I’ve written about EA games in the past and every now and than I will pick up a game from EA just to see where they are at as far as quality. I purchased the Sims 3 On sale after Christmas, since in January there are not many A level games around this time that appeal to my gaming sense.
Out of the box the sims 3 is very familiar in terms of game play. Its one of the few games that EA was smart enough not to change the core game play unlike any EA sports game.
Most EA sports game needlessly complicate the fuck out of the controls. I bought NHL 2009 out of the bargin bin for $4.99 for one reason on the box it listed “Play with classic controls”. After installing the game I played the game for about a week. The game itself is barely passable, but the game itself has some very poor coding. for one you can not play widescreen, you are stuck with standard 4:3 resolutions. If you try to change the control options theres no real way to customize the controls.
The sims 3 after playing for awhile is almost refreshing in the sence of quality from EA. But there are a few glaring things. In order to patch the game you’re almost forced to install EA’s Download Manager. The EA download Manager is pretty much a useless version of steam. Steam is Extremely well thought out but the EA download manager just feels like its an advertising program more than a game content client.
Manual patching for the Sims 3 is possible though but its incredibly aggravating. Since you can’t Patch to the current version from the retail disk without some hunting around. Since the EA support site does not have the patches on the site you have to go look around for patches, As i’ve found the patches. You can’t patch directly to the latest release version and have to download a few patches to get to the point of the patch you want to be at.
The game however is an improvement over the sims 2, although when I play the sims its not exactly in the sense of playing the sims its more like How to drive your sim mad in 3 easy steps. Theres less micromanagement in the sims3, unlike 2 where you cant just let it run all night to see what chaos comes about. to me its like an ant farm you give it a shake once in a while to see what the hell happens.
I think the most annoying fact of the sims 3 is it feels unfinished out of the box, and i didnt figure out why till I actually read the insert that came with the game. EA gives you 10$ to buy random stuff at the sim store, truthfully i find this annoying. its worse than a DLC. Why would you go online to buy a chair for a game or some other virtual furniture the prices are a little high in terms of value per dollar, most stuff is 75cents or a dollar but still, The online store should be a place to buy items and not to finish a game that is missing items.
as for the sims its ok with a few glaring issues that bug me. Patches/Unfinished feel out of the box / and no way to let the sims run on there own for a long period of time.