YAY! ok -breathe-


Here are the good && THE BAD what gamespot said :






I'm so happy!

Apparently the AI is great too!

You can read the full review here: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy...ms3/review.html

-fistpump-

Yay so at least we know it is very playable.... will haev to take a good look at it later.

Ed

Great news! Hopefully this also means it isn't extremely buggy!

Yes for now it's seems that most of the additionnal content is on the store and I don't like it. But I'm confident, soon there will be much more of free content. :D
Thank you for the link Pyba.

After personally finding out just how much of the content is in the store and not in the game, there's no way the game would get a 9.0/10 for me. The game is good, it's just not that big of a step from TS2. Its biggest feature is the seamless neighbourhood.

The content (and by that I mean objects/clothes/hair/etc) issue seems to really be bugging you. How is the game play itself? How far into it have you gotten into the game?

I'm pretty sure the Gamespot people aren't going to be weighing the CC issue into their review..unless they were already members of the Sims community. They're going to be looking at graphics, playability, and how much fun they had.

A word of warning:

The reason game reviewers give rave reviews is because The Sims 3 appeals to *gamers* - not simmers. The word of mouth hands-on experiences with this game by "hardcore" simmers has not been only optimistic...

As such, the mag reviews really aren't worth the pixels they're printed on... they simply don't dwelve into the essence of the game, or know what to look for.

The gameplay itself is almost exactly like you'd expect, not a big step from TS2. However you get more options to achieve something. I particularly like the different options a sim at work/school has. Forcing someone to do your homework in school cuts down on the time you have to spend doing it at home. And time there isn't enough of. Taking a shower still lasts an hour for example. And that can still get annoying. You have this seamless neighbourhood, neighbours to visit, places to party, yet you practically don't have time for it. Only when you've really maxxed out a career you get enough free days to do stuff. There are achievement points to spend on stuff like an iron bladder (rarely having to pee) and never hungry (speaks for itself) but there are none that will give you more energy. A sim that is tired will need to sleep for about 10 hours to get enough energy and to get the positive moodlet "well rested".

Jobs and traits will give new interactions. These interactions are fun but I haven't been able to determine whether a sim gains anything from them. My evil sim likes to scare people, and the scared people get a negative moodlet - and then what?. If being evil is just to depress others, meh. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a 'good' sim will be able to comfort others. Now there's a true advantage, since mood affects work/school performance. But most of the stuff seems to be just cosmetic and doesn't influence the actual game much. Traits are just to map out what lifetime goal you get.

So far I've made a Tony Soprano-esque male and his trophy wife. Tried to steer the male sim into becoming a crime boss but ended up becoming more of a comic book villain. The wife became a pastry chef and ended up making more money than he did. I liked my male sim chubby, but his career forced him to be athletic. I also neglected relationships to advance in the careers. I reached a point where I thought; "Hmm I'm not comfortable with how this turned out", and now I reset the household.

I'll try to take it more slowly and manage things better this time around, but the Sims needs demand simoleans. If the TV breaks down for the 100th time you don't want to spend 8 hours fixing it again, ignoring hunger/social etc. (it really takes that long sometimes) so you replace it or upgrade. And I haven't even gotten around to making babies yet or moving to a bigger house.

I really do like the opportunities system. One of my try-out teenagers could go to the science lab after school to get some extra credit. Which he did. And then he got a bad grade anyway cause there was no time left to do his homework. The female sim however, got the opportunity to deliver a perfect dish to one of the restaurant's customers, and got handsomely rewarded doing so.

The gameplay is great, it's very much like TS2. But as you notice, it's just hampered by a lack of time and it doesn't always give you the freedom that is advertised.

Build-mode is the feature I was waiting for the most, but apart from the terrain-painter it is so bad that it's not worth talking about. You see these cute cottages on the screenshots but if you try to make anything even slightly different you're stuck with awkward looking doors, windows, roofs. This could easily be remedied by allowing us to build window frames (in both walls and doors) and roof frames. It would give so much more creative freedom.

Actually Arcadus that last suggestion is really interesting. Maybe you could suggest it on the offical forums. It would definately seem to be dobale considering the way fabrics can be changed the basis of the engine would already be there.

The thing I like is they seem to offer square terrain shaping tools now which reallyw ill make things easier.

Anyone know if we can still make basements? or do we need to wait for a Nightlifesque expansion for this?

I've heard you can still make basements.

Everything the maxis folks did in build mode must be available to everybody else too. Arcadus, have you tried looking for cheats that will let you achieve what they did? I'm sure there will be tutorials out soon for all the tricks

The one thing that struck me as missing in the gamespot review is the whole issue of the universal timeline and story progression -- the one issue which is of most concern, I think, to long-time simmers, and at least as significant as the open neighborhood, which as usual gets the lion's share of attention. The reviewer keeps talking about "your sims", as though you will never play any others. Reviewers really need to address that, IMO. I just skimmed through Jud Hudson's scan of the manual (here: http://www.simprograms.com/get-a-sn...ruction-manual/ ), and even the MANUAL doesn't even mention the story progression toggle -- just free will and aging. (Unless it's tucked somewhere away from the discussion of the other game options.)

