Sims3 ≠ Sims2 + 1
Jun. 14th, 2009 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fuzzysporkI must apologize for my lack of online presence the past couple (few?) weeks. There are several reasons, but mostly because my husband is on lay-off from his job, which means he is at home all the time now. Every day. Every single day of the week. Week after week. o__o And when you take into account that he has zero neat points, compared to my 8, I now seem to be always cleaning up after a hurricane. BUT, he did sort of make it up to me by bringing me a copy of The Sims 3 the day after it came out. Despite the fact I really didn't want it, and had intended on waiting for at least one expansion pack before delving into that. He's a good guy, though. ;)
OMG, HUGE rambling post about TS3. And picspam!
After playing around with Sims3 for the past couple of weeks, I have a few opinions about it. I'm not going to say it's "better" than TS2, nor am I going to say Sims 2 is "better" than Sims3 (though, at the moment, I largely prefer to play TS2). It's going to come down to what the individual gamer likes, and one style of game-play might be more appealing to them than the other. Comparing Sims2 to Sims3 is rather like trying to compare chess to checkers. There are distinct similarities, but you can't play checkers using chess rules.
Which is what I was trying to do when I first started playing Sims3. And I hated it right out of the gate. After a frustrating week of trying to love the game, I finally realized I was approaching it all wrong, and decided to start over again. But I'll get to the actual game-play in a minute...
From a technical point of view, my computer seems "okay" for running the game. I've got a 2.60 GHz dual core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and 32-bit Windows Vista. My graphics card was what had me worried; it's an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS. (I mention all of this only as a point of comparison for anyone thinking about getting TS3) Not top of the line, but the game runs smoothly enough, with only the occasional jerk or stutter. I play it in windowed mode (which is a built-in option now, yay) on a widescreen monitor. Though my graphics card does start to protest when I'm running the game, and the internet, and a photo editing program, all at the same time. That's when I can hear the cooling fan spinning at about 47 million RPM. Anyway, the only graphics options I've changed to the highest settings are 'texture detail' and 'Sim detail'. Everything else was defaulted as such:
However, after upping the texture and Sim detail, I noticed that there is now a slight lag when rendering a new scene. Like if I zoom out from the center of town, then close-up on one of my Sims back at the house, it takes the game half a second to put all the colors and textures on everything. Not a long enough lag to bother me, though. Before changing those details options, it was mostly instantaneous. I've not yet experimented with turning anything else up, mostly because I'm satisfied with how the game looks. Even with "draw distance" set at medium, this is what the landscape looks like from the house my Sims live in (taken with the in-game camera):
Personally, I don't see any reason to have that setting any higher (only to slow the game down). The surrounding landscape is pretty, yes. But honestly, I spend 99.5% of my time looking at the inside of the house, or zoomed in on a Sim, and the game having to process all of that landscape just slows things down. Though for picture-taking purposes, having a lovely backdrop is kinda nice. Too bad the picture-taking is such a tedious process! It took me some time to get used to it. And I'm still struggling to get things into frame just the way I want them.
Anyway.... One of the first things I did was to make a Sim in CAS so I could explore the new create-a-sim features and give her some of the more "interesting" personality traits. I named her Happy Camper, and gave her some scary traits which included Insane, Inappropriate, and Kleptomaniac. After I moved her into town, it was a few Sim days later when she met herself at the corner bistro one night...
Same crazy clothes I designed in CAS. Same name: Happy Camper. Same traits. Same everything. I'm assuming this is a glitch, because I've not seen any of the other bin sims move a copy of themselves into town yet. After this, I went into the "edit town" screen and found the house Happy-clone was living in. The household was called "Camper" and she was living with an elderly couple which the game must have spawned as her roommates or parents. So I evicted them and deleted them. Which is something that would explode your game in TS2, but in this game there aren't those complex character files to mess things up. Otherwise they wouldn't make it such an easy option to delete any Sim in town, right? *roll eyes*
These TS3 Sims are more like objects and less like actual characters. These Sims have no memories. They have no turn-ons, no turn-offs, no zodiac, no personality points... The only personality they have is from those 5 traits. I love the "idea" of the traits, but those alone really limit the range of individuality. For example, instead of there being points of neatness somewhere between total neat-freak and complete slob, a Sim is simply only Neat OR a Slob depending on whether they actually possess one of those traits. If they don't have one of those traits, they are just sort of benign about cleanliness. There is no in-between or variation. It's all either/or. Ideally, I would like to have seen them leave the personality points in place, then give you the 5 traits on top of that (leaving out traits like "neat" and "grumpy" which are already covered by the points). And left us with the more interesting traits to add to the regular personality, like Loves the Outdoors, Neurotic, Childish, etc. It would have given these Sims much more fleshed-out personalities.
This is probably the main reason why I just can't seem to get attached to any of these Sims. I've played into the forth generation of one family, and after a while it really starts to feel like they are all exactly alike. They are more like animatronic game pieces, and less like little people.
Speaking of exactly alike...
There seems to be this annoying trend that families around town have to wear the same hairstyle. This is the Tate family, and I think that's a father and mother, their adult son, and his wife (or maybe sister). But don't ask me who is who.
Speaking of annoying trends....
Another reason it's so hard to take a decent photo in this game is because as soon as you hit "pause" the Sim you have in frame usually moves their head to the side AFTER you hit pause. Or they roll their eyes around. Sometimes the eyes roll in opposite directions. In general, the way they roll their eyes around reminds me of those baby dolls with the eyes that roll back in their head to make it look like they are sleeping. I don't like it. It's creepy as hell.
