Review: The Sims 3

Overview

Sims 3 is a full on life simulator where you control every aspect of your sim’s life, and I mean everything. Sims 3 is a game where you take control of a virtual person, and guide their everyday actions from eating to using the toilet. You also guide more advanced things like building a relationship and making a career. The iPhone port of Sims 3 mainly focuses on social interactions, from making good friends to marrying someone with multiple engaging interactions in between. Unlockable goals are included as well as a few mini-games allowing your sim to cook, fish, repair, and garden, but they’re brief and not too interesting.

Features

Sims 3 begins with creating your sim by choosing between a few skin colors, hair styles, and outfits. After that you go right to your basic house with cheap appliances and furniture and begin your life. Then you can go out on the town to meet new people and visit the local stores. You can get a job at one of 5 places, but it’s just something to waste the day as you enter in the morning it fades to black and then you’re off, a little richer. Your house is upgradable, and so is everything inside from your $150 cheap single bed to the $1000 bohemian bed. The main part of Sims 3 is interacting with your neighbors which is really quite addicting. You can chat with anyone in the town. Your sim has a few choices under a few categories of what to say by just chatting, being funny, romantic, or nice. Each thing that you say impacts how the other sim feels about you. A status bar shows your progression from friend to good friend or budding romance to date to partner. Once you’re on better terms more actions come up like hot smooch to woohoo to proposing marriage. You can also choose negative actions like insulting or even slapping. Sometimes your friends will pay you to go mess with other people which is always nice. Another feature is the unlockable goals that appear randomly throughout the game. There are 73 total including simple tasks like making a new friend or cooking a grilled cheese to the extreme of making woohoo in someone else’s bed three times. Part of Sims 3 is taking care of your Sim so they’re in a good mood and don’t die. Meaning they need to be fed, go to the bathroom, take a shower, sleep, etc. All of which are done by tapping on the respective object, like the toilet or bed.

The Good

The 3D rendered environment is really nice for the iphone, and your house is especially detailed. The soundtrack is definitely nice to listen to with different tunes for your house, in the city, and during load screens. The noises the sims make when they’re talking to each other are pretty funny as well. The social experiment that is Sims 3 is nice to have on your phone to play in short bursts when you have a little time in your day. The ability to upgrade your house multiple times, the first at $1000, the next at $2500, gives you long term goals to shoot for. The 73 unlockable goals also provide things to accomplish, and little laughs at some of the outrageous ones. The controls are implemented well despite not having too many iphone specific features. Included are 3 save files to potentially lead three very different lives.

The Bad

Load screens abound in the iPhone version. There’s a load screen when you go from your house to the city, and then from the city to a friend’s house, and back again. A load screen pops up when you visit the lake or chat with someone on the street. Load screens need to be reduced for a mobile title, not increased. After getting married, upgrading my house, and getting a couple of promotions there was no reason to go back for more. It only took about 2-3 hours to accomplish all that, but for $9.99 I expect more game time and replay ability. Granted there are the goals, but I don’t think many people will want to complete them. The menial tasks you have to do get boring really quickly, and the days begin to drag as you wait to get more money.

The Verdict

Sims 3 for the iPhone is fun in short bursts when you have a little time, and the social interactions can be quite addicting. After not playing the first two Sims, I would say it beat my expectations. It was fun, but maybe because I was new. For sim veterans this looks like a watered down version of the pc title. It still provides the basics of Sims on the go, and is a should have if your even remotely interested in having a simulated life in your pocket.

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