The Sims
Ages: Teen/Mature Sexual Themes

It was inevitable - after controlling buildings, cities, theme parks now come the people themselves. We already know that monkeys like best to watch other monkeys and so it goes with people. Only here you have to do more than watch.

As a starter you can move into an existing family - or an existing house - or create your own family and create your own house - that's a lot of creating so you might want to start out with the tutorial. Or course you can go right into people creation and start as a swinging single or go all the way with a family with teenagers. But let me warn you - teenagers don't clean up after themselves here anymore than they do in real life.

Your job is to keep the Sims happy. Happiness is having a good job and making enough money to buy things. Creative satisfaction and romance play a part here but the focus is on acquisition.

The creator of the game, Will Wright, must be a frustrated architect because he has included some very sophisticated tools for building - very similar to the ones used professionally. When constructing a house it is important to make the room large enough to allow for plenty of furniture and easy circulation for the Sims because they move around a lot.

When creating your own people I found it good to have at least one neat freak in the house just so the flies don't get out of hand. 'Flies' has gotten to be the code word in our house for taking out the garbage. Yup you have to do that too in Simland.

There are so many things to explore that it is impossible to thoroughly review it. It's clever, full of surprises and jokes and the graphics are incredible. The detail makes these little people so real, from scrubbing their feet in the tub to making dinner. You can get attached to them. They fare best when you play with them - but they need your attention and guidance. I left mine running over night - the adults became too depressed to get jobs, their furniture was repossessed, the fish died and I think the daughter ran away. Accept your responsibility towards these little people!

Reviewed by Genevieve 8/00