So, in case some of you are considering this game, didn't even know about it, are going to purchase it but want a little affirmation it's worth it, or are on the fence - here's a quick rundown
Proof that EA has a god complex
(please note I have not played the original 2 games, so I'm unable to give you a comparison, everything I say this does differently than the others is from what I've read online, so please correct me if I'm wrong))
In The Sims 3, you control your own little virtual people. You can create your own, import some premade characters, or possess others. There is also functionality in the game to share sims online with other players (through web forums or email or whatever).
Whether your sim becomes a high ranking official in whatever career you choose for him/her (these range from scientist, to businessman, to politician, to evil mastermind to many more), works at home writing/painting/hacking, or steals/mooches off of others to survive is completely up to you! Your sim can find romance, make enemies, play games all day, go fishing, or whatever you want.
Upon creation you determine traits for your sim. These can be personality based, like evil, good, brave, workaholic, moocher, etc. hobby related, like musical, artistic, etc. or more physical, like good kisser, vegetarian, brave, couch potato. Unfortunately, some of these traits can be deceiving upon reading them, and some are clearly more developed than others. (for example, being evil will give you numerous unique wishes and commands, whereas lucky will simply give your sim a lucky day every now and then where he/she won't burn food or electrocute him/herself... others will simply make your skill in something improve faster)
Based on these traits, your sim will choose a lifetime wish - sort of an ultimate goal, these are either advance to the highest rank in a career, become the master of a skill and career, or a couple unique goals - like have 10 boy/girlfriends, and see the burning ghost of your rich spouse. Completion of this lifetime wish will endow your sim with a large number of "lifetime happiness" points. You can earn smaller amounts of points from "wishes". You can have 4 wishes at a time, and they are based on your skills, traits, and career. These can range from getting a promotion, to having a baby, to simply chatting with a friend.
The earned points can be spent on upgrades for your character ranging from small bonuses to your needs (reduced need for food/hygiene/bladder), working more effectively at work, perform better in some skills, and purchase some overpowered items (more on that later)
The Create a Sim feature of the game is diverse enough, but it can be pretty tough to make your sim look decent. I felt like there wasn't enough hairstyles, and not much clothing outside of the typical stuff you'd see in a game. Physically, your sims have 2 main "meters". Fatness and muscularity. Based on this your sim will look slimmer, fatter, buffer, or weaker. I know that there was a lot of speculation about this being the biggest improvement over the other games... it isn't. Honestly, this was a big letdown. The sims with maximum muscularity only look moderately buff, and it takes a significant effort to make your sim fat through normal means. For a game where your character is the focal point, I thought the sims 3 didn't do enough in customizing your sims' appearances.
Relationships are also pretty shallow. It isn't that hard for you to quickly and easily become someone's friend by using all of the commands under "friendly". If you have the right lifetime reward, you can simply hit chat over and over and over. The same goes for romance, once you get someone friendly, just use the romance commands until you can choose to make them your girl/boy friend or spouse. In case you were curious - yes you can have relationships of either sexuality, and same sex parents can adopt children. No, there is no abortion feature for pregnant sims.
Raising children is pretty well developed. A sim has 7 stages in its life. Baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult, and elder. There is no noticeable difference between young adult and adult, both seem to have the same appearance, and the same options. Each age lasts for a few days or weeks depending on how long you set the lifetime to, aging can be disabled also if you want to play forever. Depending on how you raise your kid will determine the number of traits available to him/her. If you raise it well, you can get good ones like genius and whatnot, if you do a poor job though, these won't be available. Your sim will want to see their children grow up well, graduate, and get a career. Eventually you can have your grown child move out, or continue living at home, eventually taking over for his/her parents when they die.
So, what's the point of the game? Well, that's up to you to figure out. Some will say that your sim should aspire to earn more money, buy a bigger house, have a family... others will try to have as many lovers as possible. Some may combine both. You'll only get out of this game as much as you put into it.
Unlike the first 2 games, you can now freely roam the city your sim lives in without fear of loading screens. There are two long load times when you start the game up, so don't plan on closing it out and opening it a lot. Saving also takes a while, and there's no auto save - one of my complaints.
After my relatively thorough play through, these are the impressions I've gotten:
Positives:
- Lots of re playability if you're interested in living out new scenarios. (If you're into the game a lot, you can spend 50+ hours easily. If you just want to play one life quickly, you'll spend about 5-10)
- Free roaming town that develops and ages with you
- Potential for new towns/items/whatnot through mods (EA has already announced a second town via patch upon release)
- Decent character development via wish/trait system
You decide:
- Upon acquiring a lot of lifetime happiness points you can unlock items like the Moodlet Modulator, which will allow you to never have to eat/sleep/bathe/whatever again, the Body Sculptor, which will change your body to whatever you want, and the food replicator, which will replicate any meal, and the teleportation pod, which will teleport you... Some of them like the mood item are completely overpowered, destroying the whole point of the game, making your sim live through life. Whether you like this kind of power or not is up to you.
- Number of items. Sure, there are a decent amount of items, but this is no animal crossing. You can tell that EA wants you to buy crap in their DLC "sim store" (you can already see a bunch of dumb items in their store). That's right, instead of just throwing it into the 50$ game, or making it a fere download, you have to pay EA another 50 cents or whatever to buy a new bed in game.
- Your sim can't freely kill/burn/steal stuff. With the kleptomaniac trait your sim can randomly steal stuff... and with the evil trait you can allegedly kill people through choking... but you can't make your sims do bad stuff on demand easily.
Negatives
- Create a sim could be a lot better, this is the year 2009, and this is supposed to be a big name, big budget, cutting edge game.
- Careers could have been more developed, once you hit max level you just keep doing the same stuff over and over aimlessly getting raises every now and then
- Missing some item from previous games (vibrating bed, hottub, pet chicken, pool table)
- Some traits aren't developed much.
- No college/universities for young adults? (maybe EA wants to make an expansion for that... like in sims 2)
- More unique lifetime wishes would be nice. As well as a way to have a second lifetime wish after the first is complete
- Too few "special recipes". Only the angelcake and ambrosia require you to track down tough ingredients not sold at the grocery store.
In summary, Sims 3 is a fun game. If you played Sims 2 and the expansions, you probably won't be too blown away by it, but it might be worth picking up. I'm sure after the modders go to town, and EA makes some good DLC for you to blow your cash on, and a couple patches are out, the game will be a good deal better.
Final score 7.75 - Very Good
(please keep in mind that i review harshly. a lot of the big name games that gamespot/ign/game informer give high scores to, I rip to shreds mrgreen )