The Sims 3

A picture taken from The Sims 3 beta version. This explains why the game only averages .6 frames per second.

The Sims 3, also known as The Sims 3: Ubercrash, is once again the same concept as the previous games, but with hazier graphics and a higher price. Having the innovative idea of one seamless neighbourhood shows that the morons at EA realized that four hours worth of LOADING PLEASANTVIEW then LOADING THE SMITH FAMILY wasn't a good idea. The game is much better than that as it simply does not work at all, as the RAM needed to process an entire neighbourhood with several hundred lives living simultaneously amounts to the number of atoms in the Sun.

With advances in computing making the game possible to play with a brand new computer, it was necessary to raise the bar by adding more features, and therefore more requirements for the game so that it would bring a new computer to its knees as well. First, EA Games sold a multitude of new objects, Sim clothing, and building features in their online store so that the "sensible" Sim addict must spend ALL THEIR MONEY getting ALL of the new sets NOW, never mind trivial things like rent, real life clothing, real life utilities and insurance. Players can also spend REAL LIFE MONEY on FAKE LIFE OBJECTS by visiting the store website and shelling out hard-earned cash on a fucking video game chair made up of 1s and 0s. This is also plagiarism as far as Second Life is concerned.

Realizing that most experienced Sim players had mastered the idea of "aspirations" of Sims 2, EA decided to confuse players by substituting "Moodlets", "Wishes", and "Lifetime Score" for aspirations. Now, the Sims could be in a bad mood even if their needs were met, causing them to refuse to do what the player wants, for instance, just because they had a bad conversation with another Sim, or a run-in with a mummy.

Expansion Packs

Money-hungry EA released a swathe of expansion packs for The Sims 3. They were marketed as having "better (title) quality than the previous packs".

World Adventures

The first expansion pack is near identical to The Sims' Vacation and The Sims 2's Bon Voyage. It once again adds three new vacation neighborhoods for Sims to spend their money on, although the official description differs slightly: "Now your Sims can enjoy the rich vastness that other cultures have to offer, such as bestiality and bigotry. The experience becomes even more real as your Sims can contract such exciting diseases from traveling such as syphilis and cholera, usually after woohooing with a mummy or jumping into a well in a tomb. Your Sims may die when terrorists hijack their airplane, but on the bright side it's never been easier to catch STDs now that your Sims can purchase mail-order brides from abroad! Buy now!" Each new country has something to offer for Sims: France offers the "Smells Like Feet" Moodlet, Homosexual WooHoo, Alcoholism, and booby-trapped mansions. Egypt offers Death by Drinking Water, Death by Terrorist, "Savaged by Crocodiles" Moodlet, and the Mummy Curse. China offers Death by Yakuza (Sims disappear after travelling to China), Martial Arts Training Dummies that fight back, and the "Government Interrogation" Rabbithole. New Bugs introduced in World Adventures: Pools become invisible, Sims cannot visit stores to buy food or books anymore, and Egypt is infested with Scarab Beetles.

Late Night

This pack gives hopeless unloved Sims a chance to maybe actually have a life after dark. The additions of hot tubs, dance floors and party machines mean that now the game crashes without fail. And if that wasn't enough, Sims can now turn into vampires who get lynched by hordes of angry people with garlic and burn in the sunlight if they leave their homes during the day. On the plus side, you can make Edward Cullen Sims and kill them off repeatedly. New Skill: Alcoholism Enabler. New Creature: Ravers, Woody Allen. New Bugs: Less bugs in favor of whopping great lag for Cities. Rumor has it that the Sim vampire spiders got greedy and ate the bugs, then gummed up the works with their sticky webs.

Ambitions

Sims are now able to create robots, and as if EA hadn't sucked all the fun out of the game already, they have to do laundry too! You can also make tattoos for Sims with low self-esteem. Sims can now be self-employed losers by selling dirty paintings or erotic literature or even just rude sculptures like penis topiaries. There are pawn shops however, which can be vital for families with too many children in them. New Bugs: Collectibles no longer spawn, Sims no longer attend work on their own, Ghosts no longer return to their graves.

