In The Sims 3, the Sims series has finally grown up. No longer are the Sims ($49.99 for PC and Mac; $9.99 iPhone or iPod touch) just digital action figures in a big dollhouse. The new Sims have personalities, goals, and unique body types and hairstyles. The Sims themselves aren’t the only thing overhauled in this release, either. The PC game mechanics have been changed to make it easier to customize your environments and surroundings, giving users millions of ways to create the world of their choice.

The game begins with Create-A-Sim, where you can control every aspect of your Sim’s appearance. If you don’t want to spend hours (my first Sim took me 10 minutes to create, but you easily could take far longer), you can choose Random or Pre-Made Sims. The thing I first noticed was the new slider for your Sim’s body type, which can be varying degrees of thin, muscular, or fat. You get a palette of hair-color options, and you can actually use the Create-A-Style tool to mix a color of your own and use that as a hair color. I gave my Sim an Adam Lambert–style haircut and a smoking jacket. If the 50 or so hairstyles in the game aren’t enough for you, you can download more.

The same control of the minutiae is available when you’re molding your Sim’s face. If you play EA’s sports titles, which have long allowed for customizable players, you’ll recognize some of the facial construction features in Sims 3. There are hundreds of different eye, nose, chin, ear, skin color combos available for your Sims, and you can pretty much sculpt a likeness of anyone in the world. If you decide to make two Sims as a couple you can even see what their kids would look like.

The same customization is available for clothing your new Sim. You get about 100 mix-and-matchable garments and an extensive footwear selection, too. You pick everyday, sleepwear, formal, sports, and swimming outfits. And your Sim automatically changes to the right outfit for the situation. If none of the clothing choices work for you, try the Create-A-Style button, which allows you to change the color of any piece of clothing your Sim is wearing.—Next: Not Just Sim-Skin Deep

Not Just Sim-Skin Deep

Not Just Sim-Skin Deep

The Sims appearance customization is cool, but the real difference between the Sims 2 and Sims 3 versions is the addition of character traits and personalities. You can now give your Sim five specific character traits, chosen from a list of 65 possibilities. These traits guide its daily life and interactions within the game. For example, if you make your Sim an ambitious, vegetarian, computer whiz with a good sense of humor and an artistic streak, it’ll have few problems working and socializing with other Sims. On the other hand, your Sim could be an insane, evil, mean-spirited, technophobic kleptomaniac, and playing the game would be quite different. I made sure to pick some traits that would help me get ahead in the game (ambitious), and others that are just fun to play (insane).

Based on your five traits, you get a choice of five corresponding life goals. If you choose an ambitious, hardworking lifestyle, your Sim might endeavor to become “CEO of a Mega-Corporation” someday, or a famous surgeon or a superstar athlete. On the other hand, some goals are less lofty, such as “Swimming in Cash,” or even, if you choose to walk a dodgy path, becoming “The Emperor of Evil.” Yes, that’s a real choice offered by the game. These goals add more purpose to the life of your Sim. In previous versions it seemed as if the Sims were mostly just working to accumulate more stuff or make more friends. I ended up picking “Emperor of Evil” because it seemed cooler than “Master Chef.”

When you’ve finished creating your Sim, you get $16,000 to set up house. You can buy an empty plot of land and build from scratch, buy an empty home, or buy a furnished home. The more you spend, the better your home. If you don’t like your starting options (they’re the same every time), just get the small house and save up some cash to buy a better one.

If you pick the ambitious character trait, you can quickly move up the ladder at work and start making good money. Work was the most boring part of the Sims 3, because you don’t really see what’s happening—a car comes and picks up your Sim, and it’s off camera during work hours. While it’s gone, you can decorate your home and spend your money. I was, however, disappointed to find that you could not purchase the pets available in previous expansion packs—yet. There are already some cool things you can pick up at the Sims 3 online store that don’t come with the game. Once you log on to the store, you receive 1,000 Sims points to buy new furnishings, garments, or hairstyles, for example. You can get more points at a rate of $5 for 500.

The Buy/Build Mode is considerably different in Sims 3. Buying home furniture and appliances is now done through a new intuitive menu that shows items in a catalog-like view. Players browse through pages of various objects and click on the ones they want.—Next: Sunset Valley of the Sims

Sunset Valley of the Sims

Sunset Valley of the Sims

The town itself, Sunset Valley, is now a lot easier to get around. The Sims 3 can navigate town without having to wait for any load screens. This seamless game play is important, because there’s a lot of Sunset Valley to explore. Bistros, pools, beaches, gyms, graveyards, and art museums all teem with citizens for your Sim to interact with. This isn’t a multiplayer game, but you can still have some interesting relationships and conversations. When the Sims meet, they converse in a lovable gibberish and gesture emphatically, depending on their traits and your input. I like the way it’s fine to just show up at some random person’s house and start a conversation and make a new friend. But, while Sims are very casual, you still can lose friends if you don’t call or visit them once in a while.

I decided to explore the darker side of the Sims and constructed an insane, evil-genius, “never-nude” (an nod to Arrested Development fans—it means that instead of having fuzzed out naughty bits, you always have shorts on) with dreams of being an Evil Emperor, and took to the streets of Sunset Valley. I quickly found a job as a “decoy” for a local crime syndicate, working at the local paper, and moved up the ranks thanks to hard work (an option on the work drop-down menu) and ambition (one of my character traits). I was promoted to Cutpurse and then Thug, which pays pretty well. The only problem: I kept spending long stretches in jail (where they apparently don’t feed you very well). That affected my Sim’s mood—and wallet. My evil slant didn’t hurt my relations with my neighbors much, however. I often intrigued them when I tried to recruit them into my plots, or just babbled insanely.

I was surprised how light The Sims 3’s system requirements were. If you’re running XP, you’ll need SP2 and a 2.4-GHz P4 or better. For Vista, you’ll need SP1 and a 2.4-GHz processor. As for graphics, you only need an Intel integrated chipset of GMA 3-series or better. You will, however, need some room on your hard drive—at least 6GB of free hard drive space to play the game, and another 1GB for saved games and downloadable content.

The Sims 3 is great for both newcomers and long-time Sims players alike. All the customization makes this the most in-depth Sims yet. As with the previous versions of the game, you can spend endless hours constructing the exact life and living situation you want for your Sim. But the new goals give an added element of interest that should please those who like more goal-oriented game play.

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