Customer Reviews

The Sims 3 (PC/Mac DVD)

5 star:		(266)
4 star:		(151)
3 star:		(69)
2 star:		(40)
1 star:		(80)

 

 

I have played on the Sims 2 for many years and own all the expansion packs and most of the stuff packs. However, a few months before The Sims 3 came out, I began to feel bored of the Sims 2 as I eagerly awaited the Sims 3. I constantly read information about the upcoming game, so much that my expectations were extremely high! I was concerned as my computer did not meet the minimum requirements, but there was no need for me to worry.
The game works perfectly and is giving me hours of enjoyment. The game automatically chose low graphics settings, although if I had not checked the options tab, I would have assumed they were on high. The graphics are incredible and 100 times better than they were on The Sims 2.
The features are also amazing. The create-a-style tool means that you can literally create any colour on any design for any object. If you wanted, you could have a pink heart bath tub and matching toilet. You can literally make any object look exactly how you want it and make any other object match it percectly.
Create-a-sim has also been improved. You can use create-a-style on clothes which means you could make your sims slippers match their pyjamas! You now choose the shoes separately for each outfit and you can easily adjust each body feature to create a really lifelike self sim.
You can also now select traits for your sim. These have replaced personality points and have a big effect on the life on your sim. If you choose to make your sim a 'kleptomaniac' for example, your sim would 'accidently' take another sims objects.
Another great improvement is the fact that your sim can now have their baby at the hospital. This is a great addition to the game and makes pregnancy much more exciting.
Overall, this is an amazing game and I would recommend it to anyone, even if you haven't enjoyed the sims in the past.

Before I bought the Sims 3, i was scared by all the "my pc is top of the range specs and the Sims3 crashed it, its laggy, crap graphics, didnt install etc. etc." stories, as I has an extremely average laptop, and a 7 year old pc, and i was almost sure there was no way it was going to work. I bought it anyway, because one reviewer sparked the hope that it might work on a laptop...

Now Im so glad I got it! For those who are reading this and also have the same worries about getting it as me, my laptop is not a well known brand, its windows vista, it has only 2GB of ram (min specs states 1.5GB), 1.9 Ghz processor NOT core2duo (min specs said it had to be core2duo and at least a huge 2.4Ghz!!), my graphics card wasnt one of the supported ones - nvidia geforce 9100mg. So it looked like all odds were against me. When i got it, it installed right away, really quickly as well, wasnt waiting for hours like i thought i would, and to my complete amazement it started up and it was actually working! Quite quickly i may add. The graphics do look a bit weird and everything looks plastic (if you get what i mean?), but they are bearable. Within minutes of installing i was already creating a sim and my mouse and movements of the game werent even lagging!

At first the Sims faces looked really fat (as everyone suggested) but then i set the screen to the highest resultution and it was fine! You could get their face quite thin actually, so problem solved.

SOME BAD POINTS:
-Active Households
Bye Bye the old days when you used to make several families and then play each one when you felt like it. You can only play ONE family at a time. If you leave the others, they live thieir lives without you :( It gets really annoying because you dont get to play god anymore and they marry whoever they want and get babies when ever they want and get to call the babies whatever they want - you get the idea!
-Glitch? Or something I dont know about?
Everytime I make a family and move them into a house which I built/furnished myself, WITHOUT switching the active households, that family moves out - on thier own. HUH? wth?
-"Cheeta" speed
More like snail speed. You seem to spend half your life watching your sim sleep or watch a building while they are at work. Why they made cheeta speed slower than Rhino speed in the sims 2 is beyond me. But believe me you will get VERY annoyed at this. Also the lifetime rewards, how come there is never hungry, steel bladder, but no never tired? Are they trying to annoy us?
-Its very easy for friends to become distant friends... but thats not much of an issue as you can purchase a lifetime reward to stop this from happening!
-Its addictive and after about 8 hours you've finally noticed that youve just wasted a few hours of your life! And that you have an important exam tomorrow.
-Collecting - what is up with that?

