Hmm... odd... when I do the "testingCheatsEnabled" thing, I can shift + click on the mailbox and I have the option to "make all happy". I do not, however, have any kind of skills cheat listed there, that I can think of

My mistake, the cheat is for traits, not skills. I've downloaded the skill hack but not tried it yet.

I had shift clicked on the actual Sim, not the mailbox, didn't know I had to do that.

That makes two of us

You don't click on the mailbox you accually clik on the needs themsevles and move them up or down. I hope this helps.

I got my game yesterday. I played for a few hours... honestly I am totally unimpressed. I really don't like it. Was I expecting too much? And that User Interface... straight out of Sims 1 - deja vu.

The game is so slow... what do you guys do when your sim is asleep? Even gaining a skill is very time consuming. I was so bored.

The only plus for me was seamless hood, which looks pretty and realistic. But the sims with their pudding faces are so ugly!

Overall, I'd give it an 8.5. I think it's the strongest base game in the Sims series yet. The Sims have a better variety of things to do. Skilling is slower, at least using the normal lifespan, there's more incentive to create families whose members pursue different skillsets (it may no longer, for example, make sense to try and max every family member's cooking skill). CAST goes a long way in making up for the slim pickings for buy objects that come with the base game (though, as with TS2, a larger selection would have been nice).

It loses 1.5 points for the vehicle animations which seem like an uncharacteristic shortcut in an otherwise interestingly animated game. Overall, the bugs don't seem any worse than in pre-patched TS2. I did, however, encounter a crash bug that would lock up my game every time the notification that a baby was on the way came while the parents-to-be were cuddling in the bed .

At this point, I'm happy enough with the game that I'm not really interested in going back to TS2, even though I do miss a lot of the features that came with the EPs.

I like it but I havn't even tried the create a style option yet because once I start with it I'll end up killing my computer with the amount of styles I'll have created...

I would give Sims 3 a 9 out of 10. Why not a 10?

1. The hair and clothing choices aren't so great, especially for the guys, even with customization.


Things I freaking love!
1. CAS is awesome
2. custom music folder...sims music is just plain crappy
3. the endless possibilities picking different combinations of traits gives you
4. seamless neighborhood
5. The vanilla items in buy mode actually look good
6. I love my vintage hot rod! :D
7. The amazing potential this game has with the upcoming EPs
8. My sim takes care of herself pretty well so that I can do things like get up and take care of things like my real life daughter spazzing out because the neighbor has a snake (I just let the poor snake go out in backyard)...and my sim hasn't set herself on fire or anything stupid, by the time I get back.
9. The EA store. I can just buy items I will actually use and don't have to spend $20 for a stuff pack with only a couple of things I even want. And they just install right into my game.

wow. someone who actually likes the store :D

I like it for exactly the same reason she stated: I can pay $20 for stuff I actually want, not $30 for a stuff pack that might have three things out of 20 that I like. I honestly hope they keep the store instead of releasing any Stuff packs. Expansions, yes, Stuff packs, no.

I've never bought a stuff pack so we agree on that. I guess EA knew what they were doing with the store but they won't be getting any of my cash

The only thing I don't like about the Store are the prices, and the fact that the items there now should have been included in the game in the first place. I very much doubt I will be buying anything there, though, or any stuff packs (if there will be any). I never bought any stuff packs for Sims 2 either. I'm waiting for all the fabulous CC that will eventually come...

As for the game - can't say anything yet as I have not got it. It was dispatched 10 days ago, so the post must have lost it or something... .

7/10

Alot left to be desired. I think the game is wonderful even without all the sims2 mods however there is alot left to be desired and if they would've taken another 6mo. to complete it, it would be a 10.

I figure expansions added will play a huge roll in that and looking forward to that but hopefully it'll be within a timely manner. Receiving 1 expansion a year would be brutal. Also the modders out there will make it special in due time.

My favorite thing about the game is Create a Style. Though it does'nt work on fences and stairs which is really a shame.

I'd give it a 9/10, since i bought it apart from eat and sleep and met up with friends once i haven't done anything else because i'm finding it really addictive. I only miss some of the stuff like Pets etc but undoubtedly that will be added in an expansion.

Also i haven't run into any bugs at all and game play is as smooth as anything and i've not had any choppyness with everything on high detail (laptops a bit of a beast).

Did anyone notice that the bodyshape of the girl in purple with the high boots is different than the CASims. She has the bodyshape of the Sims 2 as her breasts are larger than the ingame sims. She also has different facial features. I think she was made with sims 2, Just a thought.

