The Sims - Are you a closet fan?

[SilentScreams]

Well, J Arcane gave us the closet Pokemon fan thread, and a quick search didn't turn up any Sims threads, and with The Sims 3 looming ever closer I figured I'd make one.

Who here is a closet Sim?
I myself go through phases where I'll play it as hardcore as you can possibly play The Sims 2. These phases last about a week or two and then I'm back to FPSers and RPGs and regrowing my facial hair in a futile attempt to reaffirm my manliness.
I'll be picking up The Sims 3...probably on Amazon so I don't have to walk into a store and buy it while insisting it's for my little sister. :D

And am I alone in wishing they would make a multiplayer Sims game? I remember there was a console one a while back. I think it was on the Xbox, and it had split screen.
I really wish they would do something like that and let us play it over the Internet or a LAN.

[Wraith]

I'm sort of the same... I'll play Sims 2 for a few days, then not touch it for months. I guess you could say I'm a casual fan of the series... I've got the game and two expansions. For Sims 1, I had one of the expansions.

After Spore, I'm maybe a little more hesitant about picking up Sims 3 right away, but I might just get it anyway. I won't be getting any expansions that are all Stuff, no gameplay.

[ShivaX]

I like the Sims, its pretty interesting.

Then its always fun to setup murder parties with your cow plant or just removing all the doors from the house once half the neighborhood is in there and going to bed to wake up to a insanely haunted house.

The one thing that always bugged me was how the rest of the world was in limbo. If you had a kid and they made a friend, that friend was forever a kid, even when they died of old age that friend was still 8 years old. I'm actually kind of excited about Sims 3 since it specifically seems to address the disconnect between your Sims and the rest of the town.

If they do it right and towns can go for generations it will be a pretty cool little simulator.

[Khrymsyn]

I like the sims, but almost more as a home designer/decorator than worrying about when my sim has to eat or piss. I love building games, but I don't play them very long. It's wierd.

It's also too much fun to make traps. =)

[Lance Uppercut]

I like building houses. I also like trapping Sims in a box and watching piss themselves.

[Goronmon]

I pretty much gave up on The Sims after the first iteration. The level of disdain I have for having to tell my sims to take a piss and wash their hands just overcame any amount of enjoyment the game provided.

[Ink Asylum]

I've been a solid fan of The Sims since I read about the original a year before it game out. I tend to buy the game, play it hardcore, then take a break until the next expansion, playing less and less each release until I stop buying the expansions altogether, waiting for the sequel. I bought 6 out of 7 Sims 1 expansions and 5 out of 8 Sims 2 expansions.

I'm looking forward to The Sims 3 and hope it's more than an incremental jump over The Sims 2. It'll be hard to reproduce the huge jumps made from Sims 1 to 2, namely the free-roaming camera, fully 3d world, and life cycle. I also hope they don't excise too much from the final Sims 2 experience so they can re-release it all via expansion packs, though that's somewhat inevitable.

[JayK47]

I'm looking forward to 3 quite a bit. Am I supposed to be ashamed of enjoying a sims game? It's not as bad as enjoying WOW if you ask me. But damn near as expensive with the inevitable expansion packs. The question is, how limited will the core game be?

I'm also surprised there has not been more effort to bring the sims to consoles. I know there are console versions of the sims out there, but they are not the same as the PC version. And nowhere as good. With EA at the helm, I'm surprised that sims 3 won't be cross platform.

[SilentScreams]

It's a near certainty that they will take out content that was already in The Sims 2 in order to release it as expansions for Sims 3.
It's a shitty thing to do, but it's the way EA works.
As ever, I won't be buying any of the expansions as a matter of principle.

[Ink Asylum]

They are adding a lot despite what they're taking out, and they're not taking away everything. I'm mostly going to miss pets. I had to wait a long time to get those in Sims 2 and I hope they'll be in one of the first Sims 3 expansion packs.

[JayK47]

The expansions don't bother me too much. They prolong the enjoyment of the game. The problem I have is the price. The Sims 2 expansions retail for $30. That is crazy. They should be no more than $20 and after a while go down to $10 or less. It's fan rape. I wonder what will happen with Sims 3. Will they do something more similar to DLC?

