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Xbox Review - The Sims
The Sims for X-box was an adventure worth telling. Let me cut right
to the chase.
You begin this game by selecting "Get a Life," which, coincidentally,
is precisely what people who play The Sims need to do.
You then create your character. This portion of the game is similar to
the create-a-character feature on a wrestling game. You get to choose
build, hair, eye, clothes, skin, color and style. You can have a normal
looking character or the most freaky, 'tarded person you have ever seen
before, complete with accessories.
Gameplay
Oh, lucky me, I get to squeeze 10 hours of Sims play into my busy schedule
all because Hollywood Video was out of Mech Assault.
In
this game you have meters that determine what you need to do next. You
have a hungry, bladder, energy, social, room, fun and yes even a hygiene
meter. When these meters run down you must do things, like eat, go to
the bathroom, sleep, take a shower, clean the toilet, water the plants,
dance to some music, read a book, etc, to replenish them and keep you
from doing ridiculous things, which you'll read about in a moment.
The
minimum time you need to play this game is roughly half your life. Let
me explain:
You
begin your Sim's life living with your mom in a one-bedroom house. I'll
tell you right off the bat, she is as crazy as a 2-dollar bill. She makes
food and leaves it lying around, she throws stuff on the ground, goes
to the bathroom and doesn't flush, turns on the TV and stereo then
lays down to sleep, only to then yell at you to turn them off.
At
the beginning of the game my first goal is to get out of the house, cuz
of my crazy baked mom. But I can't leave, because I have no money,
no friends, and no job. I have to read a cooking book just to earn a skill
point so I can cook my lunch without burning down the house. If I had
it to do over again, I would have just burned the house down.
The
thing to realize about this game is that everything feels like it's
happening in next to real time. I had to read a book to get a "mechanic"
skill point so I could fix the TV my mom broke. She's a regular
Psychobot 3000. Meanwhile, I have to talk to her and tell her jokes, so
I can keep her happy so that she doesn't try to hurt me.
All
the while I am trying to balance cooking and cleaning for the two of us,
while making sure I stop to use the bathroom. If you forget you'll
end up taking a dump on the floor and then have to clean it up. I'm
serious...it happened. Meanwhile I'm trying to get good night's
sleep so my energy meter is strong, which is hard because my nocturnal
mom sleeps only once every third day. I'm also trying to learn so
I can get a job, however I'm so depressed I can't learn. I
have to increase my fun meter by dancing to some crap foreign music, only
then will the game allow me to study, but by then it's time for
lunch. After lunch it's the bathroom, and more and more of the same.
I'll
be honest. I never made it out of the house. I just couldn't take
it any more. Plus if I had ever made it out, my mom never could have made
it on her own. I'm telling you she was like RAIN MAN
squared. You know that scene when Dustin Hoffman hears the fire alarm
and starts banging his head against the wall? That's my Sims mom
to a tee.
This
game has the ability to make the simple things in life much harder than
they should be. It shouldn't take me the whole day to eat, go to
the bathroom, shower, and take out the trash, which coincidentally was
the highlight of my Sim's existence. If this is all not annoying enough,
the Sims characters do not speak English. They speak some kind of cross
between pig latin and French. Keep the volume low if you want to save
yourself.
Apparently,
you eventually get past that stage and you get a job, a girlfriend, some
money, and you make it big. Pretty soon, you're driving a BMW and
you have a license plate that says "MOPIMPN."
I
never made it. If you are bored out of your mind and you have a thousand
hours of time on your hands, go buy this game and live it up. Do not rent
this game though, unless you get it for like 5 days and you play it non-stop,
'cause like me you won't get anywhere without some serious commitment.
Bottom
Line
I've
had Nascar 2003 and The Sims to review
so far. If it continues this way, I'm going to start doing music
reviews.
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