Yeah, I was looking for that hairstyle in the CAS and it isn't there and someone on the boards here did point out where I could find the "dress" (it's actually a tunic and a pair of really short shorts or a really short skirt). However, the dress on the girl in the picture has the neckline I want. Maybe someone will make that dress when we get custom content (pleasepleaseplease! ). What I'm going to do (because I totally love that sim) is look for Sims 2 CC (I'm sure I can find a similar outfit here on MTS) and put it into my Sims 2 game (after I re-install all of my EPs and CC ). I'm sure once I've played Sims 3 for awhile I'll miss my other sims.

The game is downright fun. Some things are scaled down, and some things are badly thought out while other things are a huge improvement.

The best thing is town travel. No more screen loads. It's pretty seemless. Cars are about the same. They basically replace the taxi however, just like in the old game. you need not even click on the car- just where you want to go and it appears and off you go- but like the old game despite you own a car the same car pool picks you up for work and takes you home while your car sits in the driveway.

personalities are gone- we now just have negative and posative traits. I'm not sure I like this. Instead of the zodiac we have to mimic ourshelves in the traits. There's no restrictions either. you can pick all posative ones and be the perfect lover, the perfect rock star, the perfect lover and so on.

My first career was a natural vitro- with a charismatic, hopeless romantic, friendly and flirty traits. In no time I ended up maxing the charmisa skill making the ladies virtually helpless to my advances. To boot I was the next Britney in no time now as well. Since your skills also progress as you work the game was a cakewalk.

For instance with the above traits if I played my quitar in public not only did I get better at it, but EVERYONE that heard me play had their relationship bars go up as if I was romancing them as I played. In short I could enter a park with strangers, play a song and make everyone my best friend without uttering a word, then introduce myself and take every single lady home, married or not, impregnate them, tell her to leave- never call her again in my virtual life and guess what- she always loved me no matter what because I had picked the "no long-distance friend's" lifetime award.


The game is a perfect example of bad game balance. Your find it very hard starting off. Making any money and so on. My 'Rock star" for example had but $25 at the start of the game. I didn't have the $600 for the quitar- which meant I couldn't advance in my career' and every time I had the $600 something would happen. A thief would steal my shower- which i absolutely needed- and so on.

Once i had the $500 for the alarm however, the thief was caught, my money returned- and I was off- suddenly I had more money than I knew what to do with. Pick your lifetime rewards well and it just snowballs. Pick 'more attractive' and charisma skyrockets. Pick 'iron bladder' and never have to pee again. And there's one for eating and showering- suddenly you don't have any maintaince at all-

Also a lot fewer things to do. many buildings you never 'enter' and interact. It's abstrack. You take 'charisma' classes at the courthouse but you never see the inside. Resturants are the same (unless you eat outside)

This really leaves little to do as the game progresses. There's virtually no entertainment for example. None. If it's not tied to a 'trait' or skill it's not in the game. You can tour the theatre but taking a girl to a movie is out- and touring the theatre is tied to the rockstar career. There's an art museum- which is about all there is to take a date on and interact-and it's pretty shallow.

Some of the traits are also badly done. I choose "daredevil" thinking that would be fun. About all that really did was put the word 'extreme" in from of my commands- so i didn't take a shower, I took an 'extreme shower'-- as far as career or options nothing else really was there. There was no HarleyRider Career and i could be an astronaut with or without the 'Daredevil' trait' which i saw no real purpose for.

The game misleads you and stirs you wrong. It will tell you for example "buy some seeds' and garden- if that is a want you choose. In reality there are no seeds to buy. You go to the supermarket and buy a tomato and plant it- or an apple to plant an apple. You HAVE to learn this by reading the manual because ingame it's telling you to buy seeds.

Or say you choose "heartbreaker" as your master goal. Reading the goal it tells you to have "10 girlfriends at once"---but beware of jelous ex's. In reality the game doesn't allow you to have more than one girlfriend. "Ask to be girlfriend' will never pop up as an option in conversation if you already have one dispite what the ingame discriptions is telling you. You have to break up and then move on to the next. That's dumb. I want 10 girlfriends dammit! in this setup everyone who's went through highschool would 'technically' be a heartbreaker- who among us hasn't had 10 girlfriends in thier life by age 25? They should occur all at once for this trait to be what it says it is.

Some careers are just a pain, and some far too easy. A journalist is an absolute pain. You must, 'interview' someone and then write a posative or negative story on them. So all your time is spent chasing these people down, and even after you interview them there's absolutely no way to determine if the story should be posative or negative. If you choose the wrong one the story backfires- and it's just chance. Interview someone and discover they are '"evil", "lazy", and so on you'd think a negative story, and someone who was 'nice' and 'friendly' a posative- but it doesn't work like that.

