Random Rambles #1 - The Sims 3 and Me

 If you're followed along the Sims series anytime in the past decade you'll likely know that the objective best entry in the series is Sims 3. it's easy to see why once you see the features it has. Open-World towns, Endless customization for almost any object thanks to the "Create a Style" feature and it's many expansion packs actually add stuff to the game unlike the newest entry Sims 4. Though it's still recommended to get the Sims 3 packs on sale. Steam is pretty good when the holidays come around for this.

The major downsides of Sims 3 are pretty huge though, Bug fixes are pretty much essential for this game and performance may never truly be perfect. (even though it runs well enough on my Potato PC) The visuals of the Sims themselves can be argued for being rather bad as it feels too realistic yet not real enough to be a good look. I would prefer the cartoon look of Sims 4 or even Sims 2 (which am considering playing one day). Honestly it never really bothered me too much, I guess I got used to the Sims 3 Sims and even if I didn't there are plenty of mods adding visual polish to the game.

The Sims 3 also has tons of setup to get working as it's pretty old. some modern PCs may struggle to play due to this. but once you get everything setup it works great and is easily the best Sims game for pure game play and features.

My history with the Sims 3 began when I saw the base game on sale for 5 dollars on Steam, I knew Touhou Project mods existed for it and thought, "Why not try it?" I was quite unconventional in my play style of the game. turning off aging because I didn't want my Sims to die without completing their story arc and was very heavy on the Nraas mod ecosystem. I still don't remember a time where I used the vanilla story progression of the game. Back then I stuck with Nraas Story Progression mod. but now am trying to be less of a control freak and use the Simler90's Game play mod which I heard did a good deal of improvements to the game including Story Progression. Story Progression is basically like a AI that decides what non-player sims do in the town. Kinda like Left 4 Dead's famous AI Director or in Tabletop RPG terms like a Game Master.

My favorite moments in the Sims 3 came from the silly character moments that would naturally occur. I would often setup recreations of fictional characters (Mainly Touhou Project girls), place them into a large world and see what happens. Sadly some Touhou Project mods have become lost media, while I stopped using the Touhou mods myself I still keep a backup of the remaining custom content I did find on my personal Google Drive for safe keeping. never know what could happen. I know at least Nitori's CC has disappeared.

But despite the age of the Sims 3 because it's still a good game and much cheaper to get all the Expansion packs for compared to the Sims 4 with a strong modding community. Sims 4 may still have 3 beat in terms of mod support I still see new stuff come out for this old game.

But enough of this ramble I gotta get back to the Sims 3 as I want to try and start playing soon. Enjoy your day and have fun!