I expected that I would like TS3 but sadly I am going back to TS2. If I had my way I would have voted for more expansion packs for TS2 that do some of the things TS3 does without changing the whole game, like adding traits. I hope Mod the sims keeps making TS2 stuff because I'm putting away TS3 for now. I definitely didn't think it was worth giving up my WOW account for, LOL.

Looks good but not very fun. Seems geared towards a more passive playing style with the story progression, constant commands, and forced interactions with ea townie sims (via "opportunities"). Do they think we're not creative enough to come up with or own sim story lines? Are we even obliged too? I don't want to play thier sims, I want to play the sims I create and not just one family at a time. In sims 1 and 2 I was able to create communities of sims I was interested in and not pushed into creating a community with Sims some else created and are therefor far less interesting to me. Pushing the EA created sims on the player was a part of Apartment Life that I detested. Sims 3 is lacking in animations and basic fun objects too. No piano, no diving board, hardly any toys or objects for kids and toddlers? What's that about? Why can't kids garden or play guitar? Why can't toddlers draw (a known favorite toddler activity)? WTF!? Rabbit Holes suck and are a con, you could have the same performance choices without there being a big useless building in town. I hate that there are no stores to shop for clothes (at least the basics--you could recolor them when you got home to a bureau), no arcades (hey disappearing into a rabbit hole is not fun), no sit down diners (they picnic, why not let them eat inside but publicly). I'd rather have communal shopping, eating and playing then these damn rabbit holes. What I find really annoying about the omission of these usable viewable community lots is that they are completly doable as evidenced by the gym, art museum, and library. Geez, this game was expensive, I expected more game play not less. The trait are so overrated, their nothing more than a showcase some "mainly useless" animation. Regarding the meager playable animations and objects included I guess EA justs want to stick it to us...I mean sell them to us. The design a style is good but I didn't pay $50 for a computer coloring book. Come On! EA cough up the goods already! And no more pudding faces.

A couple of more WTF comments about the unbelievably overated Sims 3:

-- Everything is timed badly - Parties (even "good" ones) are over in the blink of an eye while it takes hours to make a grilled cheese sandwich (???) Also eating so fast that Sims cough is just stupid (and they do it all the time which is monotonous). Someone takes three hours to make a meal (which in real life would take a 1/2 hour)and family of six coughs it down in a matter of moments without speaking to each other at all. Really? Is that the best you can do EA? Don't understand the concept of happy medium, do you?

-- Many of the object designs are rehashes (not good ones either) of objects that were in Sims2. What happened? No new ideas? No creative juices flowing?

--Rehashed Sims 1 and 2 music, okay but at least give us more show segements per tv channel. Just one clip playing over and over again? Did you forget that you made a couch potato trait, or that there are skill gains from some of the channels, or that there is player on the other side of the computer being bored to death by your lack of effort and creativity? So what did you forget? The trait? The skill gains? The player? All three?

--Can't they hire someone who knows how to mod hair? Obviously not. And who the hell is so in love with hats! Oh yeah, uh... nobody. Attn EA--just because you stick a bunch of hat/barrette recolors into create a sim doesn't mean we don't realize you are actually giving us little if anything in terms of hair choices. That ruse was galling in Sims 2 but in Sims 3 its appalling.

--Collecting-- two words---NOT FUN--oh, make that one word--BORING

--Why do all the Sims faces all look dumpy no matter how much you tweek them? Is it suppose to be a town of inbred peopel?

--The body can be really fat so why can't it be really thin as well? (If we can have morbidly obese than why isn't there anorexic as well? Both conditions are of social concern so why one and not the other?) Even at the lowest level of the slider the sims look a little chunky. What's up with that?

--Why can't the babysitter being on a schedule like the nanny in Sims 2? Oh yeah, we need to call them each day to suck up time doing repetitive task so as to hide the lack of more fun game play.

I just got this game and it blows as it is. I really feel ripped off for buying it because it is so boringly task oriented and focusing on the creations and wants or EA rather than stepping back and giving us the players the best possible creative tools for us to formulate a game that we can enjoy by ourselves. EA has too many directives built into the game and is way, way too intrusion and controlling of the actual game play.
The way its constructed now is so egocentric to the game manufacturer and not very generous or giving to the actual end user (aka then player).

