Reply With QuoteI kind of replied to this in the other thread, but went ahead and dropped it here. :wink:
Originally Posted by Tyjenks
Sorry, the other thread brought this up, and now I'm just curious. We're talking about the bestselling game ever, after all.
Just to add one point, too. I think a lot of people think that the Sims expansions are a result of the unprecedented sales of the game. Okay, I'm not going to deny it, but don't ignore the fact that The Sims was *brilliantly* built for expansion by users and developers. That alone is why they've really earned the money they've made...
I kind of replied to this in the other thread, but went ahead and dropped it here. :wink:
If someone came to my house and installed it when I wasn't around I'd probably play it. I'm not buying it, though. I'm sure it's good, but I don't even have time for all of the games I'm really interested in (I'm looking at you, copy of Ogre Battle 64 that I stopped playing after 15 hours and never got back to), much less the ones I'm only half-interested in...
I can see where it's interesting for some folks. We can make fun of people playing with 'Careers' and dressing up dolls but here we are pretending to conquer galaxies or custom out a Mech. Different strokes. It's really more than clothes - it's the ability to influence a fantasy world, by placing behavior influencing objects, where the actors have a seeming illusion of will. Frankly, I find the mundane subject matter incredibly numbing but the concept behind the gameplay quite fascinating.
I thoroughly enjoy the Sims series. It's good brainless fun, which is probably part of the reasons the series is so successful. It could definitely use a graphical update, though.
I bought the main game the month after it came out since it had gotten some good press. I found it extremely fun at first, but it grew tedious after two weeks.
I think Will Wright mentioned in an interview that what he was planning on doing originally was an architechure simulator with houses, gardens, furniture, etc, and then found out that it wouldn't be interesting with people in it so you could see in-game reactions on what you built.
That's how I played it, and what I found fun, a game of building neat houses. I did not like micro-managing the damn people in the house, making friends with half the block, advance up a career path only to quit once you hit the top and then start all over again. I let my younger cousin borrow the game and I haven't seen it since, and I don't really care.
I rarely buy expansions since they cost too much for too little value, and I certainly wouldn't buy 4(!) of them.
We picked it up pre-owned a while ago at a computer show in our area because we weren't sure we'd play it enough to pay full price.
I'm sold on it. I finally see what the fuss is about. This is acutally a good game/toy.
The architecture and shopping is a nice little fantasy world, but the time management is a real killer. Time ticks by in that unrealistic way it does in games, and you find yourself setting priorities for your little guy/gal. At a certain point in the career ladder, friendships matter, but to maintain good friendships you really need two or three Sims going at once. So you now have a bunch of lives to manage. God forbid children get involved.
The beauty of it is that the engine is really robust - each expansion pack tacks on new areas and actions completely integrative with the original - and it runs on the most basic machine. This last thing is the key to its success, I think. It runs quite well on a 200 MHz machine, with normal factory graphics card and 64 MB RAM. This is your standard office machine from four years ago. No need to upgrade to see the latest bells and whistles, no need to buy a whole new machine to see 3D graphics.
This is not Black & White - this is a real game in a real world, completely realized. And it has consumed my wife.
My wife was really into it for awhile -- and I enjoyed it enough to justify spending the money, too -- but we're both burned out by now. The last couple of expansions are making me wish I hadn't burned out on it so quickly, because there's been some good stuff in there, but it isn't enough to make the game fresh and new. I enjoy the idea of the new stuff, but I just can't get back into the game for more than a few minutes to enjoy it.
I agree with Tom about the graphical update.
By the way, if all you've played is the base The Sims, the later expansion packs (Hot Date and Vacation) really add a lot to the game. Livin Large and House Party mostly added just some new "stuff," but the other two expansions add completely new types of areas to explore, new ways to build relationships (strong friends that aren't romantic), and lots of significant new ways for your sims to interact with others.
