Well, I have had one night of playing. There are some things about TS3 I am VERY PLEASED about, and others that are a real Squeeze Technique issue. But first the good things.

I am so very, very pleased that there is an actual town that you can explore. You can run around to your heart's content from house to house, park to park, store to store. This is how I always wanted it to be. The first time I played GTA Vice City, I asked myself, why can't the Sims be this immersive? And here we are closer to that, although this isn't quite that immersive yet. And we don't have chainsaws. The freedom of it all is such a huge rush. I can understand some people used to TS2 being too stunned to appreciate that yet. Going from TS2 to TS3 may be a shock, but going from TS3 to TS2 basegame would be a huge letdown.

I have yet to fully experience the story progression of the rest of the town. I'm sure it's happening, but that will take more play on my part still. I've only had about a week in-game.

Now for the negative, and it's a very big negative. The Sims themselves are FUGLY beyond belief, and I fear the tools that one might use to fix that don't exist, and, worse yet, may never exist. In EA's quest to make the game more moddable at game time, it appears to have been made less moddable overall.

I am OUTRAGED that there is no BodyShop program. If we had that, we could at least begin the process of trying to customize skin textures (dear God, they are ghastly), to maybe make things a bit more Stefan-esque. But I think it may be worse than just that, because it appears that the skin textures available in game-CAS may not be really moddable at all. The actual skin color choices seem to be color swatches which, I am guessing, are applied to a single global skin texture. If that is the case, then we can do some good by changing that global skin, but we won't be able to have distinct inheritable custom skins. We might end up having only our choice of one global default skin, not changeable in game. If that's the case, then a BodyShop program would offer no relief for changing skins. We can probably customize skins using custom clothes, if we ever get tools for that -- that's how we often did it in Sims 1 days -- but that would clearly not be inheritable.

If the default skin is truly awful, even more so are the eyes, which are hideous. If I had had the tools, I would have stayed up all night making new eyes alone. But, no tools. EA's message to world: "Suck on it."

It would be nice to customize the make-up. Same problem. In fact, let me say, the tools are so specialized for changing the color of the default game makeup (and clothes and hair) that I find it hard to visualize how they would be easily extensible to custom made makeup. The hair and makeup come in four different colors which can be color-changed with a color-wheel, thus enforcing a four color scheme, not allowing for more sophisticated coloring. This might seem nicer than in Sims 2 where you had to make (or download) at least five different colors for any hair tone, thus a timesaver, but it has to come at a grave price in customization possibilities. I imagine a first-time player of the game might find it dazzling to play with the color wheels, while those of us that remember headier days of Sims 2 and being able to make our own textures with Bodyshop and Photoshop 2 are bound to be left-down. And if/when tools for importing content arrive, just think of the difficulties of translating a custom hair tone into something that could fit into the four-color color-wheel system of the game. What a bitch.

Also, I am very disappointed by the face manipulators and default face structures in the game-CAS. I have heard some people say they are more powerful than the equivalent TS2 tools. This is UTTER, COMPLETE, TOTAL BULLCRAP. I fought with the TS3-CAS last night, trying to come up with some eye shapes that wouldn't look like space aliens or hentai and came up short. The jaws can either be round and fat or pointed like a hatchet. It would take a loving Sim-mother to look at just the face-shape of any of these Sims and think they were lovely. I am despondent over this. I don't see how any tool could come out to change this. I was looking forward to making some replacement default face structures, as we did for TS2, but if you can't even get half-way there with the CAS, I don't think it can be done short of going to Milkshape, and with or without that drastic step, there's a chance that a decently shaped face might be incompatible with the game tools and animations. We might be stuck with this crap for a long, long time.

And since I spent most of my fun time during the last several years trying to de-fuglify ugly townies and Sims, this leaves me in a quandary about where this is all going to go. EA always had a certain cartoonish style to their Sims content. It was, at least, a certain consistency and humor to it. But it was something that CC makers immediately veered from. Even the lowliest of pre-teen skin makers wanted to make their Sims look like Britney Spears or the Jonas Brothers, or whoever they idolize nowadays.

I dread to think of what that will look like with TS3. I dread it so much I REALLY REALLY want that Vice City chainsaw. Just in case.

Yes great review. I like to see the mix of + and -.
I agree love the open town, but dread the Sims look. I mean all the Sims need is better makeup, and clothing.. than I can work on making them much better. But the rounded faces did bother me. Overall I can dig it. Nice review I pretty much agree with it.

I suppose the only reason the CAS shortcomings don't bother me too much is because I play zoomed out far enough that I forget about it. The fat faces do drive me crazy though. Even squishing the heads as much as I can doesn't fix them. Its just gonna be a town full of pumpkin heads. And O M G, my sims had a baby and it has turned into a troll child. The thing is ghastly. I truly hope that she'll grow out of her trollishness.

The skin tones are poor, the heads are fat, the clothing options are terribly limited and the lipsticks don't have a glossy option (little thing, I know, but I WANT it!) I do hope to see improvements on CAS from modders and in EPs.

As much as I find some of the fundamentals with CAS and the neighborhood limitations a huge let down, overall I still really love the game.

Doc- Wow, I can't agree more with your review. The sims fat fugly faces pretty much ruin it for me. So I think I will stick with my Sims 2 unless a modder can fix the fugliness looks of the sims!

The open neighborhood is really a great idea and I absolutely LOVE all of the landscaping, the trees, plants, all that, looks amazing. I wish I could just take the open neighborhood, landscaping, and a few other small things from the sims 3 and plop it down in my sims 2 game!

