The Sims 3

The Sims 3
File:Sims3Cover-Art.jpg The current pre-order cover art.
Developer(s)	EA Redwood Shores
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Composer(s)	Steve Jablonsky
Series	The Sims
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone, iPod Touch and mobile devices
Release	June 2, 2009
Genre(s)	Life simulation
Mode(s)	Single-player

The Sims 3 is an upcoming computer game in the popular and critically acclaimed The Sims franchise, originally created by Maxis and due for release on June 2, 2009. A collector's edition will also be available. In contrast to the previous versions, the houses and neighborhoods will be seamless, allowing players to explore and interact with their neighborhood without loading time.

Gameplay

Sim houses and neighborhoods will be entirely in one continuous map, and the developers state that "What you do outside your home now matters as much as what you do within." All the Sims in the neighborhoods age and live out their lives simultaneously, no matter where the player is in the game. Of the eight needs of The Sims 1 & 2, only six—hunger, bladder, energy, social, hygiene, and fun—remain (removing comfort and environment). These will be represented by moodlets—attributes which are acquired special events, such as minor events like tooth brushing and major ones like a wedding, and affect the Sims' behavior. The needs will also have only 3 stages—red (extremely low), yellow (moderate) and green (completely full.) Several minor features from The Sims 2 expansion packs appear in the original The Sims 3, such as the "young adult" life stage, personal inventories and mobile phones (University). Private cars and restaurants (Nightlife), fishing and gardening (Seasons), jewelry and beaches (Bon Voyage), toothbrushing and ceilings (Apartment Life) will be included, but none of the main features from expansion packs such as a sim going to college (University) will be available.

As in previous games, Sims can paint, but paintings will now be more unique to each Sim based on their traits. Other new features are set difficulty levels for each family. There are also hospitals where pregnant Sims may give birth, and bicycles for riding around the neighborhood.

Careers

Twelve careers are available to pursue (law enforcement, crime, military, science, politics, journalism, business, entertainment, culinary, medical, athletic, and gardening). Each career has a workplace building in the neighborhood, which Sims travel to for their shifts. Sims can also apply for jobs within these buildings. Though Sims are hidden inside buildings during the workday, the player can control their behavior at work to a certain extent. Like previous Sims games, the job yields "opportunities"—tasks that could be finished for a reward. There are also part-time jobs. Sims can also take actions to increase their productivity while not at work, such as bringing work home or working overtime. Each career has several rewards, instead of only one as in The Sims 2. Careers can also branch into several possible promotions. Children and teens go to school, just as before, but now they can do homework with computers.

Each career branches off into different jobs that branch off as well. For example, if there were two Sims in the Business career track, they may not end up with the same jobs or duties even if they were on the same level in their careers. Nonetheless, once the Sim(s) reaches the peak of his/her respective career they can still receive raises, rewards and additional payment if he/she keeps performing well at work.

Create-A-Sim

File:Sims3CreateSim.jpg

An image showing the new Sims 3 Create-A-Sim Mode.

Create-a-Sim is the character (Sim) builder, where the polygon 3-D models of Sims can be modified by changing a wider variety of properties than what was available in previous installments. This opens the door to creating completely unique Sims with regard to weight, fitness, hair, and clothing, etc. Footwear and headwear can now be chosen individually. Players can customize nearly everything in the game, including furniture, clothes and shoes. Rod Humble described the new interface in Create-A-Sim as "drastically different". Prominent birthmarks such as freckles can also be added to Sims.

File:Thesims3-18.jpg

The gradual increase in weight on a Sim in The Sims 3.

Individual fitness bars have been added to adjust the Sims' obesity and muscularity between extreme levels. Arm and legs are separate so players can create Sims with fat bodies and thin arms or thin legs with muscular arms. In The Sims 2, there were only three body types—fat, normal and fit. As in The Sims 2, body shape varies with diet and exercise, so that Sims created as overweight can become slim by exercising and Sims created thin may become fat by eating too much and not exercising. Skin color is also continuous, instead of the four colors of The Sims 2. When customizing hair, the player is shown a circle with all shades and hues of colors, and able to choose different main hair color, tips, roots, and even highlights. Texture for clothing follows a similar formatting scheme.

According to those who attended the Creators' Camp event held, a "Create-a-Twin" feature has also been added, allowing players to create identical twins.

Sims' personalities

Personality configuration for Sims has also been made more complex, with the original 'percentage bar'-style personality points replaced by a combination of traits, similar to those in the personals section of newspapers. Toddlers have two traits, and a new one is added for each new life stage, until they reach young adulthood—so they will have 3 as a child, 4 as a teen, then 5 as a young adult, which are the five traits they will stay with for the rest of their lives.

