The Sims Online (PC)

Page 2

It's difficult to avoid comparing The Sims Online with the original game, especially since the two games look and sound virtually identical. Nearly all The Sims Online's characters, objects, music, and sound samples have already appeared in The Sims and its various expansion packs. The game's graphics are still colorful, and the animation of the blocky, polygonal 3D sims is just as clever and funny as it's always been. Then again, if you've been playing The Sims for a while, you'll probably have a hard time getting excited about looking at the same old graphics and listening to the same old sound samples, many of which are extremely dated, since they've been around since 2000. And just like the original game, The Sims Online has a sluggish camera that scrolls extremely slowly. The Sims Online seems to have slightly better pathfinding for its sims--they're much better about traveling from one place to another past obstacles and doors, though they'll still occasionally get confused by a single chair blocking their way.

Unfortunately, The Sims Online also has a number of issues that weren't a problem in the original game. The Sims Online is currently plagued by brief but annoying periods of lag, even over a broadband connection, though its performance has improved since release. Furthermore, The Sims Online itself seems much more restrictive than the original game. For example, because the game's world is persistent, you can't build or tear down houses and lots whenever you wish--in fact, it'll take you quite a while to save enough cash to even build a decent house. You can't build a sizeable house unless you have some roommates, so you'll have to agree on a house layout, rather than just building what you want. And just about every sim you'll meet in the game will be controlled by another human, which opens up opportunities for socializing but removes the random, computer-controlled sim behavior that helped make The Sims such an intriguing game in the first place.

Then again, for some players, the social interaction is more than enough reason enough to play. If you've ever visited a chat room or an Internet message board and had fun adding jokes and smiley-face emoticons to your messages, you may find The Sims Online to be your new chat room of choice. The Sims Online's many humorous animations and sound samples take the emoticon to the next level. Instead of replying to a funny message in an Internet forum by typing, "Ha ha, that was funny," you'll actually be able to make your sim express your feelings by performing one of many different animations that let you chat and role-play as a certain kind of character, and you can even unlock new social animations if you improve your skills or make new friends online. That is, as long as your character is reasonably polite to other players, doesn't violate the game's terms of service for player behavior, and takes frequent breaks to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. Just like in the original game, you can't create an "evil" sim by mistreating it, as a starving or exhausted sim will simply become useless and refuse to follow orders. And if you attempt to play as a rude, offensive sim, you may find that other players will get upset at you, rather than play along. Many house owners will often throw parties in which your sim can use group objects to interact with other players, and these serve as good opportunities to meet with other sims and even incorporate them into your friendship web, an online network of friends that measures how popular your sim is in the game. However, the friendship web, like the game's economy, doesn't seem developed enough to be worthwhile at this point in time.

For players who aren't already fans of the series, The Sims Online probably won't offer enough to persuade them to keep playing and paying the game's monthly fees. Even though it had tremendous potential, The Sims Online currently isn't a complete game--several of its features are incomplete, and the game itself seems rather limited as a result, despite the fact that it affords you plenty of opportunity to chat with other, like-minded players. Though the game's developer plans to make many additions to the game, for now, The Sims Online lacks many of the options that made the original game so intriguing, and it doesn't really replace them.

See more CNET content tagged:

The Sims,

emoticon,

animation,

skill,

Electronic Arts Inc.

Compare prices for The Sims Online

This product is currently not in stock at any of our online merchants.

Email me when this product is available