The first time I ever played The Sims I was in college. A friend of mine had a copy of the game, had been addicted to it, and was struggling with stopping playing cold turkey. Having never played the game myself, I delighted in telling them how funny they were to spend their time playing with fake people in a fake world. Somehow the game ended up in my apartment, and I started playing one night, and didn’t stop until well into the next morning.
If you’ve somehow missed the Sim’s craze like I did here’s the basics of the game. You create characters, or Sims. The characters have houses, they get jobs, cook dinner, talk to people on the phone, fall in love, get married, have babies, go to the bathroom, they can even die. For all intents and purposes they’re just like human beings, except for the small detail of them existing only in your computer.
There is no real point to the game, other than to keep your Sim alive. To keep a Sim alive, you only need to keep them fed, clean, and social. You also have to have enough money to keep a roof over their heads, and to purchase the latest gadgets and gizmo’s they want.
Another friend of mine and I created Sim’s off all of our friends, and our professors, and had them all live in a neighborhood together. They had parties and cookouts together. I can remember calling a friend to tell them “Katherine fell in love with Jon,” like most normal people they assumed I was talking about the real Katherine and the real Jon and rumor’s ensued until I cleared everything up over my computer screen later in the day. After that point I curbed my obsession
The Sim’s is an interesting video game however. Much like Tamagotchi’s, it allows you to see exactly what goes on in everyday life, and forces you to keep a healthy balance of everything in your Sim’s life in order to keep it alive. If you’re looking for a game for your child 10+ I would highly recommend giving The Sim’s a try, it will give them a look at life, and teaches them it’s not always fun and games…even though they are in fact, playing a game.