SOME GOOD POINTS:
-Moodlets
great idea and more realistic than fears and wants. Actually its such a complete makeover in the right direction! The wishes thing is still quite annoying though. I constantly get the wish "Brush teeth three times". Who on earth thought of that?
-Traits
great great great! Though wish they added more. In real life people are more diverse than that
-Relationship descriptions
instead of "relative" in the sims 2, you get "dad" "nephew" "spouse" or even "ex". Friends become distant friends if arn't talked to in a long time (instead of them becoming acquantacies in the sims 2) or good friends and best friends. What really annoys me is that its really hard to get your sim married. The closest I got a was a boyfriend for my hopeless romantic teenager. But my adult sims just dont want to get married. (Their relationship is full what else do you want me to do??)
-Jobs
Much better. Its actually a challenge to get promoted now, instead of painting or reading a book for a few hours in the sims 2. I havn't tried most of the other careers, but I loved getting my sim to the top of the journalisim career, where she had to rummage in bins at night to get stories about people she hated. :D. Or maybe Im just easily amused? :L Also I found it cool that if you write a negative review about the football stadium or a retaurant then you get banned for a few days. hahaha.
-Opportunities
They give variety to the game and break the routine a bit. My sim had to teach an art lesson for an oppurtunity and she made 30 friends :L.
-Create a Sim
This part of a game is very important to me, because I just love creating sims. Giving them a style, different clothes, hair, makeup... and this time the choices are MUCH better than sims 2. Before the clothes were kinda like... ew..... and they all looked like something your gran would wear, but thankfully the clothes on the sims 3 are a bit more fashionable and are more RELAVENT. Now it takes me an hour to creat like one sim. its just too fun. And im too picky. Though the hair styles have gotton better, there isn't that big of range :(. Especially guys hair.
-More skills
I always used to ask myself "just because you can paint doesnt mean you can play the piano!" I know so because I can paint but I cant play the piano. But now thats different, there is a painting skill, and a guitar skill. I have no idea why they chose guitar and not included any other instument. Thats instrumentism that is. Also there is now a gardening and fishing skill. Haha i find that quite cool.

In the long run: GET THIS GAME

I bought the game on Friday and have been really impressed since. It took about 30 minutes to install which is a lot less than sims 2 did. I was a bit worried about whether it would play but it loaded up without any trouble and has worked since!
It is very different to 1 and 2 and It does take a bit to get used to. I really enjoyed making the sims though and there are endless jobs and houses to choose from. I loved the idea of no loading screens. It feels more real life than sims 2 with more realistic jobs and pregnancy and marriage is much more realistic.
I think it's a shame its getting bad reviews as people were warned about the minimum requirements. Dont buy this game if you cant use it on your computer.
Love this game- not a let down.

Be aware - if you buy this, be prepared to re-schedule every social appointment, warn your friends and family that you won't be interested in speaking to them for several weeks and never leave the house again when you could be playing Sims.

Yes, there's no expansion packs for it (yet), but it doesn't need any - there's so much to do in the basic game that you'll have plenty to get used to before you could even think of adding in anything else - I've been playing for a month solid and have yet to even raise a teenager as I've been too busy making my sims go fishing, do their gardening, become authors, painters, find rocks, bugs, seeds, learn recipes, fix their objects, go to work, go shopping, read books - it took several weeks of playing with just one sim before I got bored of that - on sims 2 I got bored of one sim after about three hours because after getting a job and trying to constantly keep their social need up, there wasn't much to do with just one... Now it's several weeks later and I'm getting to grips with the wonders of trying to raise and support a family (with no jobs - it proved to be too much of a challenge for now to raise kids AND for even one parent to work!) I'm looking forward to everything to come and the new challenges of teenagers and part-time jobs and mummy and daddy having to go back to work at some point.. - and I haven't even started on trying to get to grips with building houses or decorating, or customising the sims.. my only gripe is I don't have enough time to play!!

