The Sims 3 or The Sims 2.5?
The Sims 3 is the newest game in the ever so popular "Sims" series, beloved by Tweenage girls world wide.
But is it really worthy of being called a full sequel?
Much like with previous "The Sims" games you manage and try and keep a household of "Sims" alive, though the bigger goal seems to be growing your family and having a large, expanding family tree. This is much easier now that the neighborhood is extremely seamless unlike previous The Sims games where only a single house would be loaded at a time.
Now your Sims can freely walk out of their front door and drive their poorly animated SUV to work, without any loading screens! The new open neighborhood feature is really the only main feature of The Sims 3, and sadly the joy of being able to walk around town seamlessly dies down fast, because much like other Sims games your day consists mainly of sleeping, eating and working with little time to do anything else besides watching TV.
The gameplay hasn't evolved much since the first Sims game actually, there are some small features to improve gameplay such as Traits which give your Sims an extra touch of personality and Moodlets, which make keeping your Sims happier alot easier. There are ofcourse alot of other small improvements but it overall feels like the same old game you played 4 years ago. Most new improvements were already added via mods or a simple console command.
Graphics wise the game hasn't improved much either, everything looks shinier, the lighting has improved and the models are alot smoother but it still looks like a last gen game, so your PC will most likely chew this game up and spit it out, then chew it up again.
The sound is pretty much the same too, you still have the quirky Simlish language and noises, but the sound is overall the same as previous Sims games and alot of the time you might think that some of the sound files have been re-used!
Content wise it also dosn't add much, alot of customization options are lacking (Specifically hair styles) as for the objects; there seems to be more than Vanilla Sims 2 but if you're used to playing with all the expansion packs then you will find this... lacking. [sarcasm] Lucky, you can spend hundreds of dollars on the fabulous items in the Sims Store™ ! [/sarcasm]
I wouldn't recommend purchasing this game unless you're 1) A huge fan of The Sims or 2) This is your first Sims game.
It dosn't take long to make you feel like you've seen everything and just want to put the game back on the shelf, so if you've got The Sims 2 and a hefty amount of Expansion packs already I'd just sticking with that.