It's also worth noting that the 800 lb. gorilla of user-made content is not Quake or Unreal or anything like that, it's easily The Sims. By a wide margin. Though it's looking like NWN might catch up after it's been on the market for a year.
Like many hardcore gamers, I'm goal-oriented in my gaming, and after loving the Sims for a week or two I get bored with it. I've seen all there is to see, conquered my career path, wooed the object of my Sims' affection, and then there doesn't seem like much more to do. With each new expansion, I love the game again for another week until I see all the new stuff, and then it's boring to me again.
The Sims is a process-oriented game. It's a toy that's meant to be fun to play with, not fun to "beat." It looks like there are a whole lot of casual gamers out there who prefer this.
Or maybe the genius of The Sims is that since you can't "win" it, you also can't "lose" it.
Been meaning to. Really. Just not for $40-50. I'll pick it up in about 15 years when it's in the bargain bin for $10. I'd try a demo if there was one, and I don't have 1337 warez finding ski11z, so... Been meaning to. Really.
I liked The Sims better the first time, when it was called Little Computer People. 01d 5k001 4u1e2!
Anybody remember that? On the Amiga version, the little guy would tap on the monitor glass if you ignored him for two long.
I buy virtually every game that's decent, and The Sims is, so I bought it. And all the expansions - - but I've gotten them all used at EB for $15 each. So I have them. And it's installed.
But playing it has been limited to sittings with my 5-year old daughter where we put together our family (me, her, my wife and our 2-year old daughter), buy a lot, build a 1-bedroom shanty with a toilet, stove, shower, red carpet and toybox. And then I'm flat out of cash. We watch her and her sister chase each other around laughing. She likes that. Then it gets ugly because there is no money for food and I'm showering at 4 am and going to work with no sleep, and there is trash all over. By then it's bedtime so we quit the game, don't save, and do it again a week later.
I must be missing something. Managing 4 people is impossible for me. But on the plus side, it's the only game other than Zoo Tycoon that I can play with my daughter. But I like Zoo Tycoon much more than the Sims.
Sure do. There's an interesting bit about the history of LCP in "High Score: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games" by Rusel DeMaria n' Johnny Wilson. David Crane (designer, who also did Pitfall) says he "may yet do another product along those lines if the right deal comes along". Well, yeah, the market just wasn't right for it at the time, but it's a little late now.
And there's a question: could a Sims-clone succeed? Not a Sims-in-a-law-office or Sims-with-adorable-jibbering-aliens, but another Sim-people sim?
Interesting question. It might, but it'd have an uphill battle. The tycoon thing has been done to death, and there have been multiples of some of the industries, but usually one of titles a year is any good. The Sim people thing to be done well again would have to promise a lot more. The Sims is pretty simple technologically - in an interview, Will Wright said that most of the "complexity" is an illusion created by player generated interpretations. So a more complex people simulator could be done...
But I think it would have to focus on different stuff. A Sim high school thing, for example, where you have to climb the social ladder or get into a good college or something. The same old build house and get married thing would bring in a lot of uncomfortable comparisons to the Sims. If you could afford to do this as a bargain title to grab some market, fine, but without some additional payoff I can't see a rush for this genre.
Not to mention the fact that as long as Maxis keeps pumping out expansion packs (now it's pets), it will be tough to draw from the same audience.
Yeah -- I think it would be pointless to do another one. But it's odd how almost every other really popular title spawns at least a few clones: roller coaster/theme park sims, cheap hunting games...heck, the near-identical-RPGs-with-elves well still seems as bottomless as David Lee Roth's pants (circa "Panama"). You'd think the entire board of Electrovendimicrogrames would see the Sims numbers, jump up and yell "We gots to get us a game just like those Sims!", like something from Hudsucker Proxy. But I guess it hasn't happened.If you could afford to do this as a bargain title to grab some market, fine, but without some additional payoff I can't see a rush for this genre.
Hey you may be on to something here for the next Sims expansion pack: Sims 80īs! And I think the Army is already working on their version of a Sims Soldier game.[/i]
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