The gang at ZDNet.com played The Sims Livin' Large, and were not disappointed to find "...more character skins, more career paths, more home furnishings, and more of the original game's quirky, sarcastic humor."
The Sims: Livin' Large Review
Livin' Large adds more of the same to The Sims: more character skins, more career paths, more home furnishings, and more of the original game's quirky, sarcastic humor.
The Sims: Livin' Large is the official expansion for Maxis' extremely popular strategy game, The Sims. For the most part, Livin' Large adds more of the same to The Sims: more character skins, more career paths, more home furnishings, and more of the original game's quirky, sarcastic humor. The expansion makes very few major changes to the way The Sims is played, but these few new features - and the many other minor additions the expansion contains - should be enough to recommend it to any fan of the original game.
In Livin' Large, as in The Sims, you create a household of tiny, partially autonomous computerized people, or sims, and you conduct their lives as you see fit. You'll order them to do things like eat meals, watch television, use the restroom, and look for jobs. If you meet their needs for food, rest, and amusement, they'll be happy and may lead productive lives. Abuse them, deny them restroom privileges, or starve them, and they'll become depressed and uncooperative and may eventually die. It may not sound very interesting in theory, but it's as intriguing in practice as it was in The Sims. You can also order your sims to meet and speak with other sims from the neighborhood. This sort of simulated social interaction was easily the most engaging part of the original game. Depending on your sims' disposition and astrological sign, they may get along well with their neighbors or may be completely ostracized, which can wreak havoc on your sims' self-esteem.
Thankfully, if your sims' household falls completely apart from neglect (accidental or otherwise), you can start a brand-new household in a brand-new neighborhood. Livin' Large contains five different neighborhoods in which you can establish a sim household. The first two are partially populated by pregenerated sims that inhabit pregenerated houses; the other three neighborhoods are completely empty and can be filled with custom houses and sims that you design.
Designing custom houses in Livin' Large is just as enjoyable as it was in The Sims, if not more so, since Livin' Large includes every single one of the house-building objects from the original game, plus many new options. You can choose from a variety of new wallpapers, carpets, and furnishings; all of these can be selected and placed in your sims' home quickly and painlessly, since Livin' Large uses the same intuitive and easy-to-use building and buying interfaces as the original game. And nearly all of these new items, like the Vibro-Matic bed, the robot housekeeper, and the stained-glass windows, have the same sort of witty and humorous descriptions that items from the original game had. As in the original game, it's worth the effort to browse through all the household items for sale, just to read the amusing descriptions of the new items.
Some of the new household items are merely expensive improvements to existing items, but others can cause exciting and often absurd random events. If you order your sims to clean the new magic lamp, they'll release a genie that may bless your sims with a pot of gold, a lawn full of decorations, or a new pinball machine. Then again, the genie's magic may backfire and set your sims' house alight, make a mess on the floor, or destroy a relationship with a neighboring sim. If your sims use the Concoctonation Station chemistry lab, they may make potions that fulfill all of a sim's bodily needs. Then again, that next potion could turn whoever drinks it into a hideous rampaging monster that will overflow faucets, smash televisions, and clog toilets uncontrollably until the effect of the potion eventually wears off. These and other new items, like the voodoo doll and the telescope, may cause drastic changes in your sims' budgets, moods, homes, and relations with other sims. Though some of these changes can be beneficial, others can be harmful - so if you make regular use of such items, you may find yourself saving and reloading your last game often.
Regardless of what happens to your sims, they'll still look and sound about as good as ever. While there are a few new character animations, like the furtive glances your sims will cast about before downing a potion and the cautious punches your sims will throw at a voodoo doll, nearly all of Livin' Large's character movements have been recycled from the original game. Though they're recycled, the character animations are still expressive, and the few new animations fit in well. In addition, most of the game's sound and music are the same as in the original game. Sims still speak their peculiar brand of spirited gibberish and still watch the same equally garbled television shows and listen to the same equally garbled music.
