Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I played the very first version of the Sims that came out along with all the expansions for it. I loved it, especially the Magic expansion. That one, due to how spells worked, let you have multiple husbands. I would 'enchant' a lucky guy into loving me and when the proposal came all my other husbands would cry. Sorry, but that was just hilarious. I did love all of it despite the problems and the sometimes frustrating building but it was so much fun. Due to time issues I haven't gotten a chance to play the Sims for a few years and when I saw this app for my brand new Kindle Fire HD I was excited to play again. Back in the first version, I had this cat that was literally so stupid it starved to death surrounded by food bowls. Nothing I did could get this cat to take one bite and I took a screen shot of it dying in the middle of six food bowls. The Sims in this app have the same intelligence as that cat. They cannot do anything without your input. You have to play every day to keep track of them or have them hibernate. It is simply ridiculous. Back in the original version they were able to at least do the minimum functions, like go to the bathroom and eat. In this one, since I didn't know, I came back after a couple of days to find them doing the exact same thing as when I left them and they both immediately lost control of their bladders. Yuck. All their needs were in the red so it was time to get them back up. Right? Well everything is in real time. If you click for them to take a 15 minute bath/shower, it literally takes them 15 minutes. Same for any other activity, it's all real time and you're stuck waiting around for them to finish since most activities aren't long enough to leave them to it. So you watch your Sim's view an unintelligible TV show or shove chow into their faces for the allotted time to get all their stats back up. After that, you can chose to hibernate them for 24 hours so you don't have to worry about them. You can also just have them sleep a normal night - seven hours - but you better be around when they wake up so they don't wet the bed. Money is really tight when you start. I was following the tutorial so when it told me to add my second Sim I didn't think anything of it. The first Sim comes with a finished house, the second one you have to finish it. Good luck having anywhere near enough money for that, and expanding it like the tutorial wants. When it announced that I needed to add a third Sim I started ignoring it and went to work on the money issue. Fortunately your first Sim moved into a house that was once occupied by an eccentric millionaire who buried all his wealth in his yard. At least that's my story for it when they give you a dog who's main function in life is to dig you up treasure in the yard. The really ironic part of all of this is that the dog is completely independent and needs nothing from the player while the people need their hand's held on their way to the potty. You can also collect rent to make money. The first Sim's house comes up with 5 every 60 seconds, the second Sim's house is 15 every 30 minutes. The big downside though is that rent does not just accumulate while you're out. I could see putting a ceiling on it, like you're only ever able to collect an hour or two's worth, but in the current system it doesn't build up at all. If you miss it, you miss it, which means to make the most out of this you have to collect rent every minute of game play. So what's it like getting money to put in luxury items like lights (since the houses have zip), a table and chair and flooring while you work on getting a job? Something like this: Collect rent. Collect treasure. Collect rent. Collect treasure. Sometimes you get the variety of collecting rent twice before you collect treasure. This is NOT FUN game play, EA. And on top of that, after doing it for an hour, I made 4 times as much money via the dog then I did with the rent, along with getting several LP's. That couple thousand I saved up went fast just trying to get simple things since having lights in the houses makes it a lot easier. Money just doesn't last very long and is shared between all Sim's instead of each one having their own wealth. Everything you buy for them is just horrendously expensive. 200 for a phone may not seem so bad until you think about the fact it took 20 minutes at least to get it. And phones are really nice to fulfill their social needs without leaving the house, especially when they aren't feeling great. In closing, this game feels more like a ball and chain then a fun game. I am very disappointed that they can't just go about life when I'm not there. I don't mind giving them more direction and I like some of the features, but feeling like I have to play every day and check up on them is pretty extreme. I haven't purchased anything from the store, and while I can see why people felt like they had too, it just seems that the money you get isn't going to last long. I'm sure things get easier when you get higher up in level but at the start it is painful and you really feel like you can't do anything. I also don't use Facebook (or any social media like it) at all, so the party boat is useless to me and it also means I lose out on any bonuses. Since this was all con let me finish by listing what I did like abut the game: Pros - Graphics - Gardening to inspire (especially since it's cheap) - The treasure seeking dog - The interface for the most part - The tutorial has it's heart in the right place, it just goes faster then you have money for - Ease of changing viewing angels and zooming in/out - The layout of the town looks nice, and cars traveling through it is a nice touch.