There are many examples I could describe to you, but the one that sticks out the most in my mind has to do with the toilet. Now most people are familiar with the on going feud between men and women regarding the position of the toilet seat. One night I was hanging out with some of the Sims from around the neighborhood and one of them left the toilet seat up. My female sim proceeded to get upset when she had to put the lid down before she took her turn. Now for some that may not be as humorous as it was for me, but who would think to add something like that?

With all these little hidden quirks that so accurately mimic behavior of people I know, it can be seen that a lot of importance was placed on attitude and emotion, and less on finances and space management. Sims can and will get angry, sad, confused, happy, and even violent. I suspect a few of you read my brief description of my first Sims, The Evils. As mentioned in that particular article, I decided to create a new Sim that had stronger qualities. Since The Evils still existed in my little neighborhood, they proceeded to harass my new Sim. Of course the option is always open to ignore people that come to your door, but I figured Kane Evil was a changed man. No sooner had I let him in, he was slapping my new Sim around. There was a large fight indicated by a cloud of smoke and appropriate limbs popping in and out, and its resolution left my new Sim crying and depressed.

In my experience with the title, that is probably the best example I can give that shows how much interactions with other Sims in the area matter. This interaction is stressed when a player needs to advance their Sim in the chosen career by making new friends. As positive relationships develop between the player's Sims, new actions open up, which include backrubs, kissing, dancing, tickling, and joking. If enough attention is spent on a relationship between two Sims, they can even get married and have a child.

Sims are governed by a mood. There are variables that must be considered when managing a Sim's day. Hunger, Fun, Comfort, Energy, Bladder, Social and Hygiene all need to be attended to. If these stats start to dwindle, the player's Sims will get irate, and refuse to participate in work and even finding a new job after they are fired for missing work. The social and fun bar can be affected by simply talking with other Sims. The most effective way to accommodate this is to have a roommate. The other variables can be positively affected by many of the items a player can buy for their Sims. For example, a Sim can have more fun by watching a big flatscreen TV, or playing pool with some friends, while the most extravagant bathtub will do the best job at cleaning the Sim as quickly as possible.

While same sex relationships are allowed in The Sims, same sex marriages are not. Since Sims cannot have a child out of wedlock, the option to adopt is open to all the same sex couples that are unable to tie the knot. Raising children opens up a new set of possibilities that are not available with adult Sims, and this adds some nice realism and variety to the title.

Time management is ultimately the key to playing The Sims. There are three speeds the game can run at, yet the only two that seem functional are slow and very fast. My only real problem with this title has to be with the passage of time. Even in slow, the time goes by pretty fast. The demands of work, a social life, and finances are all crammed into a rather short day. Of course a person must also take into account that a Sim needs the appropriate amount of sleep to be in a good mood, as well as have time to improve their skills. There is also an absence of weekends, but if a Sim is performing well at work a player can simply allow them to skip a day. All the events of the day can seem a bit cramped but there is also a pause option that still allows the player to queue up actions for the Sim to carry out.

As a Sim acquires wealth and decorates their house with nothing but the best, there is also a cost effective way to add on to their dwelling. Using the house editor players can easily add whole expansions to even modest sized homes and create everything from scratch. Completely new houses can be added to the Sim neighborhood at any time, and removed just as easily. This brings up interesting features Maxis has allowed for this title. They plan to constantly add new items (fully interactive with your sims), as well as new houses to www.thesims.com for download. There is also a plan to allow players to distribute their Sim families on the web. The possibilities this adds to the replay value of the title is almost mind boggling.

From a pure technical standpoint The Sims performs quite well. The game is made up of real-time polygon Sim character models interacting with pre-rendered items. Much like Sim City 3000, as the players possessions and property expand, the burden on the hardware increases. Even in smaller houses the scrolling is noticeably choppy, but not so much as it hinder the gameplay. The controls are all point and click operations which operate around a series of circular pop up menus and a static set of options that are placed right next to a Sim's mood statistics. Maxis also took advantage of EAX, which does a great job emulating the changes of sound effected by distance. Players can even place their own mp3 files into the sound directories and have their Sims listen to the mp3 audio on their radio.