Previews

Hands on with The Sims 3 on mobile

Little people to torment on your phone

Hands on with The Sims 3 on mobile
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| The Sims 3

Love them or loathe them, you can’t deny The Sims games are genius. They’re insanely popular on PC, despite the fact that they’re based on the most obvious (and boring sounding) idea for a game ever - domestic drudgery. Forget escapism - The Sims strives to replicate real life, and all its tedium, with increasing levels of realism.

But it’s brilliant playing a game that’s just like real life. Because, in it, you can do all the things you want to do for real but can’t, because you’d be sacked. Or humiliated. Or put in prison.

What you’re probably wondering, though, is how closely The Sims 3 on mobile phone can recreate the Sims experience on a PC. After all, The Sims 3 on PC is insanely complex.

As we’ve discovered on our first play of the game, though, it crams in an amazing amount of the content found in the PC game.

For starters, you can create your own Sim and choose its clothes and personality type. Then you can work to fulfil your Sim’s life wishes. These are random goals that pop up throughout the game - goals such as learning how to fish, or making friends with every Sim in the neighbourhood. They give the game far more focus than simply taking care of your Sim’s toileting needs would.

You also have overriding life goals, which are determined at the start of the game, and are trickier. Completing them all earns you cash and other rewards.

There’s plenty more to concentrate on, though. Like finding and holding down a job, getting out and about in the neighbourhood to do food shopping or visit the park and cleaning your home.

There aren’t the same levels of home customisation options found in the PC game - instead of picking things out, you can upgrade the décor and furnishings you already have.

The conversation options you get when chatting to another Sim are lengthy and well implemented, however, involving working out another Sim’s personality traits in order to converse successfully. You can also go down different routes depending on whether you want to make that Sim a best friend, enemy or romantic interest.

And there’s also a whole lot of voyeuristic fun, too. What other game would let you pop round to a neighbour's house to introduce yourself, then end up making ‘woohoo’ to one half of the couple living there while the other is asleep?

In what other game do you get an option to ‘watch someone sleep’ to freak them out then get thrown out the house for trying to use their shower?

There’s not another gaming franchise like The Sims - that’s why we love it. And this latest mobile iteration looks like it captures all the best bits from the PC version and gives you a game to play as well as a household simulation to participate in.

Look out for our review soon.

Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.