Today we delve into the world of The Sims Online…

After careful consideration, Maxis, the game wizards behind acclaimed hits, The Sims and the many other expansions, have decided to go where no sim has gone before: Online. The result from such a big leap, however, is a disasterous trip. Now, before anyone begins to throw a pitch fork at me, let me explain.

Graphics: 4/10

The graphics in this game just don’t even look as if they’ve been fixed up. You would think that after three or so years they would revamp the way it’s looking. This is not the case. The same Sims models are used for every motion they’ve done before in the regular games and the whole aspect just looks dated. There are a few new animations that the characters do, but it’s hardly anything to jump for joy about.

Sound: 5/10

This just did not work for me either. Half the time you would be in someone’s house and the same music tracks would be played. I do have to commend Maxis for making the sound realistic though, so that’s why it gets a higher grade. There realy isn’t much else I can say about the sound other than that it gets repeated over with the grunts, music and other sounds.

Gameplay: 2/10

This is suppose to be the BULK of The Sims online. Sadly, Maxis lied, lied, lied. What is promised on the back of the box is that you can be whomever you want such as a president, an astronaught. When I installed this game I was excited, as there were other aspects they promised such as bands, movie theatres, neighborhoods, etc,etc. Can you guess which one of them was the only one around at launch? None of them. I have a hard time with developers who outright lie about what they are promising especially when you are paying almost 10 bucks a month for this. You start on the game and most of the people on there are either stuck up or wont talk to you because they’re idle. Why are they idle? Most of the time in order for a character to build his stats he has to read, talk in a mirror and do other things. In the regular Sims, this would ony take less than five minutes. In this game…it’s a joke. Your characters only hope of leveling up one stat takes about a half hour…no wait, an hour. It’ll be a half hour if more people are learning that skill in the same room as you. These skills help you make more money from your job, but your jobs have been reduced to horrible nothingness. All you do is hop from house to house and grab the nearest chalkboard and click “Invent solution.” You sit and watch your sim hmmm and ahhh for about an hour and then when he’s all done you’ll be lucky if he/she earns close to 40 bucks. This becomes tedious if you’re hoping to go into quote on qoute, buisness for yourself as all the items in this game are ridiculously expensive. Also, the beta testers on this game already have the most popular houses, so it defeats the purpose of even trying to make a booming house of your own.

Speaking of houses, your best bet is to go in with a group of roomies in hopes of building a house because it is too expensive to live on your own. What sucks the most though is that your roomie might just decide to move out on you, and when they go, their belongings go and you have one empty house. It’s not cool and is very unbalanced, as is the fact that your money making takes so boringly long, that you’ll just get up and go do something else. Heck, I popped in Kingdom Hearts and played that and my sim’s stat hadn’t even leveled yet. It’s quite dissapointing. Also I mentioned that they said you can be whomever you want, well it was a flat out lie. There are no astronaughts, no presidential figures, nothing. Those that do call themselves being creative are just perverts who prey on and fondle your sim the first chance they get. You’ll hear the most obscene language possible from these sick people. In fact it gets so bad that people actually start selling their bodies for money. Meaning cyber sex with a sim. That is just creepy. I only could take this game for two weeks and after that I gave up and decided to cancle my subscription. I was upset with how rude customer service is. They had the gall to ask me if I was playing the game right and why I was unsubscribing. I was very pissed off by this questioning and even more furious when they said they would extend my free subscription for another two weeks as they were getting some new updates. Ha! Like I fell for that.

Now, if you think that is funny, go to Amazon.com and type in The Sims Online and look at the reviews overall. 1 or 2 stars people gave it and they will say the ame exact things. In fact many of them talked about the rude customer service reps who promised new updates and asked them the same questions. I figured that maybe the game was off to a rocky start because it was the beginning and it would grow, this was not the case. There have been no updates, and the population of sims are dwindling faster than you can say “I Told you so.” In fact game stores are offering the game for 29 bucks as opposed to the harsh 50$ It cost on release. I hardly believe this game will live to see next year and I am very appalled that they had the nerve to ask for money every month when the money wasn’t going anywhere. I never reached a month with the game, but for others who have stayed hoping for updates, I feel bad for. The only thing our money is going too is evident, The newly upcoming The Sims 2. Seeing screenshots of that game threw me for a loop. It’s beautiful. So, why in the hell make a Sims Online when The Sims 2 is nothing like either game? In fact what was the point of all those 30$ expansions? I wont even get into this anymore, but I will say that The Sims Online is one of the most horrible online games in history. This is no lie. Maxis will need to redeem themselves heavily for their next installment.

Over all for the Sims Online: 2 out of 10

Anyone would be wise to stay as far away from this game as possible…