The Sims Online

Create your reality. Build your world. Live your life. But, you know, it?s fake.

Computer gaming?s most celebrated costume party is finally underway! The Sims Online builds on the familiar elements of the single-player PC megahit but mixes them up for a unique, intensely social experience.

A Sense of Self
Like the stand-alone game, The Sims Online preserves and promotes the one thing that games often promise but rarely deliver: total freedom. The character you create is entirely your decision?from its gender, head, body, and outfit on through its personal skills and strengths. Always wanted to be a rock star? Grab a guitar and start practicing. Like to fix things? Study DIY books and build your mechanical prowess. Master chef, nightclub owner, DJ, game show host, novelist, hotel concierge, slacker?if you can dream it, you can build it and be it. And of course, everybody else you meet is also being controlled by a live person?there?s no A.I. here. The world is literally what you make it.

Make Friends and Influence People
In building that world, you?ll find a teeming social community that motivates all aspects of gameplay. All the best stuff in The Sims Online requires multiple people, from forming study groups to making pizza to just having (rated and regimented) fun. The mandate is essentially ?interact or die.? You can expect to see your fellow Sims bond as friends, fall in love, form sports teams, and whatever else the human mind can dream up. Plus, to get ahead, you?ll need to establish your niche and lure others into enjoying it. If you want to run a homeless shelter, you?ll be judged on a different scale than those setting up pizza parlors; that way, everybody can succeed on their own terms.

The Shy Need Not Apply
There?s just one problem with The Sims Online: It?s almost not a game. The slow-paced activities rely so heavily on social interaction that in some ways it feels like a glorified chat room. Then again, social interaction is always what the Internet has done best, so as long as Maxis can continue to add interesting job objects and other structural milestones to the mix, the open-ended novelty needn?t wear off. If you?re looking for a low-ping party with no boundaries, you won?t do better than The Sims Online.

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