The Sims 3 Preview From IGN!!!

qasim · May 30, 2009

May 29, 2009 - If there's one thing I cannot get enough of in videogames, it is inadvertent humor. In EA Mobile's The Sims 3 for iPhone, the Sims speak in their typical gibberish that is also accompanied by a word balloon with an object inside of it, such as a car or fish. When my Sim Bubba told a flirty joke to Ruth, a corncob appeared over his head. Saucy.

But it's that kind of silliness that has made the Sims such a smash over the years. The Sims 3 on iPhone at first looks like a stripped down version of the upcoming PC release of the same name, but after several hours of play, the game appears not to be a distillation, but just an entirely different way to get a Sims experience. You still create your Sim and imbue it with a personality. You still get a job. You still learn skills. You still socialize with other Sims and hope to one day lay down with at least one of them. But this iPhone edition just makes it easier to squeeze time with your Sim into a short game session for playing on the go or during those stolen moments found in a busy day.

At the start of the Sims 3, you create your Sim with an easy-to-use tool. You select the gender, hair color, eye color, clothing, etc. Then you dig into the Sim's personality, which is constructed from a set of traits. You select five traits from a list the includes both positive and negative personality tweaks. Then, you select an overarching persona for your newly created Sim. Here's where you really affect the course of the game. You can choose a basic Jack of all Trades, or try out something a little off-kilter such as the Maniac (one of his lfe goals: watch 3 other Sims sleep -- creepy) or the Sleaze, who wants to have WooHoo with multiple Sims in town.

It's business time.

From there, the game has a purposefully loose structure. You are supposed to be guiding this life. You select what job they take at locations like city hall or a science facility. You approach Sims around town -- the park, the general commerce area, near their homes -- and start conversations to build friendships... and maybe more. However, your Sims will give you little nudges now and then that let you know if they have a particular desire. These are wishes. There are 73 of them in the game and they range from wanting a promotion at work to catching a particular type of fish to learning a new recipe. Your Sim can hold on to several wishes at a time, stacked neatly in a small panel on-screen.

Your persona affects the wishes, too. Each persona has two or three wishes associated with it, such as the Maniac desiring to watch three people sleep. Personas also affect the kinds of interactions you can have with other Sims. While each Sim has a set number of conversation options to try with other Sims, such as chat or tell joke, some personas have exclusive interactions. Again, the Maniac can fulfill his social needs by talking to a tree.

Socializing with other Sims is half of the adventure here, it seems. To initiate a conversation, you tap on a Sim and confirm that you want to talk to them. Once the conversation starts, you have a menu along the right side of the screen that shows the different options. Each option, such as humor, digs deeper into a sub-menu with an assortment of actions. If you select humor, you can then choose to tell a joke, make a silly face, or goof around. If the other Sim is receptive to your action, your relationship grows, which is measured by an on-screen meter. Successful actions color the edge of the current relationship status (acquaintance, friend, partner, etc.) green. When the border is full, you move up to the next level of the relationship.

This is how I got Ruth into bed with Bubba: After talking to her on the street outside the market, I started the conversation with a pleasant greeting. Bubba told a joke and made a face. Ruth was receptive to this. (Much more receptive than that grumpy-puss Jake in the park.) After raising our relationship to friend status, Bubba told a flirty joke. Ruth did not recoil, so he kept going. To further stoke the fires, over the course of a few days, Bubba invited Ruth over to his house via the phone where he kept flirting and used additional romantic actions like kisses and hugs. When Ruth was finally up to being a partner, Bubba selected WooHoo. And WooHoo was indeed made.

Outside of the social experience, the Sims 3 on iPhone is also something of a resource management game. Sims have needs like hunger and cleanliness, so you need to make sure you balance enough time to take showers and eat while doing other things like going to work and shopping. Getting a job is as simple as walking up to one of the four career buildings and accepting a gig. To keep a job, you need to show up at the place at the specified time. Each day drops cash in your account. Occasionally, I got random incidents associated with Bubba's science job. One of them was the chance to turn in a co-worker that Bubba saw stealing. However, it turns out the co-worker was just doing an errand and Bubba's false accusation cost him his job. Fortunately, the city hall was hiring.

The money made from a job often goes back into your house, whether it is buying food to stock the fridge or purchasing new items for your pad. You start out with the basics -- toilet, shower, bed, fridge -- but as you make money, you can purchase better items for your different rooms or expand your house. Expanding adds a room and installs gardening patches outside of the house. Buying objects is easy through a scrolling catalog and you can customize each item with different colors and looks to really make your house unique.

