GameSpy Reviews Simsville at E3

Ever wonder where your Sims go when they're not at work? While I was a great fan of The Sims, I was always puzzled by this question. Where do my Sims go when they're not at work? Do they ever shop? Go to the movies? Go visit a friend? Take a drive? Run errands? Simsville, which inhabits the middle ground between SimCity 3000 and The Sims, gives us the answers to those questions.

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SimsVille

The Sims go to the Next Level
By Jamie "Thrrrpptt!" Madigan

Ever wonder where your Sims go when they're not at work?

While I was a great fan of The Sims, I was always puzzled by this question. Where do my Sims go when they're not at work? Do they ever shop? Go to the movies? Go visit a friend? Take a drive? Run errands?

SimsVille, which inhabits the middle ground between SimCity 3000 and The Sims, gives us the answers to those questions. Truth be told, our Sims are apparently on the go, tooling around town, going to work, and finding things to make them happy.

For those unfamiliar with the runaway blockbuster hit that is The Sims, the premise is deceptively simple: you manage a family of Sims and attend to their desires and needs. SimsVille takes the Sims to the next level, letting you focus on entire neighborhoods. While you don't control the bustling economies and expansion of an entire metropolis like in the SimCity games, you do get to craft entire neighborhoods, including residences, businesses, and entertainment destinations.

The point of SimsVille, besides having fun, is to build your 'hood up how you like it. You accomplish this the good old fashioned way --through taxation. Gather enough cash in taxes and you can build something --restaurants, porn theaters (seriously), shops, houses, trees, backyard decorations, and more. If you make clever decisions about what to build, your Sims will like your neighborhood more, and you'll attract more lucrative businesses and more residents. This means, more taxes, with which to build more additions, and so forth and so on.

If you are wise, you will base your decisions upon the feedback generated by your populace. You can keep tabs on each and every Sim in your 'hood, making it easy to find out what they want --a better job, entertainment, shopping, whatever. You don't micromanage your Sims, but rather make global decisions that shape the neighborhood how you like it.

Like The Sims and SimCity, SimsVille is completely open-ended. There is no "winning" or "losing". You just create something and have fun with it.

You can, however, share your creations with other SimsVille addicts. EA plans on supporting the community through a website and through giving users the ability to create custom models, skins, objects, and more. This created a tremendous swell of creative output in the community for The Sims, and they expect similar results.

SimsVille will even let you import your favorite Sims from your saved games, too. Got a few families you want to introduce to the wide, wonderful world of SimsVille ? Bring 'em on in!

If the unprecedented success of The Sims and its expansions is any indication, SimsVille should do quite well and should have quite an impressive community behind it. Look for the title to be released sometime in 2002 for the PC.