The Sims 3 Review [360]

16 Nov 2010 at 18:08:10 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (360)

The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who's been out of the gaming loop for awhile, and realised that he wouldn't have played The Sims 3. I mentioned that I was reviewing the 360 version, that the PC version was excellent, and that – as he was previously a fan of the franchise – he should really try one of them out. He declined, stating that The Sims is the biggest timesink in the world (although the irony that he was saying this as a World of Warcraft player was apparently lost on him.)

Annoyingly, he's right. Bugger The Sims. I've played the PC version to death, I've played the expansions to death, and now – despite lacking the expansion feature sets from the PC – I've been playing the 360 version to death because, no matter the form, The Sims is really hard to put down.

Bugger The Sims.

Case in point: after writing the above three paragraphs, I realised that there was something in the game I really needed to check. I fired up the 360, loaded up my most recent family, checked the function I was wondering about, and then continued playing for two hours.

In most ways that matter, this is The Sims 3 ported to console. You've still got the vastly expanded Create-A-Sim, with details right down to eyelash length. You've still got Opportunities, and some vague control over your little computer people while they're at work. You've still got Wishes, and Traits, and your Sims will still display a surprising amount of autonomy if you decide to leave them alone (frightening, rather than surprising, if you've modelled them after yourself and they start having 3am gaming sessions.) You've still got the Store for purchasing extra stuff and the Exchange for uploading and downloading all sorts of user-customised bits and bobs. There are a few noticeable cutbacks on the console versions, but let's talk about the good stuff first, like the neat little extras for these versions.

The most prominent of these is the Challenges system. Challenges function like in-game Achievements (and plenty are tied to your GamerTag Achievements, too) and give you goals to aim for and rewards for doing so. The Karma system grants you karma points based on what you've done that in-game day, and these points can be spent on improving or ruining Sims' lives with what I can best describe as random events without the random nature. You can cause earthquakes, bring down firestorms, make every endeavour a Sim will attempt fail – or, if you're no fun at all, you can shower your playthings with money and temporarily raise their skill acquisition rate. As the name implies, though, toying with karma does tend to come back and bite you in the arse. Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

The other big, pleasant surprise is how well this actually works on console. Considering how terribly most RTS titles work on console, another game that relies so much on the mouse for careful and precise selection was bound to fail. It doesn't. It takes some getting used to, certainly – particularly regarding what each face button does at any given time – but it's surprisingly intuitive after an hour or so.

You control a sizeable cursor; hitting A to select an item pauses the game and pops up a menu (similar in style to the PC version's pop-up menus) which asks you which item or Sim you were after. Hit that, and the game remains paused while you select the particular interaction that you wanted. This pausing doesn't break up the game's flow at all, and it helps make The Sims 3 feel a natural fit for the consoles.

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