[Wraith]

I wonder what will happen with Sims 3. Will they do something more similar to DLC?This seems like a natural fit for "today's" game market. Unless they're worried that the not-very-tech-savvy audience is reluctant to buy DLC. But hey, it's worked great for Guitar Hero/Rock Band.

Integrate an upgrade store into the application. Make it seamless. Charge $5-$10 for an addon, depending on how much content there is. I don't really want to see them selling hundreds of things for $1 a piece, though I'm sure it's something they've considered...

[MagGnome]

I was a fan of the first game. I played quite a bit of it for several months before moving on to other games. I bought the second one and barely played it, partly because it ran poorly on my machine.

I've thought about installing it again sometime, but we'll see. I don't need to get back into it again.

There was an online game - The Sims Online. It's dead now.

I didn't buy any of the expansions for the Sims 2, and I doubt I will for 3 either. I think the expansions are a joke.

[JRR006]

I still play The Sims 2 occasionally! I like to build grand houses and the like. Maybe I'd be better off with some architecture software. It comes and goes - it's installed, so I'll play for a few hours, then I move on to other things for weeks and weeks. I do like Mod the Sims 2 and downloading new clothes and furniture. I guess that makes me a closet case.

[JayK47]

I was a fan of the first game. I played quite a bit of it for several months before moving on to other games. I bought the second one and barely played it, partly because it ran poorly on my machine.

Well I hope you have something that can now play Sims 2. If you do, and you should, check it out. For me, once I went Sims 2, the original was lost to me. Especially if you picked up a few decent expansion packs.

So do you have a PC than can play Sims 3? My wife loves sims 2. I hope her rig can handle sims 3. Otherwise, time to spend too damn much.

[MagGnome]

I'm sure I could run Sims 2 now.

My computer is strange. I can run Left 4 Dead well, but it's not super shiny. Track Mania, however, crashes after a few minutes.

I run everything on my iMac. :eek:

[Farsight]

The Sims are great games. We need far more high-quality games that aren't just about blowing people's heads off. I mean, I like blowing people's heads off as much as the next guy, but sometimes it's fun to kick back and try to impregnate half the women of a virtual city (I gots no time for virtual uggos!)...

I'm really surprised we haven't seen more Sims clones. Social interaction, a "better life", and a 'realistic' world sandbox seem like areas ripe for further exploration in games. Setting a game in a real environment and then opening up all the things we can't/won't do in real life would be a blast IMO. Like an office-worker game, where you can be the biggest whore/jerk on earth, sleeping your way to the top, getting people fired, commiting espionage, etc.

When the Sims3 hits, I greatly look forward to making a Sim-me and being able to visit the neighbor couple and their kids who bear a striking resemblance to me... err, my Sim...

[Wraith]

I think there were quite a lot of clones, back when Sims 1 was popular, but I don't think any of them really panned out.

[biosc1]

Wow...just made a new desktop for my girlfriend and then proceeded to go through her stack of Sims 2 discs (original + crap ton of expansions). I swear it took me over 2 hours to install all that stuff on her new machine...yes, she's an addict...

She's also super excited for Sims 3 to come out. Myself, I'm more of a part time "Sim'er". I enjoyed Sims 1 quite a bit, but never really played Sims 2. I've watched over her shoulder as she played and it seems pretty entertaining.

[Deadend]

I have trouble getting into The Sims games.. as I just end up running out of content and I tend not to enjoy the making sims talk part.. I am more of an explorer and Sims lacks that aspect for me.

[Ink Asylum]

Although Spore was a big flop I think the Sims 3 would be well-served by incorporating Spore's downloadable content features in some way. Specifically, I would love to be able to have my friends' Sims, houses, families, etc. download automatically into my town. The same for created furniture/clothes/etc. Allow me to opt in or out of receiving content from strangers, and provide an in-game "store" to browse and download content created by others.

[Lint of Death]

I tried getting back into Sims 2 kind of recently, but immediately got sick of it when family members started moving out. I just can't stand the isolated time bubbles.