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Let me start off by saying that this is the most unique game I have ever played! I never had so much fun just living life before. Thats basically what you do- live your life. You control all the sims that are in your household and you command them to do stuff [Eat, Go to bathroom, swim in pool, etc.]. You can buy new items from your house when your SIms start making money, and you can also expand your house [add a second floor]. How do you make money? Get a job! You can work as a Doctor, Entertainer, Stunt Performer, and a few more. Different jobs have different shifts, salaries, and promotions. To get a promations, certain standards are needed. If you are a waiter or waitress, you must reed up on cooking to get a promotion. Very Realistic!

So why did I only rate 3 Stars...Well after a while the game gets boring. The first month you'll love the game, by the end of the second month you will forget about it. There are so little items, carrers to choose from in this version of the sims...An expansion pack is desperately needed. THey make the game A LOT more fun. So if you are thinking about getting into the Sims series, buy an exapnsion along with the regular version of the sims...trust me!

I love games where you have to plan, where you get to play "god," and where you get to watch the tiny choices play out in grand ways. "The Sims" allows you to do all three. Ok, I don't play fair, I use a cheat code to get more money for my Sims but my goal is to have fun and more money can equal more fun at least in this game. The choices in clothes and careers are a bit limited (they improve that in expansions and you can find things online but its difficult for Macs). What I really like is that I can build my own homes and try and make human connections. Sometimes the game is a bit boring but you can let the Sims live on their own, you may not like what they do but I've noticed that if you "train" them long enough they do fine but probably won't improve their jobs or friendships much. There is some glitch that wiped out my upstairs of one home -- suddenly my Sims can't use their stairs at all so the children's rooms are useless. If anyone knows what might be wrong, please let me know; I've add "Livin' Large" and "Hot Date" but still can't use that stairs!

Yes, the Sims can be pretty addictive. You're trapped in suburbia, with all the daily concerns that go with that: you have to remember to take the trash out, go to work, clear up, take a shower, network with the neighbours, and pee. It's impossible, once you've created these people, not to mind what happens to them -- I felt pretty awful when they threatened to take my Sims baby into care. But on another level, it all seems deeply trivial. In that sense, it's like the worst of real life -- not really what I want from a fantasy game. I like games which have a bit of glamour, and which offer me the chance of something I don't have in real life -- like World Domination, for instance. I'm also too ambitious for the purposelessness of the Sims: I want to be able to make progress and eventually win -- there's no such thing as winning in this game. If the idea of controlling people on the most microscopic level is enough for you, you may find the Sims fun. If you want to control people, but you also want to dream of a different kind of life, and if you're interested in politics and town planning as well as the domestic/suburban idyll, you're better off with Age of Empires, Caesar III (if only they made Caesar IV), Tropico, or Civilization.