If you haven't bought it yet--SAVE YOUR MONEY.

2) Speaking of ugly stuff, are the designers blind? Why is everything so ugly? The objects, the hairstyles, the clothes, the patterns, etc? It looks like it's from the 90's.



Hey now, as a child of the 90s (born in 89), I can easily say I really resent that statement.

Well, I think its before sims 1 so...

I love it so far, but one thing that really irritates me is the inability for opportunities to cancel themselves. What I mean is, in TS2, if I recall correctly, chance cards would close themselves if no option is selected after a while. The only reason this bothers me is because I want to try leaving my TS3 on overnight and see what happens in the morning, only to find that an opportunity popped up one sim day later.

You seem to feel exactly the way I did when I bought the game. I have been on this site and others for months now railing against EA and the way they have tried to destroy my beloved sims. Unfortunately, my computer seems to have a grudge against sims 2 because it won't recognize any custom content anymore. I've tried everything. So, I decided to stick with sims 3 and wait for custom content to make things better. This IS happening bit by bit. My advice is to "shop" MTS and other sites for good quality custom content to help customize the game for yourself. (And isn't that one of the things we all love the most, the ability to make the game truly our own by putting the mods and items we like in it?) Check out awesomemod at moreawesomethanyou.com to get rid of some of the annoyances that came with this mess of a game.

Personally, I've decide they aren't blind, but they must all be REALLY ugly and have TERRIBLE taste in clothes. Also, they are apparently stupid and given to standing around for hours tapping their toes while trying to decide whether to go to work, and gazing at the bed for long periods of time before remembering exactly how to interact with the thing.

In case it isn't apparent, there is no love lost between me and EA these days. Greedy idiots

How right you are Smorbie 1!

They are not blind, but they have no sense for design, no taste at all - nothing.

There is nothing in Sims 3 which makes me want to to play it. It is a boring game, a technically improved version of Sims1. Just look at the awfull hairstyles, not even animated. It took me a while to remember, but the basic CAS faces remind me of Vintage (Victorian)paper dolls, or maybe plastic dolls faces of the 50th.
They had enough years of experience, tons of fantastic downloads to watch: mods, changes, etc., from our site here, from other fan sites - to understand what we expect, but..... or are they working now secretly on Sims4 already?
The sims3 Eps will bring nothing because the base game simply sucks!

I know..it does suck.
I'm very unhappy with the game..I don't like it.

When I first started playing this game, I loathed it. I wanted to smash it into a million different pieces, jump on it and flush it down the toilet. However, it cost me 80 freaking dollars so that wasn't an option.
I had issues from day one- Sims 3 and my Virus protection decided to eat each other, and my video card decided to go on holiday so I got lots of black screen action. However, a few updates and new virus protection has fixed that.
I was whelmed. It was ok, I guess. Then before I could really get a taste for it, TS3 decided internet was vital to its function and wasn't going to work without a connection, so again, I wanted it gone. Fixed with an uninstall and reinstall once I got back near internet.
A few more days play has left me really liking this game, mostly.

PROS:
-I love love love the new CASt function. If we were given some nicer furniture, and some prettier patterns overall, then it would be just delicious.
- I seem to be alone in this, but I actually love the story progression. I don't play more than one family at a time. In fact, I rarely have anything bar a single female and lots of kids. So it's actually really good that said female's great grandchildren can't sex up her ex lover, and that the rest of the world keeps going- Nothing was more annoying in TS2 than having to find new relationships as time went on.
- SOME of the traits. I like the family oriented one- Pretty much makes 'try for baby' available permanently- and I like the natural cook and green thumb ones too.
- Being able to place lots of different coloured flowers in one spot. I just like it. I don't know why, it makes me smile.
- Doing away with the frakking bottles and diapers that seemed to STINK THE CRAP out of every house in TS2. I like that they don't exist. And I also love that we no longer have to bath Toddlers.
- The moodlets. I like that it's much harder to be red zone miserable.
- Being able to just buy meal ingredients as I go. I never remembered to call for deliveries in TS2, even with a mod to tell me to. I had to sell and buy a new fridge whenever people got hungry, which was just annoying.