The Next Generations

As if Woody Allen in Late Night wasn't enough, pedophilia abounds as children and teenagers get revamps and can now join after-school clubs, like Dungeons and Dragons or Glee Club. Also, they can now remember and create embarrassing or messy moments. Yes, that is the entire extent of this expansion pack. EA included a message with the pack's CD case, saying that advanced players should make mods themselves to fix the exponentially multiplying bugs abound in the software they dare charge money for and then require you to get patched in order to play it. New Bugs: Memories spawn five times over, Photography now freezes your Sims.

Pets

Pets once again return to Sims after being left out of the base game. To further appeal to women's inherent lust for bestiality, horses are now be a molestable animal in this expansion. Bugs? Those are just the special features! Sadly, this expansion does not include creatures like griffins, centaurs, and dragons. Rumor has it that they were omitted deliberately to include in a future expansion pack for Sims Medieval, to boost sales for that game. But EA fans, never fear, your Sim can now ride Unicorns! Yes, these magical animals shoot fire out of their hooves and have the ability to kill plants with sparkles - because the Sims is all about real life events.

Showtime

Following the trend of promoting a popular rock star, this expansion pack was originally inspired by one of Katy Perry's albums. Fireworks shooting out from the Sims bodies were not included, since that already happens when Sims woohoo. In this expansion pack, Sims can make fools of themselves on stage by becoming an Acrobat, Singer, or Magician, usually resulting in them getting booed off the stage. The DJ career also returns so that they can annoy other Sims on the dance floor by playing the Macarena. Showtime also comes with a new 'town', which is a replica of every other town in the game, but this time it has palm trees (this contributes to $15 of the game's price). It also comes with new venues, which are designed to be too big to fit in preexisting "towns". So to expand the space available, and encourage players to recruit their friends to play, your Sim could perform in your Friend's venues instead.

Players complained that this "feature" made Sims 3 more like a Social Networking game. Electronic Arts/Maxis thought that was a GREAT idea, and released Sims Social and Sims FreePlay, followed by Sims Mobile. Some would say 2 out of 3 isn't bad, but they never experienced the POS known as the Sims Social, which followed the failed experiment known as "The Sims Online" by just three years, or two years if you count from the date they ended it instead of the date they started it. And sure enough, The Sims Social, on social media this time, lasted almost exactly as long as The Sims Online.

Supernatural

This expansion pack stretches the "play with life" meme beyond its limits by adding werewolves, fairies and witches, and if that wasn't enough, sims will be attacked by a swarm of zombies every full moon to make their lives even more miserable. Fortunately, the zombies cannot enter the sims houses, so sims can stay indoors and eat a quick meal of brain freeze to torment the zombies outside. In retaliation, the zombies (who are part-locust) eat all crops that are not either sunflowers, peas, or in a greenhouse. A feature was added to the options menu that allows players to disable certain features from expansion packs, rendering them a complete waste of money. This expansion pack also contains a talking mirror, which is on the floor and not on the wall, ruining the whole rhyme.

Seasons

Weather effects and aliens return to the game, with the option of watching the UFO that does the abducting. EA originally planned to include the features of this in the base game, but decided to delay it as a way of stuffing their wallets with more money by leaving the best for later. Trees in the Sims game have more leaves than normal, resulting in leaf piles that are large enough to WooHoo in. There are also seasonal festivals, which your busy Sim has no time to attend between working, romancing other Sims and/or taking care of baby Sims, improving skills, and restoring basic needs. Fortunately, there is actually one day off given from work for each season in this expansion pack. Should your Sim find time to visit the Haunted House on Spooky Day, they will more likely than not find themselves with a ready-made costume - that of a ghost! Unfortunately, other Sims generally don't notice the difference. At the Winter and Summer Festivals, there is an itty bitty skating rink, and predictably, Sims always manage to fall down. There are no ice skating performances though - apparently figure skating hasn't been invented yet in the Sim world, let alone ice dancing. There is also no roller disco or roller derby - team sports are against Sim religion, which forbids participation, though watching (live on Sim TV from the kingdom of Madden) is permitted. In the kingdom of Madden, NOT participating in sports is a crime. Sims in higher levels of the sports career have their pay supplemented by the indulgences sent directly to the TV preachers in order to receive forgiveness for this sin.

