 |
The Sims Social: Facebook Application
by MonsoonBaby
Ever since the launch of the series in 2000, The Sims has amassed a substantial amount of games across a large variety of platforms. With an impressive worldwide fan base stretching far into the millions, it was only a matter of time before The Sims conquered the social networking market. This month, The Sims Social launched on Facebook. ... The game garnered a staggering 5 million players on it's launch day, so obviously Maxis are doing something right. So what is it that has made The Sims Social so popular in such a short space of time?
The answer to that above question is simple-the familiar game play. Being a Sims fan for the past eleven years, I was pleased to notice that The Sims Social thankfully keeps in a lot of the game play that can be experienced in the PC version, but of course, things have been adapted so that it fits in with the "social" aspect of Facebook.
The game sees you in charge of one character, instead of the choice of controlling a family of Sims. Like the previous games, the ability to fulfill your Sims basic needs is included here, which sees you insuring that your Sim has gone to the toilet, eaten, had an desired amount of fun, and more. If you don't keep on top of these, your Sim becomes thoroughly unhappy, and it becomes harder for them to complete set tasks until you've made them happy again.
A large element of the game is the social side of it. Players can invite their friends to play the game, then visit their friends virtual Sim house to interact with their character. Thankfully, the interactions are not simply visiting a house to water the neighbours plants, tidy or repair things like in CityVille and FarmVille. In this game, your Sims actually get to develop their relationships by chatting, joking, flirting, complimenting and many, many more. In fact, there are so many possibilities of interaction that this proves to be one of the most fun aspects of the entire game.
One nice touch is that your Sim and Facebook friends sims relationships will actually develop. I'm currently in the process of getting my Fiancé and myself's relationship status up to the highest level in the game (sad, but true). Choose to become mortal enemies, or the best of friends or lovers. The choice is entirely in you, and your friends, hands. Be warned though-your Facebook friend will have to approve a change in relationship between their sim and yours. This is a great addition which actually makes you consider the consequences of accepting a particular relationship status.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of The Sims Social for me is the customisation. Like the previous games, this Facebook addition allows you to build your own house and furnish it from the shop section. The bigger and more furnished your house is, the more your house value will increase. Increasing in house value helps to unlock items and challenges, so it's worth aspiring towards!
To give some sort of focus to the game, challenges have been added. These challenges require you to do certain tasks in the game in order to complete it, collect xp and rewards, and thus level up. This part of the game play actually gets pretty addictive, especially when you realise you are just that little bit closer to levelling up.
There is one aspect of the game however that, unfortunately, I find quite frustrating. This is the collecting of items to complete tasks, unlock new writing, art or cooking skills, or to build a piece of furnishing for your house. Whilst the majority of these can be collected via completing certain tasks (many can be unlocked whilst working towards skill points), or completing challenges. However, the downside is that many can only be rewarded by asking friends to send them to you. Thankfully many of my friends are on The Sims Social, so I can get most of my requests sent to me. However, this is a disheartening aspect of the game when a player does not have many friends who are willing to play it.
Also, some items can only be collected if you post a message from the game on your Facebook wall. After a while of having to do this, you'll notice that your wall is littered with game messages. Being someone who has a huge number of friends posting things like this from CityVille, it's difficult to actually read your news feed without being confronted by one of these. In all honesty, it's just like spamming, and kind of pollutes the whole Facebook experience. I just wish the game avoided the "posting to wall" aspect, and instead focused on earning them through the game. Not everybody wants to read your desperate plea for a few extra simoleons!
Overall, The Sims Social is a welcome addition to the already huge Sims franchise. The changes made to the familiar game play are both welcoming and refreshing here. The social side of this new game play allows players to share their sim experience with their Facebook friends in a number of ways. The inclusion of challenges which the player can complete along the way gives the game a certain element of focus, so those who are growing tired of the free-roaming element that The Sims is well known for has something to actually aim for.
A few bugs are yet to be ironed out, such as the inability to accept requests at times, challenges not completing and so on, but it's early days and I'm sure the game will be improved on significantly. The Sims Social is definitely the best game I have played on Facebook, and I do not doubt on it remaining that way for a long time to come yet. I look forward to seeing how this game progresses!
