The Sims 3

Sorry about the late post, but I wanted to wait for Tuesday - the release day of The Sims 3.

As a kid, I have fond memories of playing computer games like Sword of the Samurai (which I preferred to my father's favorite - Pirates) and Zak McCracken (here's a tip, get the egg out of the fridge before you leave the house - you can put it in the microwave on the plane to distract the flight attendant) but I don't play many computer games on the ol' macbook today. The only computer game I have been known to play is The Sims. I played the original game, The Sims 2, and now The Sims 3.

The new game is not that different from The Sims 2, but some of the things that made that game annoying are gone. You no longer have to go to the bathroom so often, and you can even earn a reward called the "golden bladder" or something where you don't have to go at all. Now when your Sim children grow up their friends grow up, too, instead of staying little kids. Your Sims can also handle things by themselves if you leave them alone for a while, instead of ending up crying on the floor and peeing their pants, talking to a bag of flour like it's a baby as they did in the old game.

There is one problem, though. It looks like you can only have one family per game. You used to be able to populate your city with all your own characters, but now it seems like you can only have one family of your own who has to interact with the computer generated characters.

UPDATE (6/10/09): I have been playing a family whose oldest child finally grew into an adult - but it seems she can't move out of the house! Poor Kipper must live at home with her parents and little brother forever or get married or ditch the family so I can't play them anymore. Are these really the only options?!

It's pretty fun, though like the other Sims games it gets old kind of quickly.

UPDATE (7/18/09): I figured out how to change the family I'm playing and how to populate the city with all of my own characters - you need to go to "Edit Town" (or whatever) in the menu and then you can add more families or switch the one you are playing. Be careful, though, because it looks like when you switch from one family to another and then back, the first family loses the deeds to any businesses they own or are partners in! That's a drag.