And all the Sims have that same deadpan expression. Even when they are in a good mood they just stand there with that somber look on their face. You can usually tell when they are in a good mood because after several minutes they will suddenly bounce and clap and laugh like they are mentally challenged. Then it's back to looking like a mortician. This lack of facial expression makes the children especially creepy.
These New Sims are far less animated than TS2 Sims. Especially in the face. There's a lot of standing and looking all emo. Some of the traits have built-in idle movements, like the Insane Sims will talk to their hand. But not all traits have something, so there's a lot of standing and looking all emo. o___o
Most of the interactive animations between Sims were taken directly from Sims2 (way to shortcut, EA)...
But there are far fewer interactions now, and you have to actually "unlock" interactions between Sims. Romance is like a mini game (sorta like Matchmaker Dates in TS2), and even if the Sims are married they have to go through the whole process of getting to that stage where they find each other "very irresistible" before something like woohoo or Try for Baby is an option. Which annoys the hell out of me. Unless one of them has the Family-Oriented trait, the Try for Baby option isn't always there. Though even with the option there, if the other Sim is not at least to the stage of "very alluring" or in a good enough mood, the woohoo might be rejected.
I have heard that the Sims will woohoo autonomously, but I've yet to see them get to that stage on their own. They will flirt and kiss up to that "very irresistible" stage, then one of them will throw in a non-romantic interaction like "gossip" and reset the whole process. There is no chemistry between TS3 Sims, and they will like the next Sim just as much as this Sim. It doesn't really matter who you hook them up with (though some traits clash and it takes a little longer to build the relationship). You pretty much have to force the relationships anyway.
My observations show the "Townies" either spawn with a spouse or just never get married. I have yet to witness autonomous marriage. There is occasionally a wedding announcement in the newspaper, but these are always the "new" people in town who have spawned with a spouse. It looks like sometimes the game gives them a random "steady" girlfriend or boyfriend, that is usually a roommate, and they will usually have kids along the way. The game seems to decide how many people should live in a house based on how many beds are in it. So there's often unrelated Sims living in the same household. Babies seem to spawn to single people as often as to the couples. Even men end up with a child that technically has no mother.
Speaking of babies...
Just like in TS2, they all look the same. Except even more so, because these babies don't seem to show a hair or eye color until they are toddlers. I think this particular baby grew up to have black hair and brown eyes. You can now click on the baby to view it's needs. And let me tell you, infants' needs drop twice as fast as normal! But, there is the option to take them to a birthday cake and age them up to toddler the minute they are born. In fact, you can age any Sim before their actual birthday. Within reason... I think adults have to go through half their adult stage before you can "cake" them to elder. The toddler stage is now 7 days (when the game is set to normal aging), but I usually cake them ('cake' is a verb now, yo) after they learn all there skills. Which sometimes only takes a couple of days. This really speeds up the family-growing process, and gives you more time to help the Sims with that ridiculously slow skill-learning. (OMG, skilling has taken on a whole new SLOW.)
The genetics are pretty simple. There are no hidden or recessive hair and eye colors. The kids either get one of their parents' hair and eyes, or one of their grandparents (if there are any). And I heard somewhere that there is like a 10% chance of a totally random, mutant hair and eye color. Facial features seem to work like they did before, where the child gets either parents' nose, mouth, jaw, etc.
You can't really tell anything about how the child is going to look when they are still children....
These are twin sisters; that's Lyric on the left, and Joy on the right. And though they look almost identical...
They aged-up to teen looking more distinct from each other. That's still Lyric on the left, and Joy on the right.
Incidentally, these two girls happen to be my simself's granddaughters. And at this point I decided to do a little genetic experimentation. So when they aged up to Young Adult, Lyric was sent out to live among the Townies, while Joy was sent husband-hunting...
That sneer is what passes as a smile in this game. D:
Anyway, that's Joy and her husband, Jarrett. I picked him because (besides her being friends with him since she was a kid) he has moss-green eyes and that awesome skintone which is like the equivalent of S47. Luckily, young adults are able to get married and have babies now. So when you combine the length of the YA stage with the length of the normal adult stage, that's nearly 40 days worth of fertility! So the potential for huge families is definitely there.
Here are their first three kids; all boys; all single births...
Left to right:
Jericho (young adult), Jordan (teen), and Jasper (teen). Like the names matter, but whatever. ;D
I think this is a pretty good example of how the facial features get distributed. I've not seen any clones so far (and this is the 3rd born-in generation). I've been looking at black hair since Fuzzy's son, so I decided to dye Jarrett's hair red and see if that has any effect on the next child born. Because I heard that dyed hair can be inherited.
The next birth was twin girls...
Try not to look too excited, girls. Someone might suspect you aren't soulless manikins.
Now is when the strangeness began. No inherited red dye, but they both have dark brown hair. Which was their grandmother's hair color, so it might have come from her; or not. However, what's odd is that Juneau (on the left) has black roots, while Joplin (on the right) has lighter brown roots. Again, they look like they have identical features...
But this is Juneau (left) and Joplin (right) as teens.
There was still room in the house for one more offspring, so I went through the process of getting Joy and Jarrett to Try for Baby again. He's still got his hair dyed red at this point, and the baby they had was not what I was expecting.
Are you ready for this?
Meet the 6th child, a girl named Jupiter....
Did you go 'O_O'
Yeah, I did too. ;D Blond hair and purple eyes. I have NO idea where that came from! She must have gotten that 10% chance of the 'mutation' rolled for both her hair and eyes. Funny that I named her "Jupiter" without having set sight on her yet. She really is out of this world.
Here she is as a child. It's cool that I can make clothes for her that actually match her eyes. Believe it or not, her favorite color is purple.
