Few popular, well-selling games incur as much ire and disdain from the “hardcore” gaming community as the Sims series. I’ll admit, I’ve taken my own share of shots at the franchise in the past. Why play with miniature versions of people doing everyday, menial tasks rather than having a life of your own? Is it really even a game, or is it just a sim (wait—I think I just made a connection!)?

The third installment in series has finally been unleashed on the world, but will it live up to its predecessors? Find out after the bah-boo boh!

Before jumping into the meat and potatoes of the game, let’s take a look at the series as a whole. The original Sims was released in Q1 2000, almost a decade ago. Within two years it was the best-selling PC game of all time, and had seven expansion packs. Its sequel had improved gameplay, better graphics, and eight more expansions (not including “stuff” packs). All in all, the Sims franchise has sold over 100 million copies. Even if net profit off of every copy was around $1, it doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that’s a whole lot of Simoleons.

Now, on to Sims 3. Much like its predecessor, Sims 3 promises players with deeper levels of customization and improved gameplay. Unlike the transition between the original and sequel, Sims 3 is not offering upgraded graphics. Instead of utilizing the latest DirectX 10 graphics, EA decided to take the game in a whole new direction and allow players to move their Sim from lot to lot, all with virtually no load time.

I can’t claim to be a real benchmark expert, since my wife’s copy of Sims 2 is so overloaded with custom content that we needed an external hard drive to handle it all. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but only slightly. What I do know is that an un-hindered copy of Sims 2 (no mods, no expansions) and an un-hindered copy of Sims 3 have about the same initial load speed. The load speeds between lots is fairly fast. There have only been a few times that I’ve seen rough textures hang around for longer than a second or two before clarifying into a sharper image.

The graphics quality is similar to Sims 2, but this isn’t entirely a bad thing. Anyone who has spent time on Sims 2 mod forums and has seen the high-resolution objects and skins (a “skin” could refer to an actual Sim’s skin or the outer layer of an object, piece of clothing, etc.) knows that these games can push some great-looking graphics with the right video card, processor, and RAM.

That brings me to the next point—customization. Sims 3 has promised their fans that the game will bring a whole new level of customization to the game. To an extent, they succeeded. Any article of clothing, and I believe any piece of furniture, can be given many different patterns and almost any color imaginable. This feature does have its limits, however; my attempts to give a Pauly Perrette-esque Sim a black formal dress with flames around the bottom hem were met with frustration. With some custom work in your favorite photo editing program, you might be able to pull off some awesome modded work.

The Sim Creator is definitely improved, with a better interface for organization. Want to edit the hair after getting all the way down to the last outfit? Simply click on your Sim model to be taken back there immediately. Like a shirt but can’t find shoes to match? Open the color palette editor and drag the right shade of blue onto the shoes on the Sim model, and you’re set.

It makes it very easy for even a simpleton like me with zero fashion sense to at least get things to match. EA’s claim that you can make a Sim of pretty much anyone with the default tools, however, is only partially correct. You can make a Sim that looks close, but not nearly as close as the modified custom-built Sims from the community in Sims 2. That being said, I was able to create a fairly close likeness to myself in about ten minutes, at least close enough that my wife recognized it.

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