University

Finally, Sims have made it into the Social Networking age with a new Smartphone. This expansion pack makes it so that older Sims who have never gone to University can get in with the jock crowd instantly by talking to the Mascot who leaves a basket with a T-shirt, banner, and entrance exam on the doorstep. Unlike Sims 2 University, Sims of any age can attend University, but those with pets, babies, toddlers, or children are excluded, or else they will return to find their pet or baby gone by virtue of the Social Worker unless there is another Adult Sim in the household that can take over these chores. Vandalism is encouraged, and admired among the rebel clique, which somehow teaches those who are "in" with the rebel clique to become an Art Appraiser, because Street "Art" has a lot to do with Classical and Period Art. Sims can also get high on herbal teas of varying types, all of which is legal in the Sim world, served by your friendly neighborhood barista. Unfortunately, they still have not learned how to brew an extra-extra strong cup of coffee there, let alone a simple Mocha.

Island Paradise

This expansion pack caters to those who want to run resorts, those who want to have their Sims stay in resorts, and those who want their game loading time tripled. Your Sims can now drown in the ocean in a diving misadventure, but yet will always be unable to dive in locations that require more diving skill than they have. This expansion pack also forces players to make their Sims befriend strangers or gain diving skill in order to locate hidden islands (which are actually pretty obvious from the cloud cover surrounding them). Sims now have boats, which magically appear out of nowhere just in time to keep the Sim from drowning in the ocean, but they cannot go fishing or waterskiing with these boats, making them mere water taxis. For Sims that live outdoors, there is even a cooler that doesn't store food, that functions mainly as an end table.

Into The Future

In this expansion, the players can send their Sims into the future (duh) so that the Sims can see where their miserable lives will lead them generations down the road. Usually, their descendants live in a crap-hole of a house, but sometimes they can live in a super-awesome-look-at-me-I'm-better-than-everybody house. It also includes Plumbots which are pretty much like Simbots but they can have a variety of better functions such as being able to clean your house because "ain't nobody got time for that!" You can pretty much make them your bitch by installing different trait chips. Sims can also buy advanced electronics and such which for some dumb reason isn't extremely expensive. For instance, the Time Machine. Having not been invented yet, you'll either A: get one shortly after starting FOR FREE or B: can buy one for only 750 simoleons! WOW that's pretty cheap! The future can also be altered by events where you can live in a chaotic future where the weather includes (but isn't limited to) thunder storms, meteor showers, or thick smog from the garbage! You can also have the opposite future where unicorns run around freely and poop out rainbows in your backyard. Pretty cool, right?! In such a perfect society, the trees are various colors and everything is just fucking perfect. So chill out and kick up your feet for a bit.

Stuff Packs

Stuff packs are designed to reinforce the recurring concept of never-ending commercialism in this game. Like most stuff advertised on television, they promise much, but once you have it, you find it strangely unsatisfying after a while.

High End Loft Stuff

EA admitted that the bathrooms and kitchens that came with the base game were boring, and put out this stuff pack to make the kitchen and bathrooms more attractive. Fortunately for Sim people, they don't have to do WITHOUT a kitchen or bathroom in order to update them since time stops during the renovation, as opposed to having to watch the floor and walls be torn up, new wiring and lighting put in, and pay good money just to get rid of that old energy inefficient fridge/freezer, dishwasher, and construction debris. (In the Sims 3, the dump doesn't charge a disposal fee, and remarkably doesn't fill up immediately.)

Fast Lane Stuff

Deciding that there wasn't enough interesting stuff for young Sim boys to furnish their rooms with, EA created this stuff pack so that Sim boys could aspire to be race car drivers. Unfortunately, there are no such things as actual race cars or race tracks in the Sims, but apparently this myth is encouraged among young Sims, similarly to Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. On the bright side, there are some new cars for adult Sims to use, but again, none of them are race cars, and they don't get their Sims to their destinations any faster.

Barnacle Bay

This stuff pack was designed as a practical joke to fool players who expected a DVD in the case, for when they opened it, there was none! The player might as well have simply have bought it as a digital download, since that is all this stuff pack is anyways. This pirate themed stuff pack includes a shipwrecked ship that Sims cannot visit, pirate clothes, and a new neighborhood in which all the Sims talk with a pirate accent, but the player cannot tell since they are still speaking Simlish. This stuff pack also requires a game update, but unlike the other stuff packs that come on DVDs, does not manually update your game. Instead, if the automatic game updater is broken, the player must buy the next stuff pack first, then install this content afterwards.