Read the complete review |
 |
FarmVille - Facebook Application
by kiss_me2070
***FINDING THE APPLICATION***
The application is really easy to find, I'm sure nearly everyone on facebook has been sent requests from people who use farmville, I know I'm always bombarded with requests, how-ever less now then I used to be. You also also find the application in facebook if you start typing in 'Farmville' in the ... search bar, this will bring up the application where you can join, along with your other friends. Once you have joined and use the application this will be save in facebook and will be on your bookmark page on facebook so you can find it quicker.
***THE AIM OF THE GAME***
To create a big farm and earn money/points by harvesting various different types of tree's, harvesting crops and selling them, making recipes and collecting items that animals produce such as egg's and milk. Each time you collect or harvest thing you will gain more points and when you have a certain number of points you will move up a level and gain more experience points. Bascially you need to keep your farm running smoothly and carry out some of the tasks given to you, either by your friends or by farmville itself. You earn cash the more crops you harvest and the more tasks you complete on your farm the more experience you will earn as well. This helps you to get better rewards and to get limited items which people on a lower experience level can't get.
***PLAYING THE GAME***
When you start playing the game it's very basic, you will get given a small farm (this can get bigger the more neighbours you add). You will need to plough some of the land and then plant crops and watch them grow. When you decide what plant you want to go, either flowers, fruit or vegetables it will tell you how long it takes for the crops to grow. This cna be anything from 2hrs to about 3 days. You need to keep note of this otherwise if you go back to your crops too late they will have withered and will no longer be any good, menaing you have to plant all the crops again. There are various animals you will be given and will need to build places for them to live.
I have been playing farmville on and off for about 3 years. I don't play it every day, and never go on it at the weekend, which is probably why a lot of my friends have got a higher experience level than me. If you have friends on facebook who are also playing the same game you can add them as neighbours and they can send you gifts or requests of items they need to build or complete a task. You can also ask them for specific gifts as well. My farm is quite large and I have lots of animals sorted into their different pens. I also have about 7 orchards for all the different types of tree's and I have completed a lot of the recipe tasks as well as collecting items, in order to trade them in for rewards. You can buy various different things for your farm which includes vechiles such as tractors and seeders, wood cabin's, houses, buildings, tree's, fences and other things to make your farm look how you want it. Some of the items you can buy using your farm cash which you earn by harvesting and selling crops. Other items you will need to buy using your money which you need to transfer or pay using your bank/credit card. Items vary in price, and this is something I have never done as Im not really into the game that much to spend my money on it.
When playing the game I tend to go on it to plant some crops and will then log off and check on it the following day to then harvest the crops. This isn't a game you could spend hours playing as you need to leave it to enable the crops to go and for people to send you items/gifts. There will be certain items you need for buildings such as bricks, nails, wood, tin sheets and other items. These items can be sent to you, or again you can purchase them. I'm not sure what experience level you can reach but one of my friend's has managed to get upto 100 and I'm currently on 86. Obviously the more crops you plant and the more items you buy on your farm the quicker this will go up.
Along the bottom of the game screen it will show your list of friends who are your neighbours on farmville, on here you can see what level each person is upto. You cna obviously tell from looking at this the people who play the game a lot and people who play the game once in a while.
***GRAPHICS/SOUNDS***
You can hear the sound of the animals on your farm which does get annoying so I actually turned the sound off when playing. The graphics are fairly good, and are quite sharp without any distortion or anything looking blurry. I don't really think they can improve the graphics as it's fine how it is. Maybe if the game was different then they could improve the grahics slightly. You will notice that some of the items on your farm move, these cna include windmills or the animals may move. Sometimes this isn't always the case though as sometimes the application can run slow or have problems. I have seen other games with better graphics, how-ever as this is just a free application on facebook and it's not paid for this doesn't bother me too much.
***OVERALL OPINION***
I like these types of game, and do play this daily. It's definately not a game I can play for hours and I actually get quite annoyed with the amount of requests I get sent for this game, how-ever you can turn off/ignore the requests by going into the settings on your facebook page. The application does seem to have a lot of problems, this can vary, but often the game will freeze or it will say the game is out of sync and needs refreshing. This is quite frustrating as this happend quite often and stops you from playing the game, which can mean the crops you have planted will wither anyway. lots of my friends used to play this game but not many play it now as I don't think they can really bothered. This is a little bit addictive as i like to progress in the game to get better things and to get further than my friends, so I also find this game a little competitive too. If you have the time and you like these types of game then give it a go.
(review may also appear on ciao)
Read the complete review |