Anyway, that's as far as I've played with my genetic experimentation, and I've yet to see Jupiter as a teen. Joy still has a lot of adult life to go, so she'll be having kids as long as I can stand it.
A few more things about the game that are just "different" than in TS2.... one of which being death.
Dying of old age now involves a light show, then *pop* - U R GHOST.
Then Grim shows up and directs you towards the afterlife.
Grim was not cooperating with me when I was trying to take these photos. Every time I hit 'pause' he would turn his head away from the camera. So it looks like he's got a large duck head under his cowl.
By the way, it's a complete coincidence that Leighton Sekemoto happened to be at the cemetery when he died of old age (he was collecting rocks), and that his oldest son, Sam, happened to be there, too.
Leighton also happened to be Fuzzy's townie husband, and the great-grandfather of those kids you were just looking at. Before he died, my simself met an untimely death...
As an elder, Fuzzy had a high skill in mechanical, so I set her to upgrading the appliances. She was making the stove "fireproof" (by hitting it with a hammer) when she was electrocuted. (ignore the stupid man-maid) Well, that didn't kill her. In fact, her needs never even budged, so I figured it was just a cute/silly event that could happen when upgrading electrical appliances. So I set her to finishing the upgrade...
When it happened again....
And this time took. See that puddle of water? Yeah, I couldn't see that from the other side of the wall where I was watching from.
Grim showed up just like he does for old age. At that point Leighton had the option to "Play chess for Fuzzy's life" with Grim, but I couldn't get him to stop the crying action in time to act on it.
Since there are no aspirations, the deceased get a symbol on their grave showing how they died. Looking through the cemetery, Sims can also drown, starve, and burn to death.
(Sorry about the warped perspective. I was still trying to get used to how the camera works at this point.)
When a family member dies, someone will get the "opportunity" to take the urn to the science center for some experiments. What happens is the dead Sim is returned to playable form, but they are still a ghost. So basically, you have a transparent Sim whose needs decay just like a normal Sim. I guess this is handy for untimely deaths, and you really want to complete their LTW. Or make them come back and finish upgrading the damned appliances.
After you are tired of playing a ghost, you can just send them back to the afterlife, and they become "normal" ghosts again. Ghosts in this game are like any Sim that is visiting the lot. They can be interacted with just like a living Sim. And like all Sims, they seem to suffer from needs decay....
And seem to always be tired. Fuzzy's favorite thing to do was start preparing a meal she never finished, then take a nap in one of the kids beds.
Leighton always played with the toddler when there was one around. Or just played video games. Then take a nap.
To me the ghosts are a little more annoying than TS2 ghosts. Mostly because a Sim will drop everything out of their queue to go "A Ghost!" even if they were just talking to him 2 seconds before that.
The Sims 3 seems to be designed for you to play it from one household's perspective. Always. And you watch the rest of the town evolve around you. I did try experimenting with switching between two households, and that was a disaster. It takes about 3 days to get one family taken care of, their needs met, wishes granted, and opportunities taken. But when you switch to another household, then come back, it's like starting over again. Except they are now older and have not made any progress in learning skills or their career or school. The Townies are a lot like Dormies from TS2 University. They appear to be doing stuff and accomplishing things, but they are really just puppets until you marry them in and make them playable. Except these Townies do age, and sometimes spawn a child. If you MUST be in control of the "spares" who move out, then you need to be playing TS2. Here, there is no control of anyone but the active household.
Because this is more of a "watching" game, than an "all-control" kind of game, there are other things to do. Supposedly to keep you from getting bored "watching" the Townies get fat and fight with each other in the park. You can make one of your active Sims collect stuff. Like fish, bugs, recipes, and rocks that can be smelted into metal or cut into gems.
But there doesn't seem to be any "reward" for collecting everything, like all of the gems. Except you have collected them all, and have to find somewhere to put them. There is often some kind of special ability or item for getting a Sim to the top of their career, but this doesn't always benefit the next generation (like career rewards do).
At this point I feel like there isn't anything in the game to keep my interest. Building a legacy and generational game-play is really very tedious to me. Mostly because you are stuck inside that one household, and can't take a "break" by playing a spare's house without your main house going to hell while you are gone. TS3 is more like a series of mini games, and things to collect. The collecting aspect is kinda cool. Though it reminds me a LOT of games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. So I can see how this will appeal to the younger crowd. I really like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, by the way! But, I play The Sims because it's not like those games. So while Sims3 has it's "fun" points, I think I'll stick to Sims2 as my main "Sims" game.
OMG, HUGE rambling post about TS3. And picspam!
After playing around with Sims3 for the past couple of weeks, I have a few opinions about it. I'm not going to say it's "better" than TS2, nor am I going to say Sims 2 is "better" than Sims3 (though, at the moment, I largely prefer to play TS2). It's going to come down to what the individual gamer likes, and one style of game-play might be more appealing to them than the other. Comparing Sims2 to Sims3 is rather like trying to compare chess to checkers. There are distinct similarities, but you can't play checkers using chess rules.
Which is what I was trying to do when I first started playing Sims3. And I hated it right out of the gate. After a frustrating week of trying to love the game, I finally realized I was approaching it all wrong, and decided to start over again. But I'll get to the actual game-play in a minute...