Outdoor Living Stuff

Responding to complaints from players that square pools were boring, EA games added curved pools. Unfortunately, sharks and piranhas were not included. Also, for your rich Sims who inherited lots of simoleons, there is lots of yard improvement stuff, including a new outdoor stove, wrought ironwork to keep poor Sims from gawking in their windows, and new Sim fashions to clutter their closet with. Oddly enough, Sims give money to charity, but never clothing or household items. They also never hold garage sales, but mysteriously never have any difficulty selling old items.

Town Life Stuff

This stuff pack adds more rabbitholes to the town that you can't go inside, and adds new community lots to the rubbish bin to discourage players from making their own.

Master Suite Stuff

Continuing the trend of luxury themed stuff packs, this pack contains expensive items for sims' bathrooms and bedrooms that only rich sims who inherited their money through cheat codes can afford and creating an even bigger class divide. This stuff pack also contains eye masks, which sims don't change out of when waking up, but somehow manage to see fine.

Katy Perry Sweet Treats

A publicity stunt to rack in even more money, this stuff pack contains soft core porn that obviously skipped the PEGI rating. EA tried to deceive players by omitting "stuff pack" from the title because players were getting wise to how useless stuff packs really were. Of course, hardcore players did not mind, because they ate up the game like candy, just like all the candy furniture in this stuff pack.

Diesel Stuff

Out of anger and jealousy that custom content outfits were getting so popular, EA released this stuff pack full of new outfits for sims to smoke the competition ie their own players.

70s, 80s and 90s Stuff

Now you can torture your Sims by making them live the fashion mistakes of yesteryear. 80s big hair? Check. Mullets? Check. Harvest gold furniture? Check. Grunge-look clothes? Check. Stereo that's complex as all get out and takes up enough space for three Sims? Check. So if you like your sims to wear outdated clothes, get this expansion pack!

Movie Stuff

Your Sim can now be a hero or supervillain, but without any of the accompanying superpowers or fancy gadgets that usually accompany the designation. Your new "superhero" sim does get a new ride that looks as ridiculous as his new costume, though. There is also some costumes and props for cowboy/cowgirl sims, but no guns, so forget that showdown at high noon. Finally, your Sims can go Goth, and have Goth furniture other than what the fans already made - this stuff is official, so EA wants you to forget all about those sites that sell you all you can download in six months for the price of one "gold" world at EA's store.

The Sims 3 Store

The Sims 3 store was created for addicted players who "Gotta catch them all". This store would feature "Worlds" and "Bundles" of downloadable content that are bought with special Sims 3 store currency that is non refundable, just like arcade coins. . Each world was basically a bundle of bundles, and cost the same as a stuff pack. Typically, they only included one or two special functional items with each world, some basic Sims clothing and Sims furniture, some premade lots, and more space for players to build. The first "World" offered in the Sims 3 store was Barnacle Bay. Players opened DVD cases offering Barnacle Bay, only to be disappointed by seeing no DVD, but a code to redeem the world at the store. Yup, they were selling empty DVD cases just to promote the Sims 3 store. If that was not enough promotion, they also put the Sims 3 forums on the Sims 3 website right next to the Sims 3 store. Of course, once they decided they preferred to promote Sims 4 instead of Sims 3, they locked all of the forums on the Sims 3 site, and forced forum members to move over to the new forums site right next to the Sims 4 forums.

The Sims 3 Cheats

The Sims 3, being a single player experience, was also an open sandbox game. Players cheated in the game left and right, by giving themselves 50,000 simoleons, moving their Sims stuff in bizarre and physically impossible ways, and instantly maxing all motives and moods. Nobody complained, not the players, and not even the game producers. After all, nobody cared if your Sims raked in the Simoleons with a few keystrokes, as long as their Sims kept all of theirs. Until of course, AI (Asinine intelligence) robots decided all this cheating was bad without asking anyone.