Isn't free will = story progression?

I.e. if free will is set to 0/off, the neighborhood will not progress on it's own?

Or maybe I've misunderstood...

Edited to add: Page 14 in the manual mentions Story Progression and that it can be disabled in the Options menu.

I'm looking forward to the story progression aspect! I just have to let go of the fear that I will miss something important ...

Autonomy (free will) can be set to different levels. This is a separate option in the menu from the story progression option.

I don't really trust Gamespot reviews anymore, but perhaps that's just me. Personally, I'd give the Sims 3 a 6/10 - but I will say this: I think it has the potential to become a 9/10 game after patching, a good heap of fanmade CC and an expansion pack or two.



This seems a bit of an understatement to me. Sims frequently- very very frequently -get in one another's way when walking through wide open spaces. It usually takes about 5 seconds for the paths to resolve, but I've seen it take up to 30 (that was fun )

I see what you're saying, some of the traits don't really seem to be as beneficial as others. But still without traits there would be nothing to make one sim unique from another sim.

My sim with the slob trait eats every chance he gets and even licks random plates clean so he has gained some weight. My athletic sim is always exercising. My workaholic sim won't stop working on the computer and progresses very fast in her career. The hot headed sim is nice until you piss her off and then she blows up at you. The mean sim on the other hand is a complete 100% jerk. The traits are kind of fun and really give character to the sims, maybe even an improvement over the astrological signs from Sims2?

It mentions Story Progression and turning if off and on on page 14 of the manuel (see post by Srikandi for the link).

Free will is the amount of power you give your sims to make their own decisions. Story progression is when the other families in your neighbourhood keep progressing through their lives even if you are playing a different family.

Ah thanks. Expected all the AI-related options to me discussed in the same place, imagine that

It’s interesting — the manual actually specifies that other Sim families can autonomously move out if Story Progression is on, which means it’s a feature, not a bug. That decision still completely befuddles me. Didn’t the devs understand that folks get attached to ALL their sims, not just one household at a time? :/

Exactly! I've been a Gamespot member since 2003 but recently I've lost respect for them when I learned the news that they fired a staff member because he gave an honest rating (supposedly they wanted him to give a high rating because they were being paid for it). I don't trust them anymore.

I played the sims 3 a bit,I'd give it a 7 or a 6.8. The time I have to sit there and wait for sims to sleep/bathe/work/read is incredibly frustrating even to me when I have the patience of a saint. It's the most that puts me off,the ugly manly children are second to that. The game is still a great time-waster though but to me it's not worth a 9.
edit: Then again maybe the time problem I had might be a bug,I hope.

edit:

I've noticed that the path thing is more frequent in the sims 3 than in the sims 2 was for me. I almost never had that problem in the sims 2 but in the sims 3 even when there are only my sim and another trying to go up the stairs they'll stand there for several seconds,that never happened in the sims 2. Gah.

Haha! I remember once i was playing in a sorority in TS2 and 2 of the girls got stuck in the bathroom and did the whole waving animation and complaining. It made me think that they were fighting over the bathroom.

Did they perhaps play a version other than the one we keep hearing about with all its bugs?


Er, that could explain a few things.


Do you get out and look at the screenshots that are circulating? I do, as well as read stuff. Yes, basements can be created base game, just like they could be created base game in TS2.

I don't usually trust Gamespot reviews either. (I subscribe for the previews, the HD downloadable movies, and stuff like that, not the reviews.) However, in this case I trust them more than I do Sim-fan reviews.

Why? When Sims 2 came out, forums were filled with bad reviews too. Not enough content, 'It's a bug-filled piece of crap!', Sims age too fast (never time to get anything done!), my Sim died!, the graphics are too blocky, camera control is a pain, etc. Mainly lack of content and bugs, and people who hadn't accepted the changes to the game (aging, 3D graphics).

Soon we'll have tons of custom content to download, and we'll get used to the changes to the way they handle neighbourhoods, and I bet a lot more Sims fans will be singing Sims 3's praises.

There'll of course be those that don't like it still, and will still play Sims 2. Just like there's people that to this day still prefer Sims 1. They're entitled to do so.

I believe it's the final version.

There are people who do not like using technology at all as well....

Strange people they are.

But at least we can all be sure the world is flat as a pancake.....

Wow, really? My TS2 sims are incredibly unintelligent when it comes to things like these. They would not only stand there for several seconds, but also follow up with waving of arms, yelling, stomping, and then cancelling the whole thing out and go do something stupid. Sims 3 sounds like an improvement, albeit far from perfect, based on my own experience. I guess I'll have to wait and see how my own game behaves to be sure.

They gave Spore an 8.

Doesn't mean much.