From a technical point of view, my computer seems "okay" for running the game. I've got a 2.60 GHz dual core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and 32-bit Windows Vista. My graphics card was what had me worried; it's an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS. (I mention all of this only as a point of comparison for anyone thinking about getting TS3) Not top of the line, but the game runs smoothly enough, with only the occasional jerk or stutter. I play it in windowed mode (which is a built-in option now, yay) on a widescreen monitor. Though my graphics card does start to protest when I'm running the game, and the internet, and a photo editing program, all at the same time. That's when I can hear the cooling fan spinning at about 47 million RPM. Anyway, the only graphics options I've changed to the highest settings are 'texture detail' and 'Sim detail'. Everything else was defaulted as such:
However, after upping the texture and Sim detail, I noticed that there is now a slight lag when rendering a new scene. Like if I zoom out from the center of town, then close-up on one of my Sims back at the house, it takes the game half a second to put all the colors and textures on everything. Not a long enough lag to bother me, though. Before changing those details options, it was mostly instantaneous. I've not yet experimented with turning anything else up, mostly because I'm satisfied with how the game looks. Even with "draw distance" set at medium, this is what the landscape looks like from the house my Sims live in (taken with the in-game camera):
Personally, I don't see any reason to have that setting any higher (only to slow the game down). The surrounding landscape is pretty, yes. But honestly, I spend 99.5% of my time looking at the inside of the house, or zoomed in on a Sim, and the game having to process all of that landscape just slows things down. Though for picture-taking purposes, having a lovely backdrop is kinda nice. Too bad the picture-taking is such a tedious process! It took me some time to get used to it. And I'm still struggling to get things into frame just the way I want them.
Anyway.... One of the first things I did was to make a Sim in CAS so I could explore the new create-a-sim features and give her some of the more "interesting" personality traits. I named her Happy Camper, and gave her some scary traits which included Insane, Inappropriate, and Kleptomaniac. After I moved her into town, it was a few Sim days later when she met herself at the corner bistro one night...
Same crazy clothes I designed in CAS. Same name: Happy Camper. Same traits. Same everything. I'm assuming this is a glitch, because I've not seen any of the other bin sims move a copy of themselves into town yet. After this, I went into the "edit town" screen and found the house Happy-clone was living in. The household was called "Camper" and she was living with an elderly couple which the game must have spawned as her roommates or parents. So I evicted them and deleted them. Which is something that would explode your game in TS2, but in this game there aren't those complex character files to mess things up. Otherwise they wouldn't make it such an easy option to delete any Sim in town, right? *roll eyes*
These TS3 Sims are more like objects and less like actual characters. These Sims have no memories. They have no turn-ons, no turn-offs, no zodiac, no personality points... The only personality they have is from those 5 traits. I love the "idea" of the traits, but those alone really limit the range of individuality. For example, instead of there being points of neatness somewhere between total neat-freak and complete slob, a Sim is simply only Neat OR a Slob depending on whether they actually possess one of those traits. If they don't have one of those traits, they are just sort of benign about cleanliness. There is no in-between or variation. It's all either/or. Ideally, I would like to have seen them leave the personality points in place, then give you the 5 traits on top of that (leaving out traits like "neat" and "grumpy" which are already covered by the points). And left us with the more interesting traits to add to the regular personality, like Loves the Outdoors, Neurotic, Childish, etc. It would have given these Sims much more fleshed-out personalities.
This is probably the main reason why I just can't seem to get attached to any of these Sims. I've played into the forth generation of one family, and after a while it really starts to feel like they are all exactly alike. They are more like animatronic game pieces, and less like little people.
Speaking of exactly alike...
There seems to be this annoying trend that families around town have to wear the same hairstyle. This is the Tate family, and I think that's a father and mother, their adult son, and his wife (or maybe sister). But don't ask me who is who.
Speaking of annoying trends....
Another reason it's so hard to take a decent photo in this game is because as soon as you hit "pause" the Sim you have in frame usually moves their head to the side AFTER you hit pause. Or they roll their eyes around. Sometimes the eyes roll in opposite directions. In general, the way they roll their eyes around reminds me of those baby dolls with the eyes that roll back in their head to make it look like they are sleeping. I don't like it. It's creepy as hell.
And all the Sims have that same deadpan expression. Even when they are in a good mood they just stand there with that somber look on their face. You can usually tell when they are in a good mood because after several minutes they will suddenly bounce and clap and laugh like they are mentally challenged. Then it's back to looking like a mortician. This lack of facial expression makes the children especially creepy.
These New Sims are far less animated than TS2 Sims. Especially in the face. There's a lot of standing and looking all emo. Some of the traits have built-in idle movements, like the Insane Sims will talk to their hand. But not all traits have something, so there's a lot of standing and looking all emo. o___o
Most of the interactive animations between Sims were taken directly from Sims2 (way to shortcut, EA)...
But there are far fewer interactions now, and you have to actually "unlock" interactions between Sims. Romance is like a mini game (sorta like Matchmaker Dates in TS2), and even if the Sims are married they have to go through the whole process of getting to that stage where they find each other "very irresistible" before something like woohoo or Try for Baby is an option. Which annoys the hell out of me. Unless one of them has the Family-Oriented trait, the Try for Baby option isn't always there. Though even with the option there, if the other Sim is not at least to the stage of "very alluring" or in a good enough mood, the woohoo might be rejected.
I have heard that the Sims will woohoo autonomously, but I've yet to see them get to that stage on their own. They will flirt and kiss up to that "very irresistible" stage, then one of them will throw in a non-romantic interaction like "gossip" and reset the whole process. There is no chemistry between TS3 Sims, and they will like the next Sim just as much as this Sim. It doesn't really matter who you hook them up with (though some traits clash and it takes a little longer to build the relationship). You pretty much have to force the relationships anyway.
My observations show the "Townies" either spawn with a spouse or just never get married. I have yet to witness autonomous marriage. There is occasionally a wedding announcement in the newspaper, but these are always the "new" people in town who have spawned with a spouse. It looks like sometimes the game gives them a random "steady" girlfriend or boyfriend, that is usually a roommate, and they will usually have kids along the way. The game seems to decide how many people should live in a house based on how many beds are in it. So there's often unrelated Sims living in the same household. Babies seem to spawn to single people as often as to the couples. Even men end up with a child that technically has no mother.
