{ The Sims' Pointless Waste of Disk Space }
posted Friday, January 3, 2003 by Nebula[CSR]
I only bring this up because someone called in and asked about the Sims online last show, and I thought I'd get my two cents.

For anyone who hasn't played the Sims, it's basically a game where you control the lifestyle of your very own virtual person. You spend your whole time deciding what furniture, job, attitude, pets, recreation and so forth your Sim gets to indulge in. Now excuse the bluntness, but what's the fucking point? I mean honestly, it's not cool to live vicariously through LIVE people, let alone a collection of screen sprites.

The entire idea can probably be traced back to a really old game called Alter Ego, in which you were given a series of options as to how you lived your life on the screen, and the answers you gave would decide your personality and success and such. The "fun" of the game was supposed to be in answering all the questions just like you would in your own life, thus making a screen version of yourself to play with. Of course, the real fun was just answering the teenage year questions over and over again until you think you've scored with nearly every female in the game.

Quickly following Alter Ego was Alter Ego: Female. It was the exact same game, except now you play as a female. Supposedly released so all the females could play, but of course highly sought after by the male fans of the original just so they could play the sluttiest role possible.

And of course, let us not forget the influence of the never-ending franchise of Sim games like Sim City, Sim Town, Sim Tower, Sim Farm and Sim Ant (by far the most stupid). Indeed, if it involved some sort of social structure, it had a Sim version. But eventually this all came together in the Sims, the game where you could fuck off the city planning, and just be a person. And just like Alter Ego, try and get all the other female Sims to sleep with your character. His name is your name, so your both scoring! Hooray! Sim Nebby slept with Sim Denise Richards! I am such a stud!

I thought "Fair enough". If people really wanted to muck around controlling a stupid little complaining bastard on their monitor, good luck to them. What really confused me was when the expansion packs started coming out. The Sims' House Party. The Sims' Hot Date. The Sims' Unleashed. And all of them were designed for one point only, to add some extra furniture to Barbie's Fun Palace.

The thing I perhaps find the most stupid about the whole idea is people who would go to really big LAN events, and PLAY the Sims. What is the point of connecting your computer with a lightning fast connection to 100 computers, if all your going to do is the same thing that you do at home.

However, all my ranting on this subject comes to one point. The Sims is just "get a life" mentality. I've seen one of my friends who actually plays it get narky for a full two days because they're Sim got caught somewhere in her own house and died from malnutrition. I thought it was hilarious. My friend didn't. I think that if the Sims actually showed any semblance to real life, the game would be thrown in the bin quicker than a copy of Mario Paint. Think on these few expansions I'm waiting to see, just to tweak the reality factor of the game.

The Sims: Working Day
Instead of every day getting picked up in a car pool and having the clock speed past until your Sim comes home, your screen follows your Sim to work in his office cubicle. There, without adjusting the speed, you must sit at your desking continually telling your Sim to type on his computer so he reaches his deadline and won't be fired. At the same time, you must keep him caffinated, and repress all the ideas in your Sim's head that are telling him to go postal.

The Sims: Rent Boy
Every day when your Sim goes off to work, leaving your wife alone, your wife Sim gets jubilant and goes and changes into her underwear. Right on 11 o'clock, the Gardener that you pay good money to keep your hedge trims shows up. Your Sim wife lets him inside and proceeds to have her way with the hired help on your new couch and leopard skin vibrating bed. The action stops for a small amount of time while the maid comes through the house, at which point the gardener is shoved inside your linen cupboard. He is let out again 30 minutes before you are to arrive home, so he can complete his gardening duties. Your Sim arrives home and wondera why your garden is so shabby lately.

The Sims: Serial Killer
Your Sim goes certifiably insane and decides to take human lives in his own hands. Abducting the neighbour's daughter because of her young supple skin, your Sim throws her in a pit in your back yard and twice daily lowers some skin lotion to make sure it'll keep when he wants to cut it off her and make a suit out of it later. Challenges include keeping the butterflies breeding properly in your hot house, and all the sewing you'll need to be doing.

Feel free to add your own expansion ideas in the talkback.

Lots of love,

-Nebby