It was years in the making, and finally, here it is. Some fans may be disappointed by the lack of objects, the lack of clothing, hairstyles, and limitations of career paths, but they are those who are finding themselves jumping into the new version of The Sims after having been exposed to the previous version and it's immense amount of Expansion Packs.

CREATE-A-SIM

Creating a sim gives you the option to not only tweak skintones (from six different samples, you can use a slider to select from different tones rather than the four tones from the previous game) and facial features far more advanced than the previous version (adding in beauty marks, or freckles), but body type, skinny, fat, lean or muscular. Recently there was a patch added to the game (make sure you do get online at least once or twice with this game to get the important patches) that also adds two new sliders - breast/chest size, and muscle definition.

Hairstyles are limited, however, you have an advanced system that lets you alter the colours of hair from root to tip, so your sim can have hair colour as crazy as vivid postbox red with electric blue tips, lime green highlights, and white roots (I wouldn't recommend it, but you catch my drift). You can even save your own hair colour creations for future use so you don't have to re-pick each colour for another sim.

The Sims clothing, again is limited, but you can mix and match outfits, and add your own patterns and colour the patterns much like with the hair - you can make a colour darker, or lighter, you can change the texture of the fabrics. More importantly, much to fans delight, the Sims have SHOES! No longer do Sims have to wear flipflops with every decent pair of jeans, or have to wear ugly pumps with dresses. You get to choose the shoes, and get to alter the colour and pattern of those too! And incredibly, with the accessory system, you can even impliment socks, stockings and tights to the overall look!

Your sim can be more unique looking than ever with several make-up styles which just like hair and clothing, you can change the colours of by sliders, and palettes rather than just being able to choose from a few set styles. You can also download a "pattern maker" from the official website which will let you create your own patterns to throw into the game. Saying that, the patterns set in the game are SO customizable, that you can even change the colours of details in the patterns (stripes or dots in animal prints, flowers, damask patterns, they're all very changable, so you can really make your Sim's clothing incredibly unique to your tastes, something that had never been easily achievable up until the release of this fine game!).

BUILD MODE:

Build mode is just as advanced as Create-A-Sim. The interface is far more user-friendly than the previous versions, making it easier to find exactly what you're looking for. There aren't very many window/door styles to choose from, however they are ALL recolourable, making it very easy to mix and match them in a pinch with a little work. You can even save the colours and textures for future use. Wallpapers and floors are JUST as designable as almost everything else in the game, you can change the textures of paint, wallpapers, siding, and bricks, carpets, tiles; this tool is even so powerful it will let you change the colours of each individual board in your hardwood floor!

The stairs we were limited to (modular and base) are now an intertwined setting that come with the option of no railing and a deletable/recolourable wall. You can actually have floating stairs now on every stair type regardless, you can also add on any of the available rails to any stairtype regardless if they match or not. With the base game itself, the stairs were NOT redesignable (nor were the railings and fences), however, a patch that is free from the site (that is an absolute must) does upgrade your game to allowing for recolourable foundations, fences and stairs.

With the game patch from the official site, you will also find that now you can implement basements into the game (this patch is essential for the "World Adventures" expansion pack). Previously, basements were only achievable by cheating and digging into a foundation but now you can have basements of any size and angle on your lot, and even have multi-level basements - perfect for adding gamerooms, an office for your author sims, or perhaps an extra bedroom for the broody teenager who likes drab and dull walls with no light!

BUY MODE:

Buy mode comes with a very limited amount of items to choose from, with there being something like perhaps only five types of kitchen counter to choose from, six different sofa/chair types, and a few dining tables, etc. However, the fact that you can actually change all of these items with the re-colouring tool, and change the patterns, colours, textures, fabrics, gives you a large canvis to play with in terms of interior design. One thing that used to bug the hell out of me about both previous games (Sims and Sims 2) was being limited to furniture that just did SIMPLY not match anything - this is no longer the case, as you can force nearly every object (except the paintings, the plants and a few decoration items), into matching anything you want it to match. Another boon for players will be the "lighting" system. By having your sim click on any light/lamp/wall light, you can optionally change the colour of light that will come from it. You can set it for individual lights, for the whole room, or for the whole house in just one click, and you can even set the light intensity (you won't be stuck having to pick a certain light fitting anymore to get a certain type of light in the room, YOU get to choose). You'll also find that once you buy televisions or stereos, you can set their volumes to low or high, and you can also tweak the light coming from the flames in fireplaces to be certain colours (I think mechanical skill is required for this in game).