Speaking of babies...
Just like in TS2, they all look the same. Except even more so, because these babies don't seem to show a hair or eye color until they are toddlers. I think this particular baby grew up to have black hair and brown eyes. You can now click on the baby to view it's needs. And let me tell you, infants' needs drop twice as fast as normal! But, there is the option to take them to a birthday cake and age them up to toddler the minute they are born. In fact, you can age any Sim before their actual birthday. Within reason... I think adults have to go through half their adult stage before you can "cake" them to elder. The toddler stage is now 7 days (when the game is set to normal aging), but I usually cake them ('cake' is a verb now, yo) after they learn all there skills. Which sometimes only takes a couple of days. This really speeds up the family-growing process, and gives you more time to help the Sims with that ridiculously slow skill-learning. (OMG, skilling has taken on a whole new SLOW.)
The genetics are pretty simple. There are no hidden or recessive hair and eye colors. The kids either get one of their parents' hair and eyes, or one of their grandparents (if there are any). And I heard somewhere that there is like a 10% chance of a totally random, mutant hair and eye color. Facial features seem to work like they did before, where the child gets either parents' nose, mouth, jaw, etc.
You can't really tell anything about how the child is going to look when they are still children....
These are twin sisters; that's Lyric on the left, and Joy on the right. And though they look almost identical...
They aged-up to teen looking more distinct from each other. That's still Lyric on the left, and Joy on the right.
Incidentally, these two girls happen to be my simself's granddaughters. And at this point I decided to do a little genetic experimentation. So when they aged up to Young Adult, Lyric was sent out to live among the Townies, while Joy was sent husband-hunting...
That sneer is what passes as a smile in this game. D:
Anyway, that's Joy and her husband, Jarrett. I picked him because (besides her being friends with him since she was a kid) he has moss-green eyes and that awesome skintone which is like the equivalent of S47. Luckily, young adults are able to get married and have babies now. So when you combine the length of the YA stage with the length of the normal adult stage, that's nearly 40 days worth of fertility! So the potential for huge families is definitely there.
Here are their first three kids; all boys; all single births...
Left to right:
Jericho (young adult), Jordan (teen), and Jasper (teen). Like the names matter, but whatever. ;D
I think this is a pretty good example of how the facial features get distributed. I've not seen any clones so far (and this is the 3rd born-in generation). I've been looking at black hair since Fuzzy's son, so I decided to dye Jarrett's hair red and see if that has any effect on the next child born. Because I heard that dyed hair can be inherited.
The next birth was twin girls...
Try not to look too excited, girls. Someone might suspect you aren't soulless manikins.
Now is when the strangeness began. No inherited red dye, but they both have dark brown hair. Which was their grandmother's hair color, so it might have come from her; or not. However, what's odd is that Juneau (on the left) has black roots, while Joplin (on the right) has lighter brown roots. Again, they look like they have identical features...
But this is Juneau (left) and Joplin (right) as teens.
There was still room in the house for one more offspring, so I went through the process of getting Joy and Jarrett to Try for Baby again. He's still got his hair dyed red at this point, and the baby they had was not what I was expecting.
Are you ready for this?
Meet the 6th child, a girl named Jupiter....
Did you go 'O_O'
Yeah, I did too. ;D Blond hair and purple eyes. I have NO idea where that came from! She must have gotten that 10% chance of the 'mutation' rolled for both her hair and eyes. Funny that I named her "Jupiter" without having set sight on her yet. She really is out of this world.
Here she is as a child. It's cool that I can make clothes for her that actually match her eyes. Believe it or not, her favorite color is purple.
Anyway, that's as far as I've played with my genetic experimentation, and I've yet to see Jupiter as a teen. Joy still has a lot of adult life to go, so she'll be having kids as long as I can stand it.
A few more things about the game that are just "different" than in TS2.... one of which being death.
Dying of old age now involves a light show, then *pop* - U R GHOST.
Then Grim shows up and directs you towards the afterlife.
Grim was not cooperating with me when I was trying to take these photos. Every time I hit 'pause' he would turn his head away from the camera. So it looks like he's got a large duck head under his cowl.
By the way, it's a complete coincidence that Leighton Sekemoto happened to be at the cemetery when he died of old age (he was collecting rocks), and that his oldest son, Sam, happened to be there, too.
Leighton also happened to be Fuzzy's townie husband, and the great-grandfather of those kids you were just looking at. Before he died, my simself met an untimely death...
As an elder, Fuzzy had a high skill in mechanical, so I set her to upgrading the appliances. She was making the stove "fireproof" (by hitting it with a hammer) when she was electrocuted. (ignore the stupid man-maid) Well, that didn't kill her. In fact, her needs never even budged, so I figured it was just a cute/silly event that could happen when upgrading electrical appliances. So I set her to finishing the upgrade...
When it happened again....
And this time took. See that puddle of water? Yeah, I couldn't see that from the other side of the wall where I was watching from.
Grim showed up just like he does for old age. At that point Leighton had the option to "Play chess for Fuzzy's life" with Grim, but I couldn't get him to stop the crying action in time to act on it.
Since there are no aspirations, the deceased get a symbol on their grave showing how they died. Looking through the cemetery, Sims can also drown, starve, and burn to death.
(Sorry about the warped perspective. I was still trying to get used to how the camera works at this point.)
When a family member dies, someone will get the "opportunity" to take the urn to the science center for some experiments. What happens is the dead Sim is returned to playable form, but they are still a ghost. So basically, you have a transparent Sim whose needs decay just like a normal Sim. I guess this is handy for untimely deaths, and you really want to complete their LTW. Or make them come back and finish upgrading the damned appliances.
