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Computer Times
Editors' Choice Game - Facebook The Sims Social Review by Angie Kibiloski
EA Games has been entertaining masses of gamers for years with their super popular, and addictive The Sims franchise. You have seen The Sims at home, at college, in the medieval ages, and even on a deserted island. Now you can find The Sims in the same place you can find just about anyone these days…on Facebook. The Sims Social brings together successful elements from The Sims previous titles and the common questing mode of many Facebook games. See for yourself by taking the reigns and playing around with every aspect of your Sim’s life, all for free. First, create your own personalized Sim by tailoring her appearance and personality, furnish her small house with items that make her happy, and then interact with her Sim friends and environment to complete quests and earn rewards. Fact: quest-based Facebook games are addictive. Fact: The Sims in any form has ALWAYS been addictive. Together, they are a marriage made in heaven that will keep you engaged for hours.
Each action you take in the game requires energy, like similar games of this style. I love this common feature, as it prevents you from spending TOO much time chained to the screen. Of course, you can come right back when your energy refills, but you’re forced to take a break at least. Completing quests and leveling up can also earn you more energy. The actions that can be taken in the game depend on the items you find around your environment. Some items may have multiple actions that can be taken. Click on your Sim’s computer, for instance, and you can write an e-mail, browse the Web, play games, or do something to make progress towards a quest objective. Click on the fridge to have a snack, the sink to wash your hands or brush you teeth. You can tend your yard, plant a garden, call a friend, or have a nap. Whatever else you do though, be sure to keep an eye on your various meters: hunger, hygiene, bladder, social, fun, and sleep. If they are green, your Sim has everything she requires. If one is yellow, you should look after that aspect of her needs in the near future. If an icon is red, hurry, your Sim is starving, exhausted, depressed, etc, and you need to care for them NOW. A happy and healthy Sim is an inspired Sim, and she will earn you more XP and Simoleons (the in-game currency) with her actions. Along with energy, each action takes real time, so you’ll have to wait a few seconds and watch your Sim performing whatever you have assigned her to do. You can click on multiple actions and queue them up for her. When she finishes one action on the list, she will automatically go on to the next. Just remember to go after her and click on the rewards she has earned for each action to collect them. These could be Simoleons, experience points, energy, Social Points, or other special items.
You get one game provided friend, whom you can visit whenever you like. You can interact with her or her house, and either earn her trust and friendship, or piss her off. You’ll get an assortment of actions to take with her if you click on her, and you’ll get to choose which way to go. Hint: if you’re trying to make friends, telling her some gossip might be a better way to go than insulting her. Whichever option you choose, your Sim and her friend will entertain you by speaking in the classic Sims gibberish language we’ve all come to love and expect. Invite some of your Facebook friends to be your Sims friends too, and you can visit and interact with them as well as this computer generated character. Form different relationships, even romantic ones, with your friends’ Sims. To complete certain quests, you’ll need to have more friends to engage with, so don’t be shy with the invites. You might use the free gift feature to send your friends some goodies as an incentive to come and play. Other in-game characters will appear as icons at the left hand side of the screen to assign you quests. These quests will vary in length and difficulty, and could require one simple action, or take several days to accomplish. You might be asked to plant some flowers to improve your yard, or make up invitations to come and see how you’ve decorated your house, or even something as fun as going to the store and buying a new outfit. You’ll always have something to work on, so keep an eye out for new quests to appear. The quests, like actions, will earn you great rewards.
The house your Sim lives in starts out very small, but you could change that. As you add decorations and furniture to your house, you increase its value and you move into better and better neighborhoods. You will also have the ability to buy additional rooms and expand your house, or buy extensions to your yard and have a bigger property surrounding your house. You can find all sorts of things to buy for your house, like a huge bed, improved shower, posters, plants, and fun gadgets in the store. Items cost varying amounts of Simoleons, SimCash, or Social Points. You earn social points very slowly, but you do earn them, every time you perform a social function, like improving your friendships. SimCash is a rarity. You can purchase more SimCash with real money, and use it on its own, or convert it to Social Points or Simoleons. You can also buy additional clothing, hairstyles, and other personal items to change the appearance of your Sim. Items you are not using, either for your Sim, or for her home, can be stored in your Storage area of the Inventory. Keep them safe and out of the way for later use. You’ll also find an area called Craft, which is where the various special items you earn will be found. These special items form a series of collections that can be crafted into useful tools, some of which can be used to instantly satisfy one of your Sim’s needs. There are also special items that are collected just for certain quests. The Sims has always been a franchise of games that has captivated players of all ages. It satisfies our need for control and that little vein of voyeurism that runs through all of us. We get to play god with our own little mini version of ourselves, and make her as lazy or successful, and as reclusive or sociable as we want. She can have that dream house we might never have, the mega hot boyfriend we fantasize about, or give her boss a giant slap in the face, and we get to tell her to do it. Just because you have control, doesn’t mean your Sim ONLY does what you tell her, though. Remember that even when you are away from the game, life goes on for your Sim, so check back often and don’t neglect her or her home for too long…you might find trouble when you return. A big part of a Sim’s life has always been her interactions with other Sims. What better place to interact with others than on Facebook? By bringing all of your friends into your Sim’s world, you get to combine your real social life with your Sim’s. The Sims Social is the logical next step in the franchise, and has already become widely successful, with over 39 million users, and it hasn’t even been live half a year yet. Go to http://www.ea.com/the-sims-social to get more information about the game, and http://www.facebook.com/TheSimsSocial to join the growing community, and have some addictive fun controlling your own little Sim.
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