Sims 3

Desktop PC (Windows XP + SP2):

CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2000+ Processor

RAM: 1 GB of RAM

GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9500)

Desktop PC (Windows Vista + SP1):

CPU: 2ghz Pentium4 Processor or Amd Athlon 2400+ Processor

RAM: 1.5 GB of RAM

GPU: 128mb Video Card (GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9500)

I've been a fan of The Sims since the very beginning; Will Wright's idea of letting you control virtual people in their everyday lives taps that desire that we all have to be ruler of the world and tell everyone else where to stuff it. The Sims is the closest that many of us will ever get to Ed Harris' character in The Truman Show; that's the movie where he plays the director who gets to "cue the sun" and manipulate events around the unsuspecting Truman Burbank, played by Jim Carrey. The thing is, Truman doesn't realize that the quaint, coastal town that he lives in is in fact a carefully staged set and that his every move is caught on camera and beamed to the outside world. The Truman Show is an apt description for The Sims 3, because it too takes place in a quaint, coastal town that your sims can go out and explore. Yet wherever they go, you'll be carefully watching.

As you've probably heard, the big change in The Sims 3 is the fact that it no longer revolves around a single household lot at a time. Your sims can go anywhere in town at any time without pause. This is a very welcome change, because the gameplay doesn't feel claustrophobic anymore; you're no longer spending 95-percent of your time looking at the same house and then having to sit through lengthy loading screens for those moments when you send your sims out into the world. This freedom is pretty liberating; I spent quite a bit of time at first just switching between my characters just to watch the camera pull back on the town and then zoom in on the location of the next character. It doesn't take too long before you get used to the change, and it's hard to imagine how we played The Sims before. Now it seems totally natural to send one sim to the park, while another goes shopping downtown, while another stays at home; you can switch between all three effortlessly and almost instantly. Lives feel more naturally lived this way. You don't even need to worry much if you neglect your sims because they default with a high level of free will; leave them alone and they'll take care of themselves and keep themselves amused. It can be fun just to let go of the mouse, sit back, and watch what they do on their own.

There's also a much greater sense of a living, breathing world. You see other sims going about their daily lives; sims still age and die, and after a while new sims show up, giving a sense that people are coming and going. The sims themselves are now powered by much more sophisticated psychological systems than found in earlier games; they might be party animals or childish, flirty or brave, neurotic or clumsy, and more. You might see maids who are secretly kleptomaniacs (never a good combination) or health nuts constantly working out. I like watching the neighborhood at night and seeing the cat burglars skulk around the houses and night owls going about their thing.