After you are tired of playing a ghost, you can just send them back to the afterlife, and they become "normal" ghosts again. Ghosts in this game are like any Sim that is visiting the lot. They can be interacted with just like a living Sim. And like all Sims, they seem to suffer from needs decay....
And seem to always be tired. Fuzzy's favorite thing to do was start preparing a meal she never finished, then take a nap in one of the kids beds.
Leighton always played with the toddler when there was one around. Or just played video games. Then take a nap.
To me the ghosts are a little more annoying than TS2 ghosts. Mostly because a Sim will drop everything out of their queue to go "A Ghost!" even if they were just talking to him 2 seconds before that.
The Sims 3 seems to be designed for you to play it from one household's perspective. Always. And you watch the rest of the town evolve around you. I did try experimenting with switching between two households, and that was a disaster. It takes about 3 days to get one family taken care of, their needs met, wishes granted, and opportunities taken. But when you switch to another household, then come back, it's like starting over again. Except they are now older and have not made any progress in learning skills or their career or school. The Townies are a lot like Dormies from TS2 University. They appear to be doing stuff and accomplishing things, but they are really just puppets until you marry them in and make them playable. Except these Townies do age, and sometimes spawn a child. If you MUST be in control of the "spares" who move out, then you need to be playing TS2. Here, there is no control of anyone but the active household.
Because this is more of a "watching" game, than an "all-control" kind of game, there are other things to do. Supposedly to keep you from getting bored "watching" the Townies get fat and fight with each other in the park. You can make one of your active Sims collect stuff. Like fish, bugs, recipes, and rocks that can be smelted into metal or cut into gems.
But there doesn't seem to be any "reward" for collecting everything, like all of the gems. Except you have collected them all, and have to find somewhere to put them. There is often some kind of special ability or item for getting a Sim to the top of their career, but this doesn't always benefit the next generation (like career rewards do).
At this point I feel like there isn't anything in the game to keep my interest. Building a legacy and generational game-play is really very tedious to me. Mostly because you are stuck inside that one household, and can't take a "break" by playing a spare's house without your main house going to hell while you are gone. TS3 is more like a series of mini games, and things to collect. The collecting aspect is kinda cool. Though it reminds me a LOT of games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. So I can see how this will appeal to the younger crowd. I really like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, by the way! But, I play The Sims because it's not like those games. So while Sims3 has it's "fun" points, I think I'll stick to Sims2 as my main "Sims" game.
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on 2009-06-15 04:16 am (UTC)Thanks for the review of TS3. It's one of the more comprehensive ones I've read so far. Not that I've really searched them out, but I've been poking around a bit to see if I'd be interested in getting it. I don't think I will. I like the control. And quite frankly, the sims in TS3 are a little creepy looking to me. I've tried to read some of the legacy stories, and really haven't found anything that has caught my eye.
Fangirl squee here too, 'cause this means we will be seeing more of Hawthorne, et al and Brie and Olivet and the rest. Yes?!
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on 2009-06-15 03:40 pm (UTC)Hawthorne. <3 Yes, I'll be returning with more of him and the rest of the gang. I guess I'll need to figure out an alternative to the Exchange for posting the O'Leery's story. D: This venue is an option, but I rather like the slideshow aspect. So I'm scouting around for a good alternative.
Thanks, Annie. :D
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on 2009-06-15 04:29 am (UTC)Secondly- Thanks for posting this review. It's very interesting. You mentioned some things I hadn't heard about before. I was thinking from what I've seen written before that it looks more like a side game, and your review seems to be saying that too. The scenery always looks so great then the sims are mostly meh, I don't know, like you said kind of soulless. It's $88-$99 over here. Way too much. So yeah, I won't be rushing out to get it any time soon.
>LOL< At your new crispy fried simself. I was laughing out loud at that. The standing one you know, not the dead one lol. Although being dead pretty much seems the same as being alive in TS3, so oh well.
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on 2009-06-15 04:04 pm (UTC)You know, compared to the scenery, the Sims really are kinda "meh". $88-$99?! Wow. Yeah, wait until after the first EP comes out. By then they will probably have all the glitches fixed (and there are a LOT of them) and the price should be lower.
lol Poor Fuzzy. I've never accidentally killed my simself before! So it was kinda humorous. She went through a lot actually. Being my "guinea pig" Sim and all. And yeah, the ghosts lead pretty active lives in TS3. So dying doesn't put an end to it. :P
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on 2009-06-15 05:12 am (UTC)I have most of the settings on high, the draw distance on medium, and I think I may have the trees on medium too. The game runs just fine without much lag. Although I do have the same thing where it takes a second to load the lot details when you zoom back in, but that doesn't really bother me. The only thing that does bother me about the options is that I have to play with fullscreen if I want the double and triple speeds to work. I seriously do not like playing in fullscreen, but now I have to if I don't want to sit around for 5 minutes while all my Sims sleep.
I agree that they should have left the personality points and have added traits. It would have made for more interesting personalities since the traits are so set in stone rather than varying degrees. I have two Sims that have the neat trait who are constantly wanting to clean things, which is fine, but then their daughter is a slob and ALWAYS leaves a mess. There's no inbetween, except maybe the neurotic daughter who doesn't autonomously clean like her parents, but she rolls the wants to clean things.
Children do grow up into their parent of the same gender's hair, even if you change it at teen, they'll get the parents hair at adult. It's sooo annoying! I don't get why the hair changes back even if the same style is available for that age. At least the color doesn't change back if you dye it.