CONS:
- No memories! I absolutely loved going through all my sims memories, and am quite devestated it's been axed.
Fugly sims and their stupid faces. Especially the display one when their miserable, wtf. It's like their heads got stuck in a vice.
- A whole bunch of stupid traits. WHY THE HELL DO WE NEED HYDROPHOBIC SIMS???!!!! My sim kid got this redundant trait as a bloody game gift due to a poor ubringing, and now he hates bathing. Lame. Not to mention the stupid little things that come with being evil. Explain, please, the difference between an evil bath and a normal bath.
- The stupid moodlet you get for not leaving the house. It sucks. I hate leaving the house, it's too difficult when you have lots of kids. hehe.
- Having to buy recipes. I don't like doing it, I just want to know them. Again, filters back to not wanting to go out because there's five screaming kids wanting attention.

All in all, while I enjoy the game, I don't currently adore it. I could live without it. I can't go back to TS2, it's packed in a box till December, but I will play it when I unpack it, just to see if I prefer it.

I thought it would just build cooking skill but my sim seemed to learn a lot of the recipes just by watching the cooking channel.

Yeah, which is great. But I don't like having to learn recipes at all, even if it's just through watching TV. hehe I'm just lazy like that.

After 2 months of playing TS3,I am actually having a blast with the Sims 2 again,I was so relieved when to see my beloved simmies again with all of their qute interactions and crazy antics.The feel of TS2 is one of overall enjoyment and happieness,even their reactions to an annoying coversation are so fun.What bothered me the most in TS3 was the crappy gameplay and as for the story-progression,I used the awesome hack.I have rarely used any hacks for TS2 but in 3 I had to use so many,just to get the game to run like I want it to and got fed up with that.I hate the baby and toddler-thing in TS3 and the lack of interaction when going into town.Also the enormous waste of time when they're in each others way and the way the walk and talk looks horrible.
Then there is the upcoming EP,a search and adventure-game?....huh..? I have no need for that...Then there's the extravagant prices EA charges for downloads that they should have put in this poorly stuffed game.No,no more Sims 3 for me,period !!

In general TS3 is great but there are two points (so far) about which I am quite upset about
1) doors lost the locking ability (well that has a mod for it so no prob but still...)
2) the stereos still cant be synchronized to play the same song in all rooms

I like the new gameplay improvements and the building freedom that comes with the patterns, however, some things completely boggle me.

It seems to me that the creators of Sims 3 completely ignore the fact that a whole bunch of people who owned the sims 2 and the expansions are going to buy ths sims 3, and there are many things that I would have thought would have been included in the sims 3 that aren't. Players like myself got used to have such simple but essential things in the game that came with expansions in the sims 2.

I feel these things have been omitted intentionally to be sold later on in expansion packs, yet AGAIN, which I think is completely mind boggling, it's like they think we will accept to go back to square one with the sims 3 and completely ignore the fact that we already had those things in the sims 2.

1- Split-level foundation
2- Circular staircases
3- Appartment doors
4- Textured ceilings
5- Seasons

Let's face it, those things aren't worthy of an expansion pack to be built around them, they should have been included in the base game because they are very basic! I have bought EVERY single expansion pack from the sims 2, I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars more just to be able to do something in sims 3 that I can already do in sims 2, just because they updated the gameplay and graphics! That's ridiculous! They should have called it The Sims 2.5, because to me it seems very incomplete, and I'm not stupid enough to have them shove expansions down my throat just because they omitted basic stuff in the base game. And let's face it, the rabbit holes? Very badly implemented idea.

To me, this game franchise is not evolving at all, it's just going around in cycles with improved graphics each new generation, like the creators didn't learn anything from the previous generation and just decided to serve us the same thing over and over again, just a little prettier. This is just plain wrong.

