ringswraith wrote:It's... kinda hard to explain well, but I'll try.
Essentially you create a Sim (for all intents and purposes, a person). They live in a house (either prebuilt or you build it), and you can either let them go about their business or tell them to do specific things.
They have needs that must be satisfied, wants that you'd do well to satisfy, fears to avoid... Just like normal people. They interact with other Sims, can get married, have kids, pretty much everything you can think of.
Your "goal" as it were is to make sure they're happy.
... And yes, we are perfectly aware that when, stated like this, it sounds mind-bogglingly boring. Which it kind of is ... But still somehow very addictive. It's one of few games that seem to appeal more to girls than guys, anyway.
And yeah, I got The Sims 3 on the day of release (I do that with games I want, generally) - a Collector's Edition, even. My sim is now an International Super Spy, living in a huge, self-built manor, and the father of four - all the while happily married to a five-star gourmet cook. So there.
Still, I've been alternating between GTA IV, Dead Space, Penumbra: Black Plague (5€ on Steam for both games!) and Mass Effect today, satisfying my cravings to play something less docile than The Sims - not even as the local Jack Bauer does The Sims ever get very intense. Guns, organized crime, frenzied space monsters who require systematic dismemberment, and running for your rapidly expiring life in some underground Greenland facility does.
So yes. I'm ... Spiritually satisfied! And dead tired, thus about to go to bed. I think I'll have to read some more of Neil Gaiman's American Gods first, though.