Relationships are interesting. I think it's actually easier to raise them than in TS2, but sometimes it's hard trying to find the right interaction, especially with romances. It makes sense that you have to earn more romantic options along the way, but after the third or fourth time it gets tedious and irritating. Sometimes when trying to get Sims to WooHoo they become too tired before you even get the option. I guess morning WooHoo is the only way to go.
Babies creep me the heck out! I don't like their stiffness and blank stares. I also don't like how genetics work, it seems limited but with randomness thrown in. My Sim has three children, all girls. 2 got the mother's hair and skin, and the other got the father's hair and skin. One has the mother's green eyes, one has random blue eyes, and the other has random light tanish eyes. In fact two of them look identical to their mother but with different eyes, and the third looks nothing like either parent. It would have been nice if hair color would take colors from each parent rather than cloning it. Oh well.
Over all I think the game is pretty fun, even though I enjoy it more when I'm just trying to collect all of the fish, seeds, rocks, bugs and such. I like more goal orientated play which is why I absolutely love opportunities, collecting and skilling. If those things hadn't been in the game and it was just purely control one household forever, I'd hate it with a passion. I do miss playing more than one household, and hate how the extra families are handled.
Well I think I've written too much for a comment...
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on 2009-06-15 04:25 pm (UTC)I have noticed that "inherited hairstyle" thing! I haven't had it happen every single time a kid ages up, but it happens enough to annoy me. It's kinda funny to see entire families around town sporting the exact same hair.
The babies creep me out, too! They are like dolls. And I know they are wrapped in those blankets so EA didn't have to make legs for them. Or... animate them. I've gotten to where I just by-pass the baby stage all together by taking them to a birthday cake at the first available second. (lol cheating?) And really, do birthday "parties" have to go on for 4 hours like that? Some of the Sims don't know when to stop celebrating! The kid will have gone to bed already, and there's always some Sim still standing in the kitchen blowing that annoying tooter. o__0
Wow, thanks for your insight into the game, Angie! I've not read much about what anyone else thinks. I do think it's fun, for the ability to explore the town and surrounding countryside, and discover things. And collect things. It's definitely more about that, than getting a Sim through their life and paving the way for the next generation.
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on 2009-06-15 09:05 pm (UTC)I'm probably going to write up my own review of the game once I return it to my boyfriend. I really have a lot to say about it (good and bad).
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on 2009-06-15 10:00 am (UTC)And already I can see that my new 'top probably wouldn't be able to run it. My processor is a dual 2.40 and I have "only" 3 GB of RAM. My graphics card is the same as yours except it's 8600M GT, which I'm assuming is good. Anyhow, if/when we get the sims3 it will likely be installed on the "family" computer, not on my 'top, as the kiddies will be fighting to play it, and there is no way I ever let them touch my laptop.
I really like your genetic experiments and the fact that there is a 10% chance that the kids get some random genes.
I know I shouldn't laugh at anyone's simself passing away but that frying you gave your simself was pretty funny. Did you make her/you "come back and finish upgrading the damned appliances"? :D
I've heard that pause/head turn glitch, or whatever it is, mentioned before and it sounds hugely annoying. I can see it being a major stumbling block for story tellers.
But I think you are right in that we need to look at sims3 as a completely different game from our sims2, but it's hard not to compare them.
Thanks for this write-up Fuzzy, I'm going to going to show it to my kiddies when they get home from school so they can get some idea of the game before they start saving up.
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on 2009-06-15 04:42 pm (UTC)Yes, I did make Fuzzy come back and finish upgrading the damned appliances. lol She was the only one with enough skill to do it. Dead is not gone, anyway. If fact, you can have a whole family of ghosts. Hey, there's something I've not tried yet - collecting ghosts.
I don't know if that pause/head-turn thing is a glitch or not. It happens more often when the Sim isn't in an active animation, and are just walking across the room or sitting. It's REALLY annoying to try to get a good face shot when they keep rolling their eyes and head around like that.
Yeah, it's hard not to compare TS3 to TS2. I think it would be easier not to, if EA had actually used a whole new set of animations for TS3 instead of just recycling a lot of them from TS2. It makes it feel like it's trying to be the same game, but really they are apples and oranges. Your kids will probably enjoy it. It does remind me of those games that focus on exploration and collecting. (Very much like Animal Crossing, if you've ever played that game.)
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on 2009-06-15 11:28 am (UTC)And I just had to LOL at simFuzzy's death! When I first started playing TS1, I made a couple, Rosenfeld and Shirly Wright (funny how I still remember their names!) As little idea as I had as to how to play the game, Shirly wet herself while standing in the kitchen in her underwear. I then asked her to change the lightbulb of the lamp on the kitchen table beside her. You can guess what happened next . . . fried Shirly, the first sim I ever killed (it was an accident, I swear!) I never noticed the ability to do the same in TS2 (no more lightbulbs, thank Frith!), but it appears that something very similar can happen in TS3. I'm very sorry for your loss, and any minute now, I'll stop giggling about it. :)
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on 2009-06-15 05:06 pm (UTC)In TS2, try making a Sim repair a broken trash compactor while standing in a puddle. ;) That's funny about your TS1 Sim! I had totally forgotten about having to actually change the stupid lightbulbs. I don't recall ever accidentally killing a Sim in TS1... though I have to admit there were a few "un-accidental" deaths. *shifty*
Poor Fuzzy really did go through a lot for me. Among other things, she was my experiment in relationships and figuring out how jealously and romance work (Leighton was her second husband, by the way. *shifty more*)
TS3 is a cute game. I don't think it's quite as in depth a Sim game as TS2 is right now. That has probably everything to do with how much EPs have added to TS2. I'll be interested to see if they can improve TS3 with future EPs.
