Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The angry sims community has been lashing out at this new version rather harshly, and for some rightly so. There are tales of crashes and performance issues and other bugs galore. But overall, if you are able to play it, step back and take a deep breath, you will see that is a nice step up from the second installment. Many things about Sims 2 really bugged me, and alot of people. Things that really made it more annoying than fun to play. Monitoring the bladder and food intake was your main goal as your peeps couldn't figure out to do this on their own. Then much of the time if your Sim was unhappy about something they would wave their arms at you and babble. Try to figure out what they wanted if you could. The other big problem (for me) was the time issue when your Sim(s) went out of the house. They would leave at, say, 7pm -- head out for a night on the town and do all sorts of stuff, and when they came back -- stupidly nothing had changed from their home. Still 7pm. But all their gauges were down. It really made no sense. Thankfully, that sort of disconnect is probably the biggest change in this new version. Many people here are screaming that it is a minor change -- but i would have to disagree. This TOTALLY changes how you play. The world is a living breathing place that continues on 24 hrs a day rather than taking some weird time warp machine every so often. The graphics have also gotten an improvement but it's not something that's going to bring Crysis to mind. They are fairly similar to the last version but noticeably improved details and shading make them better. The biggest thing is that the game renders the entire town at once, your home and the outside world. This is a tradeoff for just making the game prettier. That being said, the animation is frustrating at times as Sims still have robotic ways of doing things. And they tend to do things in simple step by step manner rather than grouping tasks. The timespace issue is still going on and it is still one of the more frustrating things. That it takes 4 hours to get up, take a shower, make breakfast and clean the counter is bizarre. Many times you can't really do much but that and go to work. My Sim will take about 1.5 hours to recycle a few newspapers because they are not smart enough to pick them all up and put them away. That being said -- it is alot easier to enjoy this game. Their are more goals and challenges to each day that are far more interesting than previous ones. When you go to work you can choose what your Sim does at work without actually seeing them do it (hoping for an expansion pack to address that.) Does it matter? YES! Why doesn't time just rush along like before? Because you need to monitor what your sim is doing. The new Moodlets area is brilliant. It finally gives you a clear insight into what you are doing right and wrong so you can work to modify it or keep it going. This removes so much of the frustration of the previous game. So that is just a taste of the major good and bad points of the new game. Personally I'm glad I didn't listen to all of the bad ratings here to keep from getting it. But -- there are some bad catches to beware of: -- The Mac version is flawed graphically and has some really bad aliasing. They are aware of it and are working on it, but for now play it on a PC or boot up in Boot Camp and play that way. -- There seems to be a real lack of objects and "stuff" in the game. This is easily remedied by going to the Sims3.com site and buying them. But, as many have pointed out, they are vastly overpriced. If this is the wave of the future then I think most people will take a pass. The prices are exorbitant and the value compared to add-on packs is low. Hopefully they will see the light and make them more in line. (As an example, one set of themed furniture that has 40 pieces or so will set you back $20!) No thanks. -- Time doesn't speed up as it did previously. Whether this is intended or a bug, not sure. But be prepared to sit around for 2-5 minutes every time your Sim sleeps. Watching them.... sleep.... zzzzzz. So no, this game is not perfect. But I don't feel it is the colossal disappointment that many would have you think. I'm guessing some of the more obvious things will go away with patches. Some will be taken care of with future expansions. And some may be here to stay.