The Sims 3 was a mixed bag for me. It boasted a huge open world and got rid of loading screens, which was something that actually hindered The Sims 2 from being the best game it could be. But it felt like it lost that Sims charm. The graphics moved away from that cartoony style and the game, at least at first, felt more serious than the previous instalment.
I remember playing it for the first time on a friend’s PC and I enjoyed how it was more open than the previous game as well as all the freedom provided with the customisation tool. However, the game did have its pitfalls.
An Open World
For the first time, The Sims did away with individual lots and opted to try out the open-world styled map instead. There were different neighbourhoods that required loading screens to transition from one to another but when in one’s neighbourhood (which was more like a town), the player could freely explore without the annoying loading screens blocking them every time they moved away from their house.
I remember watching the ins and outs of the town while my Sims were at work or sleeping. It was a lot of fun to just pan the camera around as if I were some sort of ghost spying on the locals. This new open-world mechanic added a lot of different ways to play as well. But this quickly became laggy and was very taxing on hardware. So, there’s that to consider too.
Too much to handle?
The Sims 3 suffered from a lot of bugs and glitches. And it wasn’t just me. My friends reported similar crashes and strange game-breaking bugs. A quick search on the forums will reiterate the idea. And the lag was real, like all the time. There were some really good expansions though. Supernatural was my favourite, which allowed my Sims to be whatever strange and horrible creature I wanted them to be off the bat but sadly, between all the crashes and bugs I spent about half the time in The Sims 3 than I did in The Sims 2. And that’s a shame.
The Sims 4 is the newest edition in the series and it already has a lot of expansion and “stuff packs” (maybe too many?). Though my PC days are over, I’m happy that The Sims 4 found its way onto consoles a few years ago. We’ll conclude this series with our look into The Sims 4.
