I love The Sims

Posted On April 4, 2018

Undeniably inspired by Giant Bomb’s “13 Deadly Sims” segment, a while ago I felt the need to hunt down wherever we’d packed The Sims 3 Pets for PS3. I understand that the PS3 is a bit dated now, but I still totally recommend it. There aren’t horses and stuff in this version, but the cats and dogs are still more than enough to keep you occupied.

This probably won’t qualify as much of a review, but basically, I want to show you some of the stuff that I got up to on here recently. It’s harder to get screenshots from the PS3, so I did things the easy way and just took photos on my phone. This, however, makes the colours and quality somewhat off. If you are considering this game but are put off by the images, fear not, they look much better than I’ve made them out to be here.

20180304_200132 — Yesssssss favourite cat type.

We had an old game save on this back in 2011 or 12, but eventually life got in the way and we stopped playing it. I originally intended to load-up that same save again, but when I did, I had no idea what I was doing. It had been too long, so I couldn’t remember what any of our aims and goals were with our Sims. Also, we’d managed to fill the fire meter all the way up on our lot, and even deleting things wouldn’t let us buy anything new.

So, we just made a new game, with updated Sim depictions of us. I did make Freya again, but I named her Buttface (something I call her a lot) and also a cat named Bonkers, which is itself a reference to an auto-generated name for a cat in The Sims 2.

20180304_203250 — Our first house. Will and me are inside while the toddler is out on her own somewhere.

20180304_205110 — That time Will’s portrait disappeared.

After a while I figured out how to use the unlimited money cheat on the PS3, so that I could try to build our dream house without saving up for a billion years.

20180305_153756 — First attempt at making house plan. Scale was very, VERY wrong.

Everything on The Sims is done with a grid of squares. The squares don’t look to be an entire metre, so in the first house I made, I did 2 large squares for each metre. This resulted in a GIANT HOUSE. For the second attempt on another lot, Will looked up how much real space a square is meant to represent in feet, and then converted it to metres for me so I could make the rooms look more realistic.

20180305_174100 — It would be so fun if Sims thought bubbles popped up above our heads in real life.

Especially the minus signs when someone said a bad thing. But the positive ones would also be handy!

20180316_192004 — Second attempt at building house plan, much improved but still not entirely correct. You can’t seem to do a glass roof on conservatories.

20180316_195908 — And yet this did not actually work out.

20180316_200207 — I think I like being able to live vicariously as a version of me that has money saved and has a career and a custom built house.

20180317_004509 — I’m such a good police officer omg.

20180317_015456 — Will showering in his work uniform.

Wolf spiders are pretty much the outdoor version of of the gigantea and nooooooo thank youuuuuuuu to that.

20180317_173110 — Named a star after Freya’s nickname because she is also a small white giant.

20180317_180842 — Fencing the dream house.

20180317_181004 — The Sims doesn’t let you build a gate by the pavement though, you have to go two squares back and it looks weird.

20180317_190127 — Upstairs layout of the old house; because you cant use U staircases in the Sims, I couldn’t lay out the upstairs hall properly, so you have to go through the guest room to get to the main bedroom, also everything is scaled way too big.

20180317_195609 — This pet taxi is permanently stuck at the front of our house in some sort of bug.

20180317_200703 — Sims complaining about being tired even though they wouldn’t stop running around.

20180317_203156 — Even virtual Letti bends the wrong way.

20180317_223701 — Because you can’t build ceiling over the top of the bottom of the stairs like you can in real life, the new bathroom has this hole in it, complete with a warning candle on the wall and a railing.

20180317_223728 — Also couldn’t find good doors with a transom window, so just used doors with a bit of glass in the middle.

20180317_230653 — Neighbour dog Austin, peeing on Will.

20180318_000056 — Will eating dinner alone in the garden for some reason.

20180318_001820 — Kid’s dinosaur hoodie is the best.

20180318_010636 — Freya/ Buttface becomes a grown-up.

I had to briefly take Sims and Pets off the “Immortal” setting in order for them to age-up. But I remembered to put it back on afterwards!

I’m going to leave things where they are now that Will and me are proper adults, our pets are adults, and our kid is a young adult.

20180318_021050 — The mannerisms are pretty spot-on.

20180318_142208 — This is a moodlet that affects me in real life!

20180318_142429 — Again, dinner in the garden alone.

20180318_143026 — Dog-on-bed is also a real thing that happens.

20180318_151017 — The world’s best dressing gown.

20180318_155630 — I figured out how to add beautiful plants.

20180318_164537 — A sphinx that looks like Putin.

20180318_175255 — Will getting a proper hat at work.

20180318_180820 — The kid has the “Brave” trait which I guess is why she felt the need to read a book on a levitating couch next to a ghost inside a house undergoing a supernatural invasion.

20180321_181040 — Cat toy in the hallway because things in The Sims require squares of free space around them. Sorry for flash on screen but sometimes it’s the best way to get the colours to come out.

20180321_185156 — Here is the cleaner picking up my garden lantern and stacking it with a dirty plate! He washed it in a sink with the dishes and it vanished!

20180323_214857 — Playing catch in the front garden of the dream house.

20180323_222652 — An Anole that was caught by the cat!

20180324_000733 — This is not a good icon for that.

20180324_002944 — Here is neighbour dog Austin, asleep on our path, where he remained while we were burgled.

I was surprisingly traumatised when our house experienced a burglary. Austin stayed asleep on our path and did bugger all about it, and Buttface was asleep next door in Austin’s kennel, so missed the whole thing. My Sim, for some reason, would not apprehend the burglar despite being a cop. I had to wait for a different cop!

I’ve since thought (too deeply) about it and wondered if, because my Sim was on level 7 of the Law Enforcement career at the time, which means being undercover, she didn’t arrest the burglar because it would have outed her in the criminal circles. But that’s way too intricate for The Sims, it was probably just a bug.

Anyway, I not only stuck up a bunch of extra burglar alarms, we also adopted another pet, a corgi (as close to one as you can get on The Sims) named Naboo. I’m trying to get him to build up the Aggressive trait (which involves a lot of chasing the postman) so that he will run after burglars of his own accord.

20180325_023330 — Got this slightly abrasive neon sign of a wolf and a moon for the front of the house.

20180325_032555 — I love this alphabet even though it’s nonsense.

Neighbour dog Austin turns white for some reason.

It’s not the digging itself that anyone has a problem with, it’s filling the hole back in afterwards.

I wish there was a way to source where these images are on the PS3.

The perfection that I want from my life: comfy sofas full of pets in a purple living room.

Will getting a proper, ***proper*** hat.

When you order pizza, call everyone to the meal, and then it all malfunctions as soon as the first Sim picks up the pizza.

*Gob Bluth voice*: Something’s gone wrong.

It’s hard to pinpoint what I love about The Sims, but I think a lot of it lies in the sheer absurdity of the human interaction. When our family first moved into the lot, neighbours came by to introduce themselves, and one of them just pulled out a guitar and started playing, to which Will’s Sim responded by angrily shouting “Eeeeeeeee!”

The only thing I majorly dislike about this version, is that it doesn’t have the option to make the Sim run around and click on things directly with the controller joystick, like the Sims 2 Pets game on the PS2 does. I prefer to control characters that way, rather than the sort of point-and-click thing going on in this version.

But, the definite plus of this version is that you can control the pets’ actions themselves, rather than just observe them.

Overall, you should let the joy of The Sims into your life.

PS:

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