Coded blue.

Friday 4 October 2002

Screenshot The Sims

Pic of the day: With the much larger neighborhood in The Sims Unleashed, the line between The Sims and Sim City starts to blur. And why not? They were invented by the same genius, after all.

Be(a)st game ever?

It's been out in the USA for a while already, but today was the official launch here in Norway (and Europe, I believe). So like 10 minutes after the gameshop opened, I was there, asking: "Do you have Sims Unleashed?" They had – though they had not taken them out of the cardboard box they came in yet – and I got a brand spanking new expansion pack for The Sims.

On the topic of spanking, monkeys are not on the primary pet list, even though they are depicted on the cover and in the manual. Dogs and cats rule supreme, with some backup from birds, fish and a little turtle thing. Only dogs and cats have personalities, though. They are honorary family members; you cannot control them directly, but you can see their personality and their current needs and plan accordingly. You can also interact with them in more ways than the other animals.

Wild animals will also stray by, at least if you have a garden. Yes, you can have a garden. Sow your own vegetables, harvest them, sell or eat them. So now the farmer career is open to you ... but you should have a well trained cat to take care of the mice, gophers and whatnot. Call for professional help if you see a skunk, though.

Farmer is not the only new career track. For the first time in a long time, there are 5 new careers. Not just Animal Care and Circus, but something as remote as Fashion, Culinary (Restaurant) and Education. Oh wait, I guess the teachers reading this will have a comment on just how remote school children are from wild animals...

***

While the pets are clearly the bulk of this new add-on, there are indeed lots of other reasons to buy it. You get a much larger neighborhood: For the first time you get to see the larger picture, and it is about 40 lots. Some of them come with shops (kinda like downtown) and some with new houses. I was disappointed to see that each neighborhood got the same houses and the same families. They should have kept that to neighborhood 1, and only included the essentials (the pet shop, really) in the others. Then again, in Hot Date and Vacation you got the same downtowns and holiday resorts for all neighborhoods too, unless you actively changed them. Still, the neighbors at least should vary. You don't need to get Goth Senior in every neighborhood. Luckily you can evict them and even raze their homes if you so choose.

I've already mentioned 5 new career tracks and farming. Also, in the tradition of these add-ons, there are a number of new items. Not just related to the pets and the new Old Town (yes, they make a pun like that) but new kitchen tables and so on. This is the first Sims box ever to come with 2 CD's – not even the original game did that. Consider your hard disk space before you buy.

***

So far, this is the praise you will find in any review. Now for the bad parts, and they are there, oh yes.

The new pet part of the game is poorly documented (actually, hardly at all) and is less than intuitive. My first pet almost starved to death because I did not find an option to feed him when he begged during the meal, and neither did I find any pet food in the pet shop which sold pets, pet toys, pet rewards, pet collars etc etc. Only as the poor thing was almost starving to death did I notice that there was a new category in the shop mode, under misc. There was no pet food, but a couple different food bowls. I bought one, placed it on the floor and had an adult click on it, to fill it with food. (When I initially had a kid click on it, the attempt was just rejected, without even the usual message that "This item can only be used by adults" – and it is certainly not intuitive that kids can't feed pets. These kids are not toddlers; they go to school.)

The in-game help menu had no obvious entries about pets, though it had entries about such things as removing doors. The game manual was little more precise than an advertisement. This expansion pack will be in high demand by kids ... some thought could have gone into making it easier to use. If the game can remind you 20 days in a row to get your Sim a job even though he is doing quite well as an independent artist, then it should definitely be able to tell you how to keep your pet alive.

The neighborhood with its shops, parks and markets looks like a great idea – but is not. If you go to buy a new squeaky toy, the entire family goes with you. Even if they have just gone to sleep, they will wake up and run after you in the pajamas. Only when they come home do they magically change into day clothes. While you are in Old Town, your need bars will deplete very fast. I believe they do so faster than at home, and faster than downtown. So when you have collected the squeaky toys and a few other nifty things, and politely answered the random strangers who want to talk to you, the entire family comes home and need to eat and pee and sleep and have fun, all of them at the same time. This is outright dumb. It would have taken so little to make a separate choice for one person to go.

The developers have discovered the trick where we used to place the shower near to a door so it would not flood when the kids used it. Now it floods the entire bathroom every time the kids use it, and you cannot clean up the puddles that occupy the same square as the shower itself or the WC or the washstand. If you get a flooding in the kitchen, the same thing applies: You cannot dry the squares without moving away the furniture first. But with 3 kids you may as well delete the shower. Alternatively use the cheat code MOVE_OBJECTS ON and click on the puddle then delete it. But it is a shame you have to use a cheat code just because the kids of one of the developers are less trainable than a slightly retarded dog.

Another problem I had was that when I asked one kid to talk to another, there was no option "talk about interests" anymore, just the two senseless chatter modes. Then when I told an adult to talk to a guest, the only two topics were cats and dogs, both of which caused instant anger in the guest. A while later I realized that there were two talk options, one related to pets only and one with the old options. This may be an artifact of the Norwegian translation, I haven't installed the English version yet as that computer is still being repaired (a month after it was struck by lightning. I hope they enjoy the sexy pictures of me, because I fail to see why else I don't get it back).

I had bought a cat as a pet to the family with 3 kids, and they got along well enough once I found out how to give it food, sleep and a litter box from the shop mode. But then after a couple days another cat showed up and started to caress the feet of a family member that happened to be outside to greet a guest. (The guest did not own the cat.) After being petted once, the cat decided to take up residence in the home. It ate of Tom's food bowl, used his litter box, and generally had a good time, showing no inclination to leave even after a good night's sleep. It is not listed as a family member, though. I have no idea whether this is a bug or a feature, as it is not documented in any way. It is all too realistic, though...

In conclusion: This expansion pack adds quite a bit of new features to the game, but it is the least intuitive one ever, worse even than Hot Date. Younger kids may find the game harder now, and this seems just wrong since they are probably the target group. The pets, incidentally, are quite cute.


Yesterday <-- This month --> Tomorrow?
One year ago: "Unbreakable" laws
Two years ago: Ethically impressed
Three years ago: Philosophical reflections

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