Thanks, Chris! :D
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on 2009-06-15 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-06-15 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-06-15 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-06-15 05:45 pm (UTC)I think TS3 will improve with age... and a half dozen EPs. lol
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on 2009-06-16 08:15 am (UTC)I totally agree with what you said about it being a totally different game. The Sims 2 is still my baby, but Sims 3 is...interesting, I guess. Not nearly as cool, though.
Oh, and HAAAAAAAAAAAI!
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on 2009-06-18 08:18 pm (UTC)No, it's not as cool as TS2. Maybe in a couple of years after they get some decent EPs out (and fix all the stickin bugs it has). Heck, maybe I'll just wait for Sims 4. :P
OH HAI BACK :D
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on 2009-06-16 01:27 pm (UTC)Another thing -- I just witnessed (well, not literally) two other residents getting married. I'm not sure who the bride was, but I had seen the groom before... anyhow. I think it's really rare, it's probably easier for them to get reproduce without all the hullabaloo of getting married. Or maybe they know the relax-on-the-bed trick, too. :D
And yeah, matchmakers NAO PLZ. Also, dates. Boltage? I have to play TS2 every few days just to fulfill my big wa-- wish to see someone fall from the sky for the low, low price of $5,000. D: But you should see my gem collection.... *ducks*
Am I the only one glad to be rid of spares' houses? I really really really really really am. Really. Now maybe I can play a family for more than like a gen and a half before wanting to mass squash everyone with satellites.
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on 2009-06-18 08:41 pm (UTC)I agree about needing a Matchmaker. Or at least SOME way to meet eligible singles! A section in the newspaper or something.
Yeah, I'm not having any problem letting the spares go off and manage on their own. ;D But looking at the inside of that one house, all the time, starts to get a little boring. I guess I could steal another house for them from one of those old, rich guys who live alone and clog up the town.
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on 2009-06-18 05:24 pm (UTC)I am also disappointed with Sims 3 & don't see myself really switching over until a few awesome expansions are released. I have to admit I kept playing - starting new families, playing pre-mades, etc. - hoping to get into it; but after reading your post I realized how much I was missing my Sims2 sims and went back.
I DO really like:
-the moodlet system, & how some moodlets are unique to traits
-traits, especially how they offer specific conversation topics
-how sims will actually sleep in & remember the bed you assign them!!!! & how kids will keep their homework in their inventory and work on it with other kids to boost social
-the skill journal makes skilling more specific; especially for skills that incorporate multiple talents (creativity, logic, etc.); and the opportunities that are offered according to skills/job
-the shortened loading time and the ability for multiple sims to go outside the home in real time without loading lots
-the ability to do more with decor & building without turning on cheats; and the terrain tool is much more user friendly for perfectionists :)
But you are completely right - for all of the descriptions of 'unique' sims and personalities, ALL of my sims were watered down versions of each other :( I couldn't get attached to any of them and they did not entertain me in the way Sims2 sims do. Plus they all had a Pillsbury dough boy/Marshmallow man look to their appearance and movements.
I had such a break in playing between sims1 & sims2 that at least 2 expansions were out already when I started back up. So I am struggling to like sims 3 without chemistry, pets & seasons. Hopefully they can add to this base game, otherwise its staying in the case and the sims2 is back in my computer for good!
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on 2009-06-18 09:47 pm (UTC)Yeah, there's a lot about Sims3 that really didn't live up to my expectations. And I had some pretty low expectations! lol
A lot of the stuff you mentioned, I like, too. I especially like the way their inventories work now. They can actually carry food with them, which is handy when you send someone out to some far-away fishing hole.
I expect it will improve with expansion packs. I didn't start playing Sims 2 until only about 18 months ago! So there was already a lot to the game when I got it, and it's still like a "new" game to me. I don't think I'll be sick of it very soon. Which is good, because TS3 didn't make me fall in love with it, ya know. ;D
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on 2009-06-22 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-06-30 05:55 pm (UTC)Though now, I'm REALLY looking forward to TS4. lol ;D
sims3
on 2009-06-30 05:36 pm (UTC)seriously though do you even like the game cuz it sure dont sound like it. i swear there is a critazisem in every paragraph you've wrote
Re: sims3
on 2009-06-30 06:03 pm (UTC)Hey, I was just honestly giving my own opinion of the game. I stated in the very beginning that it's a matter of individual taste, and TS3 might be a lot more fun to some people than others. There's a lot about TS2 that annoys me as well! But no one wants to read about TS2 at this point. ;) That's old news, right?
Yeeeah...
on 2009-10-02 09:15 pm (UTC)The Sims 3 is going to be a HUGE disappointment for everyone who plays the Sims 2. I tried to do a legacy, but I got sick of it because I wasn't sure what to do when the kids grew up and the spares moved out. I really don't like the "neighborhood time flows with you" thing, and you are right - this is only if you don't care about legacies or other challenges and want to just create a Sim, get him married, have kids and watch them grow old and die.
The collections sound fun, and the traits and LTW are cool, but it's a hassle and the graphics eat up my machine.
Re: Yeeeah...
on 2009-10-05 04:16 pm (UTC)I think my disappointment about Sims3 was that it wasn't what I was expecting. TS2 was such a step up from TS1 that I expected TS3 to follow suit. I expected the AI to be improved (instead, it's been dumbed down a bit) and the Sims would be more like self-thinking little people. I wanted them to have MORE personality, not less! Really, I couldn't care less about being able to roam the town freely, if it meant taking away the Sims' personalities. But once I realized TS3 was never meant to be TS2 Improved, and that it's just a totally different style of game-play, I actually had fun playing it. But once I collected everything, and did all little extra stuff, it lost it's re-play appeal. :P