Activities like cooking are done through minigames.

There are a handful of minigames inside Sims 3 for different activities, such as fishing, repairing broken items, and cooking. These seem relatively minor. The cooking game, for example, has you tapping pots on the stove and shaking the iPhone so nothing burns. To repair a broken item, you must remove the faulty elements of a circuit board and replace them from a collection of new parts before time is up. Successfully completing minigames ups the skill associated with it.

One feature not found in Sims 3 right now is in-game commerce, something that EA Mobile said would be a part of it once Apple launched the 3.0 update. Apparently EA Mobile is still on course to add in-game purchasing to Sims 3 in the near future so you can buy special items and clothes. However, without some sort of online component, I wonder how useful that will seem to gamers. Why buy a unique outfit, for example, if I am going to be the only person that really sees it?

During my play time, I was struck by just how much is going on in Sims 3. The little town is not static. There are multiple Sims running around with different personalities that react to your Sim's activities and persona in different ways. I'll be diving deeper into the game en route to a full review when the game debuts on the App Store next week on
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SparkyBlue · May 30, 2009

This has calmed my fears of the game
Tuesday

RaZrVIN · May 30, 2009

I can't wait for this. Thanks for the preview! I'm just a bit on the edge about those minigames, like cooking. I don't know how I'll feel shaking my iPod Touch in public lol, and I don't feel like doing that every single time my Sim eats. Oh well, hopefully this won't be such a problem.

Marioman619 · May 30, 2009

Was anything mentioned about building houses? Could make or break the game.

1337brian · May 30, 2009

Marioman619 said: ↑

Was anything mentioned about building houses? Could make or break the game.
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Yep that's what I'm interested in...

florbastang · May 30, 2009

I'm still confused. Is there an open-ended, essentially unlimited (in terms of time) sandbox mode as there was in the original Sims. I never played the second and know nothing about the third, but I recall the first Sims really having no ending and being completely sandbox. What about this one? Is there a point where the game just ends?

Haephestos · May 30, 2009

I don't think this one has an ending.
The DLC thing is being discussed in this thread: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=271355

nic. · May 30, 2009

Few days more! This is a must buy for me... along side the PC version.

greenhornet9 · May 30, 2009

is this game gonna be the same as the computer one almost? Like can you manage more than one person and i too wonder if you can build houses?

chukwuka13 · May 31, 2009

Marioman619 said: ↑

Was anything mentioned about building houses? Could make or break the game.
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Ya u can add furniture to ur house but u can't choose the shape of ur house tho. Instead u upgrade ur house making it bigger, and adding new plants to ur garden.

Haephestos · May 31, 2009

Maybe they will release a full house building mode in an update, or as a DLC option.

dmbfan1192 · May 31, 2009

Probably less than 30 hours until the US gets to play the Sims on an iPhone!

and maybe 12-17 hours for Australia...

JavierDavalos · May 31, 2009

I just read that the PC version got leaked and pirated already lol.

dmbfan1192 · Jun 1, 2009

JavierDavalos said: ↑

I just read that the PC version got leaked and pirated already lol.
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Same with the mac version... I would have tried it out a couple days early but then I'd have to start over when I buy the actual game. Also, I heard that it's just a beta and VERY buggy.

SparkyBlue · Jun 1, 2009

JavierDavalos said: ↑

I just read that the PC version got leaked and pirated already lol.
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Yeah. It was leaked like over 2 weeks ago

slighmd · Jun 1, 2009

So june 2 worldwide cross platform release right? No delays, 100% june 2? Tomorrow?

deputy · Jun 1, 2009

slighmd said: ↑

So june 2 worldwide cross platform release right? No delays, 100% june 2? Tomorrow?
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Might not be exactly at midnight or anything, but yes, June 2nd is the official release date. No delays, it will be here at some point during the day.

gscal · Jun 1, 2009

deputy said: ↑

Might not be exactly at midnight or anything, but yes, June 2nd is the official release date. No delays, it will be here at some point during the day.
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Knowing EA and delays...

I bet they pull this date off, actually.

jackharris · Jun 1, 2009

Its out

Its out in new zealand guys

FishFreak · Jun 1, 2009

im gonna get this as soon as its released in the Aus store.

Cant wait!

Does anyone know what the price will be?

The Sims 3 Preview From IGN!!!

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