Although the base game offers very little in the way of variety, you can buy points to use in the Sims Store at Electronic Art's official site to purchase additional items for the game (this can be costly though, so be warned). The site also offers occasional free items (usually around the holidays), which is nice for us more thrifty Simmers.

RECOLOUR TOOL:

I really need to add a section here about this brilliant feature of the game. It'll give you so much freedom to your game. The walls, floors, the hair colours, the furniture, doors, windows. Really there are very little limits with this tool. With a colour wheel boasting EVERY colour under the sun (even light and dark tweaking), and several different textures and styles to choose from (geometric, abstract, fabric patterns, masonry, woods, paint, tiles, plastics, metals) you'll find yourself being able to create almost any look for your sim's house. The metal textures you can add to furniture are even highly reflective to light, and will reflect the colours around it!). Want to create a "distressed" look on windows and doors to have a "hovel" of a house or shack? No problem, there's even textures there for this too. You won't find yourself limited with this awesome little tool. Almost every item in the game is recolourable (as I mentioned, a few decorative items, plants and outdoor landscaping aren't), giving you a chance to tweak everything to your exact liking. A few of the other items you will find you can re-colour: bedsheets, shoes, furniture, chairs, socks, tights, watches, glasses, hair bands, walls, floors, large appliances (and some of the smaller ones), window and door frames, staircases, railings (even on the newly added half-walls), lamps and light switches).

GAMEPLAY:

EA have worked ridiculously long and hard hours and taken into account every fans individual opinion into what would make the game more enjoyable and playable. They've tweaked the game so precisely that Sims are much more independent to the point where regardless of how much of a bad mood your sims are in, they will still go to work and not miss their carpool, and that Teenage sims will come home and eventually during the point of the day, take out their homework (kept in their inventory at all times), and begin to work on it at the nearest surface they can find - kitchen table, bedroom desk; they will even do it on community lots.

The game is so seamless now that your sim can go wandering across the town without waiting on ridiculous loading times. The game only loads the objects, textures and colours of whatever the game screen is focusing on so it allows for fast loading times and gives you the freedom to take your sims to a community lot whenever the mood takes you. You can let your sim go jogging and watch them pass by beautifully lit scenery - they can go visit their friends on different lots, and interact with their furniture (don't go into your neighbours fridges though, it's inappropriate and they don't like it!).

Rather than having the old skills to work on, your sims have a few new ones to work on, painting, guitar, writing, handiness, athleticism, gardening, and a few more I don't think I've even stumbled on yet!

Unlike in The Sims 2, you'll have the option of having a young adult this time around making your game a little longer than you'd be previously used to if you played the old game...unlike The Sims 2 though, you have an additional option in your game settings (under your options menu) to change the length of your sims lifespan from anything to short, to average to unbelievably epic. I personally keep mine set on epic as this gives your sim much more time to work on careers and friendships before needing to be concerned with family and settling down. It also gives you alot more time to play about with each and every family member than rushing through a sim's short life trying to have them complete all their goals before they snuff it, making room for their offspring. With making the game epic, you can also force your sims to have a birthday when ever it suits you rather than waiting for them to age (just buy them a cake), although some just prefer to wait until the sim's natural preset birthday comes along.

Every now and then you'll recieve an opportunity prompt (you can decline this) offering you the chance to participate in competitions within the community that will give you a chance to make some extra cash, increase your skills, or your friendships with neighbouring skills. These are really optional but an interesting feature to the game.