Well said Zeero, but this has been going on since TS2 as well. TS1 didn't get spiral staircases til the very end, and it's the same with TS2. You'd think they could've done that in TS2 and TS3 in the base game. But the fact that TS3 is missing such elementary things is unacceptable.

I am in total agreement. After some time we will see that "NOW YOUR SIMS CAN OWN PETS!", and "YOUR SIMS CAN THROW SNOWBALLS AND SPLASH IN PUDDLES!"

EA is out of ideas. Unfortunately they also seem to be out of creative talent. Sims 2, when it was released, was a HUGE step up from Sims 1 with sims having real lifetimes and pregnancies, all kinds of new interactions and new ideas. The creative team had worked on a lot of new ideas and it showed. The game felt alive. The people had senses of humor and expressive faces.

But sims 3 wasn't a huge step up. It has a seamless neighborhood, yes. but I really don't care anything about that. My sims pretty much stayed at home unless they had to go on vacation or shop for something specific. And I really do love the createastyle feature. I've downloaded a lot of cute patterns.

but you can't build a game around recoloring 2 or 3 couches, can you?

Yes you can, if your game is aimed for the like of 6 year olds. Like a 3D, interractive sort of colouring book.

This is true,I too used the awesome hack and several other mods,and it does help the gameplay very much,but the fact remains that it still isn't nearly as fun as 2 is and in my opinion that's to do with the overall feel and the fact we are somewhat betrayed by EA,who seem to have totally forgotten what made TS2 so popular.I'm extremely curious how this whole sims 3 thing is going to develope because I predict that after World adventures,more fans will be disappointed and this whole project goes down the drain.Mark my words !

Yes, because comparing TS2 with all expansion packs with completely new TS3 game is rather fair. Tell, why is TS2 base game so better than TS3 base game? Of course, when TS2 first came out people were too impressed with new graphic to care about lack of pets and gardens and magic and what not, but now that 3D graphic had already been introduced it's rather pointless to give a game a chance and wait for expansions like with every other game. And vacation is coming pretty early this time! it was fifth (TS1) and sixth (TS2) expansion pack.
As of faces, I actually like them. They're more realistic and more customizable than ever. But I noticed how everyone is trying to make TS2 out of TS3, I can't tell which sim is from which game due to they all look the same now. I thought people would make new things with new game, better things, but I see a sim and I spend next 5 minutes trying to figure out if it's TS2 or TS3.
I like the game, I like it better than TS2 (base game) because it's impossible to hate TS3 with all the expansions when there is none (yet). And items? When were items a problem in sims games? We got 5 hairstyles in June and now we can count over 100 hairstyles due to CC.

God. If only there were a neighborhood creation option and a mini program(or something integrated into the game) a la Bodyshop, I'd buy this game. Come to think of it, I don't really mind the RPG-ness of the game, I just want it to be really customizable. The CAST feature is a really good addition, and the seamless neighborhood is another feature I like, but everything else is non-customizable, and let's not forget the wabbit holes. So I thought, why bother.

And oh, TS3 store is just plain wrong.

I find the faces so ugly after getting spoiled with "the Sims2 and custom content", that I almost don't want to delve any deeper. (Yeah, I'm shallow.)

Ok i love love love the game. But i totally agree with Verno we need the people in the neighborhoods to move on!! Get married have kids etc. I hate having to control thier families for a little just to make them have kids! Btw what happened to the memories??? i loved those now i cant remember what ive done with some of my sims! Quite annoying. On the bright side i really like the graphics and how the plants and stars move

Certainly agree with some of the comments posted here ..what bugs me is how certain facial features made in CAS sometimes display properly in-game & other times they don't.. similarly, outdoors the sims eyes seem to go black like a result of an overuse of black mascara or some-such. In saying that I'm curious to know if this is a WIMTBP game, because my ATI card "mostly" plays well with this game but seems to have issues with certain aspects of lighting & detail. The aforementioned problem of poor neighbourhood creation - especially not being able to create lots on unused space is a huge downer & removes more of the creative aspect that made the previous game more enjoyable. Still, it's early days yet, so I'll hold of on the criticism unless these shortcomings manifest themselves long-term (i.e don't get sorted..)