Create-A-Sim now features over 80 unique traits to choose from. Some of these are Evil, Slob, Good Sense of Humor, Charismatic, Loner, Computer Whiz, Vegetarian, Frugal, Clumsy, Athletic, Hot Headed, Lucky, Insane and Flirty. It is not possible to give a Sim traits that contradict each other (such as Brave and Cowardly). The player can also edit many aspects of a Sims' personality, such as favorite hobby, color, music genre and food.

Build and buy modes

The build and buy modes have been revamped. The square outlines that appear on the ground (often refered to as a grid or tile)—apparent when entering build or buy mode—are now four times smaller to give the player more liberty to place objects where they want. The square grid allows the player see where they can possibly place the objects in the game. There is now an option to turn off the grid. This feature will make objects easier to locate at the player's desired location instead of being restricted to a bigger tile. Objects can also be rotated freely. Certain pieces of furniture, such as chairs and tables, can easily be moved together.

The "auto-roof" function updates the roof when walls are rebuilt. Wide staircases can be built in one action. Basements are also easier to build. A "wall drag" tool allows the player to grow or shrink a room, moving the furniture with it. A new “slot” system gives several choices where to place decorative objects on surfaces, such as tables and dressers. Most existing objects can be recoloured and re-textured.

Neighborhood exploration

On March 19, 2008, EA revealed a new feature to The Sims 3 which was neighborhood exploration. Sims can now explore the world outside their homes without having to face strenuous loading times. Every lot is now synced to the main neighborhood time, whereas before the time of day (and weather) was different in each lot and would continue off from the last time it was played. Players can also interact with every building in a neighborhood. Players can also roam around with other sims while others in the family will take care of themselves more easily.

Development

System requirements

	Requirements
Windows
CPU	Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent 2.0GHz (XP) 2.4GHz (Vista)
Memory	1 GB (XP) 1.5GB (Vista)
Free space	6.5GB of free space and 1GB for additional content
Graphics hardware	DirectX 9.0c compliant card with 128 MB RAM (NVIDIA FX 5900/ATI 9500 or better) and support for Pixel Shader 2.0
Sound hardware	100% DirectX 9.0c compliant card
Windows (using Built-in Graphics Chipset)
CPU	Intel Pentium D 2.6GHz, 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
Memory	1.5GB (XP) 2GB (Vista)

The game is developed by EA Redwood Shores. The music to The Sims 3 was written by composer Steve Jablonsky, who recorded the score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox.

On January 15, 2009, EA invited the best (this is debatable) custom content creators to their campus at Redwood Shores where they were hosting a Creator’s Camp. Creators have been invited to spend the week exploring and creating content like Sims, houses and customized content. The Creator’s work will be used to pre-populate The Sims 3 Exchange when the game is released. EA's decision of who to invite caused some uproar in the community, as many popular creators (mostly those running free sites or otherwise attached to free sites) were not invited. Some people thought that the invitations were unfairly stacked in favor of paysite owners, with several "artists" from The Sims Resource invited.

Release

The game will be released as both a standard edition and a Collector's Edition. The standard edition contains the first release of the core game, while the Collector's Edition includes the Sims 3 core game, a 2GB The Sims Plumbob™ USB drive with matching Green Carabiner, an exclusive Italian-styled/Vintage Sports Car download for in-game, a Prima Tips and Hints Guide, Plumbob stickers,The Sims 3 Neighborhood Poster, and a quick start reference guide. It is still unknown which countries will be able to purchase the Collectors' Edition, so far the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Australia have been able to pre-order the game from certain websites. A preview CD with more information about The Sims 3, such as music samples, family descriptions, and career information, was also released. The preview CD does not include the actual game.

In the seventh expansion pack for The Sims 2, The Sims 2: FreeTime, an event occurs in which a Sim-version of Rod Humble, the head of The Sims franchise, gives the player's Sim family an unopened gift box. When opened, the family gets a computer with The Sims 3 on it. The Sims 3 game cannot be bought in the catalog. Sims can then play The Sims 3 on their computers or console systems. Like all the other games that Sims can play in The Sims 2, The Sims 3 is a looping game play video shown on the player's Sim's computer screens when played by a Sim. On July 15, 2008 the first video preview of The Sims 3 appeared on the official website as did seven new screenshots and five Create-A-Sim screens. Four screenshots that appeared on the website and were then taken down soon after, leaked onto the internet by a member of the community.

Copies of the video game Spore also came packaged with fliers advertising the game, with information stating whole-neighborhood accessibility and endless possibilities on character creation. On October 31, 2008, two teaser trailers were released by Electronic Arts featuring a comical view on the 2008 presidential election in the United States. Candidates John McCain and Barack Obama were included along with John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama's running mate Joe Biden. In the eighth expansion pack of The Sims 2, The Sims 2: Apartment Life, new objects were added including logo posters and framed screenshots. The game was shipped with a code and an internet address, where the player could download clothing with The Sims 3 logo on it. Another developer walkthrough was released on November 6, 2008, featuring in-depth previews of the neighborhood and Create-A-Sim.

External links

• The Sims 3 official web site