TRAITS:

Your sims don't have a choice of five personality types to choose from anymore. No longer are you stuck with a wealth obsessed sim, or a sim who is ultimately aspiring to woohoo with 25 different sims. Now your sims have traits, and each sim can have upto five of them (if you've done a successful enough job of keeping your Sim relatively happy, you'll get to pick the traits they have when an age transition occurs). They range from anything such as naturally artistic, to slobby, to neat and green-thumbed (yes, you can grow veggies in TS3, but you need to find the seeds first!) and with sixty different traits to choose from, you can really make a unique sim with a very special personality.

What I found interesting is that personality traits can affect the way your sims will behave autonominously; neurotic sims will wander around checking the stove frequently and will have unprompted freak outs while the neat sims will suffer mood points if a bed in the room they're standing is unmade and won't even consider using a toilet if it's dirty. Loner sims will find themselves much happier at home alone while more outgoing sims will become lonely and depressed very quickly if they don't have anyone to socially interact. Family orientated sims will become horribly concerned about their life if they don't find a mate, have children and have any possibilities of grandchildren (I found it interesting my family orientated sim had a fear of "growing old alone"!).

An interesting feature of Traits is that the traits actually affect your Sim's artistic work (painting or writing). You'll find that your computer wiz sims will often be more successful writing writing sci fi novels, and their paintings will be in a pixelated style while your Family-Orientated Sims might make more success of a children's book and paint more 'cartoonish' paintings. You can never quite predict what the outcome will be with the mixed traits so you always find something new and interesting.

There's also a couple of "surprise" traits that are mixed into the lot you can't pick - but they can only be achieved by certain means that I'll leave a surprise.

CAREERS:

Careers are much easier and yet more challenging to cope with in this game. While sims are at work, a small panel will appear in the top let hand side of the screen showing a list of activities they can participate in at work, working hard, business as usual? Suck up to the boss? If your sim is starting to stress out at work, you can select "take it easy" so that their fun motive begins to slowly refill and they begin to de-stress again. Or you can select them to talk with their colleagues, increasing relationships with them will help promotions. Opportunities arise every now and then which also give them a chance to progress up the career ladder a little by performing tasks. A surprising addition to the Sims 3 is that your Sim can also take on a part time career instead of working full time!

Apart from the pre-set careers, you can also chose to have your sim become a farmer, an artist, a musician (busking in the streets), or even a highly successful author (if you add the Ambitions expansion later, you can also register your sim as self-employed in their Professions, which will give them more opportunities). In particular, any sim can make a brilliant go of being a novelist with some work and the setup for being a novelist is quite genius as not only are there something like twelve different genres to dabble in, ranging from sci-fi, humour, drama, trashy, non-fiction, fiction and history, but there's also the added bonus of history, fantasy and masterpiece. The more skill you gain, the more genres your sim will unlock giving you the option to write more epic and engaging novels that will bring in a ton of money. Writing is especially profitable as after your novel has been completed you will recieve six royalty cheques on a weekly basis (on a Sunday) for the novels written (which can mount up if you have a few novels written within a week span). Another brilliant feature of being an author is that your Sim can write anywhere - a laptop has been introduced into the game that your sim can carry at all times and can take out anywhere and write (good for the sim who gets stir crazy, but still has to finish that novel to bring some cash in quick!).

Painting isn't as adaptable as the writing skill is, however, even with no artistic skill whatsoever, your sim can still choose from three sizes of canvas to work with (as mentioned way above, the sim's traits will affect their artwork), and the brilliance of this is that all three sizes can be removed from the easel and placed upon the walls (you can even click it and give it a frame and name the work!). The artwork you click and sell you'll be surprised to know sometimes miraculously ends up on the walls at the art gallery complete with your Sim's name on it and the name of the painting (if you gave it one!). The easel, much like the laptop mentioned, can be taken anywhere and placed down anywhere - but if you don't want to go around carrying that you can also have your sims memorise a scene which can come in handy if you see some scenery you think would be worth putting on canvas. You can dictate to your sim what they will paint from their memory, but you won't be able to dictate what they paint without having a model present or a picture saved from memory - and their pictures can randomly be masterpieces (an interesting fact, name your Sim's paintings before selling them - you will find them in the museum later!).