I hate CAS too, sims 2 bodyshop is SOOOO much better! I think we had more sliders in the sims 2 to get more unique sims! Grrr, I'm so pissy with EA right now!! WTF were they thinking?

Thanks for the review Doc. This is exactely how I feared. How could EA do this to us? (or themselves for that matter.)

I enjoyed the Graveyard with the Crypt options and the Ghosts are cool, the Sims are like Wax Museum Dolls, to me, interestingly Fugly.

Modding this Puppy will be a challenge, i agree, but a lot of Modders have been waiting for just that.
A break from Sims2, with steroids attatched.

The Download manager and pay for Sim content was a surprise, EA Marketing has tapped a nice goldmine there.
Maybe we will be offered a Flat-Rate for crap soon?
Who knows?

Jogging around town was cool, some of the little challenges are humorous...and then i started to become mesmorized..half falling asleep.
It's those Wax figures, they are to blame.

Kudos and Happy Simming.
:°)

I haven't got the game yet and after reading your report Doc, I am not sure I will. The inability to make realistic looking SIMS is a dealbreaker for me. The fact that you say that the CAS system will make it nigh impossible to change the 'look' of the Sims is even more depressing.

What were EA thinking when they designed these dough people?

It's back to SIMS2 for me where I can make Marilyn Monroe look like her clone.

I am glad to finally see someone talk about the eyes in Sims 3. Eyes and eye color are very important to me (in real life too). In game they all just look black. I have yet to look closely at a Sim in town and be able to tell you what eye color they have.

And yes, the Sims are fugly. It seems the top of the head is set in stone so that no matter what you try to do with the lower part of the head and face, they still look like they have a fat head. The lighting in game on the Sims is awful as well. The makeup can look like the Sims have dirt on their face. My husband, looking over my shoulder, actually asked if the Sim had dirt on its face. So, graphics and lighting, I am mixed on. Some of it is just stunning and some is just horrid. And do not get me started on camera movement. To adjust angle takes forever to move and when you want to move slowly it moves fast. Almost like they crossed or put the wrong settings in some of them. Getting a close up view is torture.

The one thing that I absolutely love about the Sims 3 is being able to go out of your house and explore the world. I had such a wonderful time with my Sim going everywhere that I had not interacted with any of the other Sims for an entire Sim week. And then only because I figured that I had to if I ever wanted my Sim to get married eventually, etc.

The other thing that I love the idea of is story progression, that is, if they ever fix it so that your Sim families will not progress when you are not playing them ( sort of Sims 2 style). However, I do want the townies and even the Maxis families to change. I do not want to play my families in a static neighborhood, which was always a problem in Sims 2 where 5th generation children were friends with the same townie children that their forefathers were. But, as it stands right now, this cannot be done, forcing you to play only one family at a time. So, I like it, but it is broken.

I think the sims are better looking. :/
In TS3 than TS2, sorry. Honestly, I could care less about looks. I'm not a very visual person when it comes to games. My geeky friends are like "HAY CHECK OUT DESE GRAPHIX ON MAH NU GRAPHIX CARD!!1111" and I don't see it at all. They're all "NUBBBB"

^Eye killing enough? Anyway, what I mean to say is that I like the sims 3 because it's immersive and fun.

I know I have never really been on the forums but I feel like I have to comment for the Sims3. I agree with the first poster, these new sims are pretty "fugly"- they kind of remind me of the fugliness in the Sims1, it was almost like we went BACK a notch but I'm dealing with it only because the ability to roam around town is just amazing! And that I love.

I agree with the comment that was made, "..I want to take some aspects of the Sims3(such as roaming the town ability) and put it in the sims2". I couldn't agree any more- that would be the perfect game. But since I can't do that I have to deal with Sims3.

One thing I hate, which nobody mentioned is that when I switch the active family from one to another, and then I go back to the first one...the first one loses all the things that I had set up such as their promised wishes. I don't understand why they couldn't just allow those to save AS WELL AS keeping the family growing and progressing. Another thing is that when I switched activity back to my first family- I had done all that fishing for my sim and ALL OF THE FISH IN THE FRIDGE DISAPPEARED. Why couldn't little things like that save?? I'm very very very disappointed in that. Maybe I'm the only one since nobody else mentioned that. lol

And I hate how they only encourage you to play one family at a time in the same neighborhood. I don't mind that the rest of the town can move forward, and I like them doing so but why can't I be able to switch families freely??? Its an aspect of the Sims2 that I was expecting in the Sims3 that I didn't get. So now I'm just stuck with switching the active family- which isn't bad but then my saved family loses everything in their inventory and fridge. I don't know why they just couldn't allow for that to save as well.

From what I've heard about the simsm 3 (I haven't actually given it a go yet, so don't tear my head off if I get it wrong), it's kind of like they made this whole new WOWZERS SPARKLY seamless neighbourhood ting with awesomesauce grapichsand kind of skimmed over the rest of it...

Because there was a huge bug in the actual game, which I honestly think shouldn't have happened - I can understand small bugs and stuff, but something as big as the story progression feature? That's just unprofessional. And I've heard reviews from people complaining about how there are features and stuff that they missed from the sims 2...

But you know, I wouldn't know

I'm so glad someone else has picked up on this - I thought it was just my poor graphics, but most Sims seems to have black/brown eyes! Its only when you do a really controlled zoom you can see a hint of dark blue or green. Very frustrating.