Sim Housewife (The Sims (PC))

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	The Sims (PC)
Date:	12/08/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: visually impressive, fairly original, easy to play

Disadvantages: dull gameplay, repetitive, unexciting

The Sims is a game which allows you to live out the domestic lives of numerous little video-game characters, or 'Sims', controlling every activity of their lives from their relationships and leisure activities to choosing their jobs and household furniture. You can create and customise your Sims, and create families before moving them into a range of variously-sized houses, choosing jobs for your sims that reflect the lifestyle they are able to lead- should they have a high-profile job you can buy more expensive furniture and appliances for them, as well as entertainment facilities such as widescreen tvs, consoles, hi-fi systems, trampolines and so on. The game shows immense attention to detail, with hundreds of items that your Sims can interact with, and there are also a number of ways of making your Sims interact, such as making them hug, kiss, argue or fight.

Though your Sims need to go to work or to catch the school bus, you don't follow them but rather stay permanently at home, like some kind of eternally incarcerated and neurotic housewife. There is some fun to be had in choosing you're house's decor and furnishings, but ultimately the gameplay is shallow and short-lived, like the videogame equivalent of playing with a dolls house. Numerous add-ons and sequels are available which further embellish the original gaming experience, but ultimately the Sims is an incredibly mundane game with little to really grip the player after its initial novelty has worn off. Its a game that will likely appeal to casual gamers, and to its credit is well-designed and very visually impressive, but it has limited longevity and little to offer more serious gamers.

Summary: An ultimately very shallow gaming experience