Farming can be profitable, but also incredibly hard work and very long and tedious for your sim. If you have a large farm you'll find your sim can be out in the garden from 5am til 10pm and still be only half done. Your sim can find seeds scattered everywhere in Sunset Valley and Riverview, but failing this, buying veggies from the supermarket and planting them is also an effective way of starting your own crop. The more gardening skill your sim gains, the more you can plant and the more money you can make. There are many crops to choose from including: Tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, lettuce, garlic, potatoes, watermelon, grapes, apples and limes. There's also a few 'special' seeds that let you grow surprising fruits and trees that can give extraordinary results from consumption of it's harvest.

Being an independent musician isn't always fully steady money, but it can be a pretty interesting way of bringing some extra cash in (especially if your Sim is in part-time employment. The music skill allows you to learn several pieces of music (and there are more to collect from the book store), that you can play for tips on the street or in the park. Often the tips aren't all that generous, but this is a great way for your teenaged sims to bring in some pocket money (buying the "Late Night" expansion will let your sim dabble in piano playing, bass playing or drumming, and starting a band).

Another thing worth mentioning here is that your sims can actually become a partner of any business in the town by investing a good amount of simoleons into it. Once a week your sim will have to manually collect all the money from their partnerships (unfortunately they don't do this automatically). There are so many ways for your sim to make money that you'll find them swimming in cash far more easily than in it's predecessor, however, you'll find there is plenty for them to spend it on (especially with the sports cars in the game being so ridiculously expensive).

TOWN:

One of the things that used to bother people the most about the previous two games was that whenever your sim wanted to go somewhere, there was a lengthy loading time to and from the area and you were limited to that area only. With The Sims 3, this is no longer the case as the whole world is absolutely accessable at any time no matter where your sim may be. You can literally follow your sim on a walk from point A to point B from one end of the town to the other without needing loading screens or anything else. You can go into your Sims' neighbours homes (you do have to be invited first though!), and you can go into various community lots such as the public swimming pools and gym, the gallery, and the park. There's also a cemetery where you can send all your deceased sims memorial stones to so you can visit them without the inconvenience of their ghost popping up at your house and waking your sim up at ungodly hours (there's even a crypt your sims can explore for fun/frights - however you can't follow them in!).

The town itself is in storymode, and while your sims are living their lives, the neighbouring sims are ALSO living theirs seperately and behind the scenes and behind closed doors, couples are getting together, weddings are taking place, babies are being born and people are dying. This means that the town is evolving with you so that the same townies aren't going to be the same townies your Sim's grandkid's will be friends with; it'll be their descendents instead.

Apart from storymode, you'll find that the town almost ALWAYS has something going on; there's hotdog cooking competitions at the beach and the park, football games at the stadium, chessmatches at the park, movies every saturday, olympics occasionally make an appearance at the stadium, and randomly you might find protests occuring outside of city hall (no joke!). Additionally if you still find there isn't enough to do, you can pay for your sim to take classes at various venues (cooking classes at the restaurant, art classes at the high school). If you like throwing parties, you can throw them at public places (it will cost) so you can have pool parties, beach parties, classy museum gigs, or laid back parties and barbecues at the park - it's all up to you!

OVERALL:

Some people expected a brand new game, but what we have here is a re-imagining of the old game, and it's much more complex and well thought out, and alot of those niggling stupid problems that got on your nerves in the previous one is no longer the case. [] for this [price] right now is WELL worth the money, you will definately get more gameplay out of this than you ever did with the old one; and to make it even better you can extend the life of your sims to short to ridiculously epic so you can finally get everything done and have your sim be the millionaires in their lifetime that you always aspired they would be.

