Wednesday 13 October 2004

Pic of the day: Typical Sims2 family.

Sims2 wrongs = 1 right

When I started playing Sims2, one thing that upset me was the short adult life. This life phase, in which you can have children and/or work full time, is 30 days. In contrast, a pregnancy lasts 3 days, and the baby remains an immobile larva for 3 days before it recognizes its parents and wishes to learn basic human life skills. From this we can deduce that 1 sim day = 3 months. This would give adult sims 90 months, seven and a half year, to reproduce and reach the top of their career. That's beyond ridiculous and well into outrageous.

Then a few days ago I read a shallow and unbalanced Sims2 review in Super PLAY Norge, a shallow and unbalanced Norwegian computer magazine whose one redeeming trait was the comment by the editor that "violence begets violence so presumably sex begets sex". I adopted that phrase and threw the magazine in the waste bin where it belonged. However, a major complaint against Sims2 had been the ridiculous and wildly unbalancing rewards you could buy for aspiration points. (The points your sims get when a wish is fulfilled ... or lose when a fear comes to pass.)

It has gradually dawned on me that the two wrongs are meant for each other. For instance, Nanna the overly family oriented Sim mommy gets 8000 AP for each baby, and then every day she can rack up 500 points just by cuddling a toddler at the right time, and another 500 for playing with him or reading to him. This she can do several times a day, interspersed with 1000 points for kissing husband if the timing is right. As long as she keeps churning out babies and raising them, she can afford enough Elixir of Life to stay young forever and keep her husband young as well.

Other aspirations have a harder time. The Knowledge path, for instance, gets points for raising skills, but this takes longer and longer time at higher levels of skill. Then again you get a fat bonus for maximizing a skill, not to mention if you max them all. Reaching the top of your career, especially in science, is also a biggie. Meanwhile you can still harvest a moderate amount of aspiration from more mundane wishes such as trying to make a type of meal you never made before. And no matter what path of life you choose, setting aside some time for love and friendship will help keep you young.

So yes: Your sim's adult life may be disastrously short -- if you avoid all the things you really want, if you never grab an opportunity until it is too late, and stay away from everyone who could help fulfill your hopes and dreams. If you do this, then your body will shut down early and you will grow old before your time.

I suppose there is a lesson to be learned from this, but I'm not sure I like it.

***

Be that as it may, Sims2 is such a great game that even seeming design flaws turn out to be breakthroughs in gameplay. Unbeatable even at its current steep price.