Saturday, September 3, 2011

The Sims Social Review

I can't believe I'm actually going to make a review of a Facebook game.

I was hooked on Mafia Wars, Farmville, Fishville, Treasure Isle, Cafe World. For Lent, I limited my access to Facebook... which was to never access Facebook at all for 40 days. After coming back, I stopped playing those games and deleted them, leaving only Bejeweled and Words with Friends (all you Words with Friends cheaters out there... BRING IT!!!).

SexyGamerGirl sent me an invite to play The Sims Social. I figured, why not. Turns out this game is highly addicting.

On the first time playing, you're able to customize your "sim," give them clothes, change their appearance, gender and assign them a trait such as romantic, villain, geek and others. The point is to build your house, make relationships with neighbors, and start a life for your sim. You need to keep your sim happy. If they don't eat, sleep, have fun, clean themselves, pee/poo, and socialize, they'll be unhappy.

There's a sim that you can socialize as part of the game. To pass certain quests, you need more than just one neighbor. That's when you invite Facebook friends to play. This is the social aspect of the game. If you want to build a room, you're going to need the help of 4 (maybe more, depending on how big the room is) of your friends. Need materials for building a sofa? Ask your friends for those parts or tediously collect them through various interactions with objects and friends. My four fake accounts had to come out of retirement for those annoying quests with a long list of required items.

4 Girls 1 Room... coincidentally, the female sims are the most active in this game.

The good thing about these interactions is that some of them require you to spend 1 energy point. You're given 15 from the start. The game replenishes 1 point every 5 minutes. You can randomly get energy points by interacting with objects and neighbors. Some are rewards from quests, first time visits to a neighbor and others. Without this 15 energy point limit, I probably wouldn't be sleeping.

Doing quests gives you in-game money. Socializing with neighbors gives Social points. Both can be exchanged for house items, decorations and clothes to wear for your sim. It's just your own virtual Barbie doll that you played as a kid or the doll house you played when with your sister when she's around or not looking.

The only annoying tidbit are the bugs. You can have relationships in the game. Best Friends, BFFs, Rivals, Frenemies, Friendly Rivals, Sort of Friends, Good Friends, Dating, Soul Mates, Going Steady, etc. Each relationship offers different levels of interactions with your friends' sim.

My sim right now is dating SexyGamerGirl's sim. We've reach the point where our sims are considered "Going Steady." The bug in the game won't let either one of us accept the relationship request. It's getting kind of annoying.

It's bad enough I'm having a dry spell... not my sim, too. My sim needs to get his mack on.
Overall, it's a great distraction. It's really up to you if you want it to suck hours of your day. Simple game play elements make it accessible to everyone.

(You can visit SexyGamerGirl for all gaming shenanigans and reviews).

I'm done.

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