Don't believe this will never live up to the Sims 2, it already has far surpassed it.

Was very happy when The Sims 3 arrive two days later after I'd ordered it. The game itself starts off well. I like the fact that you can now go to town without having to wait half an hour to go buy new clothes; it's already there.
What I also enjoy about this game is that the clothing is different. By this I mean you have a bigger varity to choose from. I also like that if you want new clothes, all you have to do is click on a wardrobe, then click Plan Outfit and you are in basically Create A Sim.
Though its a very enjoyable game it does get a bit tedious after a week or two of playing. If you spread your play time out a bit more you would probably find that you would enjoy it more. I also don't like that you have to buy Sim Points so you can have new hair or new clothes. I would recomend play The Sims 3 with an expansion pack to make things more interesting.
Hope this was helpful to you!

The Sims 3 (PC/Mac DVD)

I have been eagerly awaiting this game for a year and a half and have not been disappointed. Last January (2008) I purchased a very high spec computer for the sole reason of playing 'The Sims 3' so you can imagine my excitement when the game finally arrived on my doorstep - practically giddy were the words I used to describe to my husband how I was feeling! The game loaded in no time at all and after purchasing items from The Sims Store using my sim points and downloading the new town, I was ready to go. The game looks very pretty and the best part for me are no loading screens, except to change hair and clothes, but this literally took seconds to load. I like the fact that there are now extra tasks for them to do e.g. delivering post to the Town Hall to get extra school points, reading a cookery book before work the next day to earn more promotion points etc. It's made it a lot more interesting for me. The best part for me is that everyone carries on getting older and going about their day to day business so I've no longer got to play one family for a certain amount of time and then another.

There are a couple of things that bug me and it's that kids can't interact with toddlers and the other is how to change the toddlers clothes. The toddler has to go to the mirror and select 'change appearance' then select hair with a hat (because you need to select the art tool to change colours) then with the tool click on the clothes so you can change the fabrics etc. That's the only way I've found how to do it but you can't change different everyday outfits unless someone can help me with that. I've ordered the guide book so hopefully will find something in there.

Overall the game is amazing. I'm one of the lucky ones where I've had no glitches or any trouble loading or playing the game. I'm really happy I've bought this and will look out for the new expansions.

Happy Simming.

I was a little unsure about buying it at first, but I'd have to say overall I am very pleased with it. I particularly like the design features and how busy the sims seem to get - there are a lot more situations and places to go available than there were in the Sims 2. It seems to run fine on my laptop, sometimes I have brief pauses but they are quickly dealt with and it takes a lot less time to load than the previous version.

Anyway, I noticed a couple of reviewers were unsure how to get more clothes for their Sims, so I thought I'd write a short tutorial about it in the hope that people find it useful.

Unlike the Sims 2, extra outfits are free and you can't buy them from the shops. To get more outfits you need to buy a cupboard or wardrobe, then click on it and select 'plan new outfit'. This will take you to a clothing design screen where you can play to your heart's content. To make extra outfits, select the type of outfit you want (e.g. everyday, formal etc.), then on the clothing panel click on the plus sign (on the left hand side) to make a new outfit, which will be given the name 'outfit 2'. I recommend making full use of the wonderful paint pallet tool to edit the fabric/pattern/colour of your creations. Once you've finished, return to the game then click on the Sim and select 'change outfit', you should see a list of their lovely new clothes.

Hope that helps.

Well yes, as the title says, "probably needs a modern PC".
My laptop was an old trooper playing the Sims 2 and somehow Spore, but it did tire like an old man and so earlier on in the year I got a new PC which was great as this game was coming out.
I, like many other Sims-fans, was very excited.
I found it really easy to load and start up.

Creating your Sim:

Good points:

Hair colour and clothes - you can create lots of different hair colours and designs on clothing and their colour. The only flaw with that I feel is the lack of creating your own hair styles but maybe that is in the expansion "money-making" packs to come ^_^.