While other careers are cakewalks. Rockstar, painting- hacking- with the right traits and a couple promotions and you have all the time in the world.

Your biggest challenge is trying to learn how to do things dispite the in game's misleading text.

Worse the girls never fart...just like in real life apparantly only the family dog does. In Sims2 that game dispelled that myth but in this game once again it never happens....maybe a mod for that so we have proof posative next time she tries to blame the dog.

Pathing is horrible. Just horrible. The pauses while they try to get around each other will cost you hours in game time. Sometimes you simply have to clear your command cach and walk your sim to the obvious spot to clear a path for the braindead sims.

Did I mention braindead? Your notice sims don't take care of themselves nearly as well as they did in Sims 2. Collapsed sims are a common sight in the park. They are a common sight in your home as well. In fact invite someone over and it seems they have the ability to do about 2 things....over and over again.

graphics are a mixed bag. I find most of the clothes poor- even the ones your nickled and dimed for at the EA store. Hair styles are limited as are most everything...waiting for expansions and modders to fill the voids.

Of course modding this game is nurfed as well- likely so no one can compete with the online store. Since any modding to do with game functions all use the same core file multiple mods seem impossible at this point. Your not have career mods and activity mods in one game. Your be able to choose just one.

The make a sim tool is actually scaled back from the sims 2- and the game's lighting really makes textures and skintones look horrible in game.

Don't get me wrong. it's a fun game. But if you have sims 2 and expansions, and families you've played through generations on there's not a lot here to measure up to that let alone warrant a switch. The bigiest change is the seemless town travel- but at the expense you can't go into most buildings...I think I'd prefer the load screens myself.

And finally...where the hell is the public whoohoo? You can't even kiss a date in a car... there's something fundamentally wrong with that.

Wha?

I <3 it, minus the slow speed.

7/10.

Whit heavy, heavy, heaaaaavy third-party hacks and modifications it could become decent. TS2 gave you the chance to create pratically everything, from the sparkling coastline whit modern glasshouses to the decadent remnant of and industrial city. His sequel give more chances to their creators, to their community.

And don't tell me that's only a week since the game came out. You've already seen that to modify an 'hood is impossible, and commuitary lots were wiped out from the face of the SimEarth.

It's still fun to play, but it's no more the unique, endless game that The Sims 2 was. You create a sim, you go, collect some rewards, make him marry someone other, have childrens, make 'em discovering the remaining things you haven't discovered, and it's over. Storytelling as i knowed is - for now, i hope - dead; i think it will be hard to bring it back to life.

At this point, i think i will stop to play the game when Gran Turismo 5 for PS3 will came out. It will be surely bigger game, considering it's a racing sim and not a "life in his whole vastity" simulator.

Oh, and i forgot. Why the hell they don't call the "military force" career in the proper way? Come on, that's an aviator career's progression. Why won't they call it "air force" career instead?

As a game, I'd give it a 6. As the next iteration of The Sims, it gets a 5. So much of it has been recycled from Sims 2 (animations, objects) or given new names. Wishes are nothing more than wants with a new package.

Much of the completely new gameplay grew old before I even 'beat' it (collecting, opportunities). The sims themselves feel shallow since they don't have memories, interests or even emotions, really (moodlets seem to be doing the work of emotive animations). I can throw any two sims in the game together fairly easily since there is no such thing as a bad conversation. The redeeming features like the open neighborhood are countered by other 'features' like the rabbit holes (let's just say that I don't expect to be able to go into clubs when the Nightlife ep comes out).

Add on top of it the completely random Story Progression events that result in things like 8 people living in a 1-bed/1-bath house and sims cloning themselves to have babies. It's fun enough, but I can't see myself playing it to the extent that I play Sims 2. I'm not even sure I want to experience the same expansions again because of the indications that EA doesn't care about the game (broken Story Progression toggle) or even if we enjoy it so long as we spend the money on it.

After 1 hour of gameplay, I was very disappointed. After one week of gameplay, I am over the shock phase of how different it is, and now I LOVE it! I give it a 9 because there are still many things that need to be improved (All of which are probably already mentioned in this thread.)

WoW! I've just read everyone who wrote in this thread. I stopped playing Sims2 last year when I had put too many hacks in my game and threw the whole thing into a mess! Now I've bought Sims3 and have thrown it into a drawer until the dust settles down a bit to see what surfaces. It looks like I need to wait at least another month in order to give the wonderful creators and mod-sters a chance to give us all the hacks to make this game work smoothly! I'm glad I stopped in to get ya'lls opinions, good, bad, child uglies, and extensive! Keep testing, playing and commenting! I'll stop in to see what's up and to see if it's time to delete all my Sims2 and jump into the fray!