Unfortunately, The Sims: Livin' Large has some of the same problems that The Sims did - you still can't follow an employed sim to work, and that sim's line of work still has little bearing on the actual gameplay. Furthermore, scrolling the isometric perspective is as sluggish in the expansion as it is in the original game, and your bumbling sims will still occasionally have problems moving to where you point them. Then again, Livin' Large wasn't developed to be a definitive sequel that would make drastic improvements on the core game. It was intended to be a bundle of new content, new furnishings, and a few new options that would make your sims' lives even more exciting, and in that regard, it succeeds.
By Andrew Seyoon Park
When Lyon and Chetin Wezil moved to Vegas, they decorated in style. This, after all, is a permanent party town. Some might question their taste, but you have to admit, everything matches. Just different shades of ugly, really.
And their 24-hour party pad does seem to attract quite a crowd!
But it doesn't take long for the endless partying and gambling to take its toll on their bank accounts. No money, no party...no party, no friends. As the bills and trash pile up, the brothers slide further and further into depression.
What's this? A new visitor? "Hey Lyon, you order a clown-o-gram or something? Man, musta been a cheap one."
"No way, man. We haven't even got enough Simoleons to hire a BAD clown. Beat it, Bozo." But the tragic clown just gazes back sadly, a caricature of their own suffering. And then, he begins to juggle.
The pins fly everywhere, some striking the clown's huge feet. The brothers just look at each other, sigh, and do their best to ignore the skinny stranger with the big red nose.
But the clown pursues them relentlessly, constantly performing bad tricks and turning balloons into twisted horrors of air and rubber.
Even sleep is denied the Wezils, as the clown interrupts their fevered nightmares with his travesty of showmanship.
On the edge of bankruptcy, or perhaps even a darker fate, the Wezils return to the one-armed bandits. They look once at each other, then drop the last of their Simoleons into the coin slot and pull.
Jackpot! They can hardly believe it! Their winnings are enough to pay off all their debts...almost.
"What can we sell quick?" "I say we get rid of the clown painting. We got enough clowns around here already."
And so it is done. When they return from the flea market, the brothers are riding high. High enough, perhaps, to finally spare a smile for the tragic clown who haunts their home. But, as strangely as he arrived, the clown is gone.
Carla has a mean streak. She regularly insults her "useless" husband Henry, and when the neighbors visit, she does nothing but brag and tell crass jokes.
Henry doesn't dare confront her. She makes good money at the lab, much better than his psychic hotline "job". Plus, well, she can kick his butt.
At a psychic's convention, Henry finds the ultimate passive-aggressive weapon: a voodoo doll! He knows that such things really don't work, but at least he can vent some frustration with it.
Henry tucks the doll away in his shed, alongside other worthless "collectibles": the "psychic" crystal ball, the "talking" moose head, the "magic" genie lamp.
The next time the neighbors visit, Henry makes dinner for everyone. Carla immediately lays into him. "How can you possibly have burnt my hamburger and served our guests raw meat?!"
Henry hangs his head. After clearing the dishes, he goes into the shed to take out some frustration. He grabs the doll out of its box and starts shaking it angrily. "Burnt? That burger was PERFECT!"
Out on the patio, Carla is right in the middle of a really scathing remark. Suddenly, she begins flailing about, as if tossed into an invisible spin dryer.
Henry's jaw hits the floor. Can it be? The Voodoo Doll is REAL? He gives it an experimental poke.
Carla doubles over. "Ohh, my stomach! I told you that burger was no good!"
As Carla recovers, Henry hastily puts the doll away and returns to the party. "Are you all right, dearest?" He is not cruel, and genuinely loves Carla. But Henry is intelligent, and he knows that people can be...trained.
Now, whenever Carla's mean streak shows itself, one of her strange "seizures" occurs. The doll, meanwhile, has moved to a more convenient location -- right next to Henry's beloved chess set.
Life takes a turn for the brighter, as quiet, friendly Henry now lives with quiet, friendly Carla. They say long-lasting marriages never lose that special magic. But they never said where it comes from...