Traits and stuff - I quite like this, you can make your Sim mad and a kleptomaniac, however I don't think the sims are mad enough for entertainment, the options are "Talk about conspiracies" and "Tell Ghost Story" >.>

Walking about:

I love the freedom of the Sims 3, you can just go and knock on your neighbours' door, it's great. But like if you misbehave you just get kicked out.. my Sim needed a shower though!

Points:

I can't remember what the exact name is for them but when you do something the sim wants or needs you gain these points. Then with these points you can buy extra personality traits or items from the Chest Icon. I only found it out today, it's great. I bought this machine where you can change the Sim's shape :]

Extra clothing:

You don't have to go out to buy clothing!!
You just click on the wardrobe and then click "Plan outfit" and change!
Yay free clothes!

Bad Points:

As I said, I bought a new pc with a brillant graphics card, but the graphics of the Sims game itself isn't that great, I was expecting better.. i'm sorry EA/MAXIS but they aren't that great in comparison to the Sims 2 and Spore. For example, when you are playing the game with an active sim, you get a little picture of them at the bottom along with their mood etc.. Well that picture is kinda just a notch up on the graphics from The Sims original.

Lack of cheats: Well I use cheats on the Sims 2 like "Maxmotives" so I can spend less time telling the Sims to eat and stuff, and more time to interact and increase skills. I know it's early days and maybe there is one, but I searched and I can't find any decent ones. Oh there is one "motherload" like in the Sims 2, get 50,000 simoleans ;D

You can't go into public buildings:

I was very disappointed when my sim had their first day at work, because the advert portrayed that I could go "everywhere" with my sim. So my sim went to work in the writing building and I was stuck looking at the wall and the entrance, just watching all the other little sims wizzing past going to and from work.
Within the Sims 2 you could go into the restaurant while your sim was having a meal, not in the Sims 3. Again I stared at the fussy 2D neon sign of the diner.
Neverless you can go into the Gym and the Library.. but that's not fun.
When you work your sim out or they're learning a new skill, you put them on fast forward, so yeah..

Conclusion:

People have dramatically slated this game, when it isn't as bad as people make it out.
Yes you do need quite a well performing PC, but that's the way technology is going nowadays..
It is a good game with some great new updates from the Sims 2, but have faltered in some aspects.
I'm sure it will get better with the expansion "money making" packs.
I didn't plan on writing for this long but I hope this has explained how it is good and bad.
If I had a choice again, i'd still buy it :]

Purchased this for my daughter as she is a fanatical "Sims 2" player. My computer which "fried" a few weeks back, used 'Windows XP'. The new purchased computer has the much more up to date, 'Windows 7' operating system. The much older "Sims 2" game, had difficulty working on the new computer, (possibly due to it's age), thus the reason for the new "Sims 3" purchase. I was very concerned that the same issue may exist with regards to "Windows 7", not allowing the "Sims 3" to operate properly or at all. However, so far so good, with a very happy smiling daughter, if proof was needed that it did work and who reluctantly, had to come off the computer long enough to allow me to leave this review.
I searched and asked everywhere online to have someone advise me whether the "Windows 7" system would allow the new game to work prior to purchase, with only ONE reply from someone who was in the same position and unsure also. So; Here is the 4 main FACTS for "Sims 3, using "Windows 7"operating system.
1. Game is "fantastic", (quote recieved from daughter).
2. Works perfectly well on "Windows 7" operating system,(so far anyway)...
3. Game has improved enormously, technologically, from "Sims 2", (as you would expect).
4. If worried about working on your computer, I would advise a good graphics card be installed and allow plenty of memory to be used by game.
Otherwise the game seems to be a hit with my daughter, and even my son. To give more confirmation of game approval, my son, who hadn't played the Sims 2 in years, had a go on the new "Sims 3" this evening, (much to the dismay of my daughter), and now HE is hooked all over again. At this rate, I'll need two desktop PC's and a couple of laptops to give me any chance whatsoever of accessing the internet.