up some savings first before I can get ambitious with my architecture.

EVENTUALLY

I came up with a brilliant plan to buy a hot tub to maximise my friend-making efficiency. I can get three potential friends at once into this thing! It cost a fortune though, 6 grand, and it broke down the very first time I tried to use it. Now I've got Claude trying to fix it without electrocuting himself and dying.

I'm getting a bit stressed out trying to keep track of six people at once to be honest, but none of them will move out! I've only got two options: play as another family for a bit and marry some of them into their household... or murder.

I didn't want to do this, but there's six people in this house and I'm thinking it needs to be more like three or four. All I have to do is delete that ladder and there'll be no escape! Snake and Claude will eventually run out of energy and drown. But that'd kill Bella Goth as well and I need her to keep my friend count at 4. Wait, it's already down to 3 again? Oh for fuck's sake...

Incidentally, getting a pool may have been a mistake as all the Sims are drawn to it like moths to a flame. Plus even when I manage to get them away from it they don't bother getting changed, so now Claude will be walking around in his Speedos all day.

Okay, new plan: I'm going to seal Snake and Claude up in a wall with a grill so they can die in a puddle of their own urine and/or a fire. Except I can't afford the final wall because I spent all my money on trees to make the screenshot more interesting! I should've just raised some of the terrain a bit or put some plants down or something.

There's still a chance that I can get the two of them caught in a fire, but I'm not hopeful to be honest. None of my VG characters are a master chef, but I gave them all two points in cooking so Snake here has mastered the basics of BBQ.

I think this is it for me, I've had enough of the game. I never wanted that beautiful mansion on the hill anyway! Though maybe I'll just play it one more day, just to see if I can get one last promotion...


CONCLUSION

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The Sims games are basically the only house simulators you can get, as far as I know, so this is going to be one of the best games of its genre by default. But is there any reason to go back to the first game if you've got one of the sequels? Does The Sims do anything better than its successors?

Mostly no, to be honest, unless you want to create recognisable doppelgängers of PSX-era characters. It's not hopelessly archaic by any means, it's still pretty playable and easy to control, but it's been surpassed in every department. Though saying that, this is only game in the main series with pre-rendered houses and that gives it its own distinctive look and charm. Plus it's the only game in the series to be set in the year 2000, with the fashions and furniture of the time. And I as far as I know, the only game with Jerry Martin's iconic The Sims 1 soundtrack is The Sims 1. Though you can apparently get the beautiful build mode music for free from his site: https://boombamboom.com/

The trouble with The Sims is that it's 50% game and 50% soap opera sandbox, so you're missing out on half the fun if you're not making it for yourself. The later games are much better at providing goals for you to attain, while this is more about playing with your dolls and getting them promotions. It sure provides plenty of frustration though, with the way Sims get jammed sometimes and how you have to keep all your plates spinning in the tiny amount of time available between work and sleep. Not the literal plates, they should go in the dishwasher, I mean you have to keep maintaining your friendships, watering your plants etc. and there's never any break from it because there are no days off. Well, unless you just stay home.

On the plus side the Sims are actually pretty good at looking after themselves and don't need to be micromanaged too much... unless they get fixated on something interesting like a chess game or the TV, then they need a little push to make sure they don't accidentally fall asleep or piss themselves. Much like in real life. They'll even make their beds and wash their hands after visiting the toilet if they're neat enough! I got attached to my little guys and wanted them to do well, so I kept playing for one more day, over and over. Until the frustration got to me and the shallowness of it became too obvious.

Though to be fair, I was only playing the vanilla game, without any of its many many add-ons.

I've never really tried the expansions, so they're a bit of a mystery to me. Maybe they add the extra depth the game's missing, maybe they just add a pile of extra stuff without really improving the core experience, I don't know. Though I have heard that even with them all installed the game's still limited compared to the sequels.

Anyway, I wish I could like The Sims more than I do, but I do like it and I can definitely see myself playing it again someday, for a little while at least. It's way more fun than a Tamagotchi at least, so it gets a 'not crap' star.

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I'll be curious to see if anyone gets the 'next game' clue this time, because I can't tell if it's much too difficult or way too easy.

Thanks for reading all those words by the way, I'll make it up to you by reading the words you write below.