The Sims

With the arrival of the GameCube version, The Sims haven?t quite yet reached maximum market penetration?but they?re closer yet to their goals of world domination.

If for some reason you haven?t yet heard of this newfangled ?Sims? game yet (?trapped in ice for 10 years? or ?came from 18th Century in steam-powered time machine? are the only acceptable excuses), here?s a quick summary: create little people, guide average people through their everyday lives, watch what happens. Think aquarium, only with humans instead of fish?or Animal Crossing, minus the penguins that want to trade apples for lunar landers. Its gameplay is terribly addictive, sucking hours upon hours of your free time into a virtual vortex, until the horrifying psychological ramifications of what you?re doing come around to knock some sense into your head?probably coinciding with the moment you realize the Sim you created in your own likeness now has more friends than you do.

All three console versions (PS2, GameCube, Xbox) boast new features that the PC version didn?t: most notably the Get a Life mode, which gives you goals (get a promotion, try to move in with one of your roommates? friends) and doubles as an excellent tutorial for the more unforgiving ?classic? mode. There are also a series of two-player modes that range from rather dull mini-games to far more theoretically interesting (though not so interesting in practice) co-op play. None of these new features?not even the fact that the game is now in 3D?are quite enough to warrant ?upgrading? to the console version from the PC, but they?re fine bonuses for the uninitiated.

While this is pretty much the same great game it's always been, there are a couple quirks in the GameCube version that make the PC version preferable: The graphics are polished, but the frame rate is a little jittery, and the icons and text are annoyingly small. Selecting things and swooping the camera with the C Stick is simple, but you can?t zoom in to the action as close as you?d like. Plus, the build and buy menus seem a little more cumbersome than they really have to be?prepare to press the wrong button a whole lot when you?re adding a new wing.

If you played (and have since abandoned) The Sims on the PC, watch out?picking up this GameCube version will probably just make you want to go back to your PC Sims universe. But if you haven?t played it, and the ?Cube is your only option, by all means pick it up. Abandon your real life for a while.

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