So as I was wandering around Barns and Noble this weekend, I happened across the video game section of the magazine racks, and so I take a peek to see if there is anything that looks interesting stuffed down there that might be worthy of a blog, and what do I see on the cover of Games for Windows Magazine?! A Sims 3 Preview!

Needless to say I ended up buying the magazine and taking it home to read through the article and see what they have to say about this. At first I was happy that the Sims would be getting another graphical revamp, then I realized that Sims 2 wasn't all that great, the new graphics were awesome, but the game play had faded, it just wasn't as fun anymore. So I started to suspect the standard EA trend of marketing, slap a new coat of paint on it, increment the number by 1 and call it "NEW"

Once I started reading the article, I was quite surprised to find that they realized that Sims 2 wasn't as good of a game as it could have been and that they are making some big changes to the franchise to make the game appeal to the old school players from the Sims 1 days, as well as appeal to the new players that like to play the game for creative purposes like making movies and what not (i.e. Strangerhood.)

The most interesting thing I saw in the article is that they are removing the old system of motives, that right, you no longer have to baby sit your sim and make sure that all 8 of those little bars are maxed out so they don’t pee their pants and pass out from exhaustion into the puddle while their current crush is over for dinner. You now have three different bars that need to be monitored, and one is more important than the others that reflects your sim's enjoying their time to not enjoying their time ratio. I like this idea as watching all of those gauges all the time got to be tiresome and a bit of a grind. This new method I hope will let the game be a little more flexible and fun to play.

There were a few other things that were said that were of interest as well such as, the 4th wall has been broken down and you as the play have the ability to reach into the game and pick up that piece of trash, or misplaced book and put it back where it belongs, instead of having to force your sim to do this, between bathroom breaks and checking the mail.
The other is that the whole neighborhood runs in time with your current household. You are no longer limited to the lot that you are playing on, you can walk down the street and visit a neighbor, or bump into a co-worker. Which IMO makes the game a whole lot better!

The article has done exactly what it was supped to do, it's gotten me and my wife very much excited for its release, and I’ll be watching for as much info as I can get on it, until it comes out. Which is currently stated as "2009" so who knows if its January or December or somewhere in-between. All I know is I'm excited for it, and I hope it doesn't play the Spore game and pretend to come out for the next 5 years...