Create A Crappy World

Now players can enjoy an overly convoluted tool for creating their own neighborhoods in Sims 3 which even more lagging and computer-crashing power than the Sims 3 game itself! All the rigorous excitement of sitting for hours, placing walls, trying to get roads to line up or curve correctly, and just figuring out how the damn thing works in the first frigging place may detract from the less fun time of just playing the damn game already. As if the creating tool isn't more complicated than it should ever need to be in the first place, players can texture entire neighborhoods in pornography even though they won't show up in high resolution in-game (which would likely crash it anyway), they can also benefit from the reward of days of grueling tediousness only to find their Sim can't fucking figure out how to drive to their job at the graveyard. This does allow for the more "mature" players to distribute penis-shaped neighborhoods with inaccurate screenshots. Oh, the hilarity to be found on the Sims 3 website!

The Sims 3 Mods

Maxis/Electronic Arts was not the only one making game content for The Sims 3. As in previous Sims games, when players with 3D graphics skills found something that seemed missing in the game, they created it themselves. Then, usually, distributed it completely free of charge, or had someone else distribute it free of charge for them. Since copyright laws on Sims 3 content granted all Sims 3 content licensing to EA games, enforcement was up to the gaming company, not the custom content creators. There were also some more intermediate level programmers and computer science students who found other ways to mod the core aspect of the game, for instance causing a pandemic or removing game clutter to speed up the game, since Maxis did not build a "clear cache" function into Sims 3. Then, there were the mods that were somewhat less safe for work, with a greater emphasis on gore and "woohoo". Which as everybody over the age of 13 knows, is Sims sex. Most Sims do not have any naughty bits, so these mods added them, creating flesh-colored tubes instead of male parts. Normally nude Sims look like Barbies.

The Sims 3 Game Launcher

The Sims 3 game launcher was an application designed to annoy players by popping up before they could play the game, and delaying the game until the player could press the big blue arrow on the Sims 3 launcher.

Origin of the Fight

Origin was a games manager program that was retired in 2022. Around 2013, close to the time of Sims 4's release to the public, Sims 3 was tethered to Origin. This meant that to play Sims 3 at all, you had to open the Origin software first. Origin would open the Sims 3 launcher, which would then open the Sims 3. Of course, you could always play the Sims 3 on Steam, as long as you did not need more than one or two expansion packs, ever. It was also super easy to get the Sims 3 to have a fight with itself: simply install it both on Steam and on Origin. (FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!) However, you could stop the fight by uninstalling it on one platform.

EA games app

Intended to replace Origin, the EA Games app was in beta version for one year, until it replaced Origin, because Origin's origin was not EA games. It was ORIGINally owned by another company before they were bought out. So, as had happened many times before, EA games killed off perfectly good games and apps after buying out their companies and ruining their products. And of course, preventing players from cheating in their games with an AI bot. However, the EA games app did not take into consideration any legacy games that might require one program run with admin privileges, to run another program with admin privileges. This was the case with the Sims 3 launcher. The EA games app ran the Sims 3 Launcher perfectly. However, the Sims 3 launcher's functionality was completely broken. A coincidence with Sims 5 rumored to be coming out soon? Of course! At least that's the official story.

Watered-down mobile app

Yes, the Sims 3 was also released as a mobile app. This mobile app was the solution to players who wanted to play for free, did not want to pay for any expansion packs, and were willing to generally go a step backwards towards The Sims (2000) to get those things. It was free, offered separate apps instead of packs for The Sims 3 World Adventures and The Sims Medieval, and went back to the Sims 2 tradition of picking face shape, picking hairstyle, picking top, picking bottoms, and picking shoes. No color wheel was offered, but it was free so players did not care. Free that is, if you were satisfied with the limited set of items for dressing up your Sims and furnishings to put in their little Sim homes. If not, you paid by the set for these, just like stuff packs. World view, of course, was far less detailed and had fewer lots available, and only one world/neighborhood so that it would fit into the limited memory capabilities of mobile devices.

Vanilla version for console

The Sims 3 was also available for Playstation and XBox. This appealed to players who did not want to use any cheats, custom contents, or mods in their game since none of these were available on the console version. Households on this version typically start out living homeless in a park, eating grilled food and fresh raw vegetables from the garden, using public restrooms, and taking showers in the local public gym or pool. They usually then either join the military, enter a life of crime, or become a starving artist or musician. A few even become farmers. Soon they can afford things like refrigerators, microwaves, lights, sinks, toilets and cheaply-made showers as this park slowly improves with a staff break room and public restrooms. Pools or basketball hoops usually follow soon afterwards. After hours upon hours of play, the household can now move into a studio apartment or a single-story rambler.