So I found my Sims 1 disc...

[smellincoffee]

Today I found a tacklebox hidden in my closet, full of CD cases. I opened one up to find...The Sims. The original disc, which I still remember buying, still remember installing for the first time. The disc that has had me hooked on this series ever since March 2000. I was in the middle of a cleaning project, but I couldn't help but wonder: would it still run?

So I popped it in, and up comes the little English / Espanol screen, and I click it, and then it prompts me for the serial number. I type that in, and within minutes I'm at the neighborhood screen, listening to that peaceful music that has long since lodged its way in my brain. There's the Newbies, and the Goths, and empty houses...I create a new Sim and have him move into the more expensive vacant house, the one with a stream in the back yard. "Klapaucius," I think. That's the original money cheat. Straightaway I tell my sim, Phineas, to get a job. In my head he's related to some other Sims in my Sims 2 and Sims 3 games; I like using members of a fictional family in all of my games, so Phineas' relatives have appeared as golfers in SimGolf, as captains of industry in Sid Meier's Railroads, as the regent of England in Civilization III/IV, and so on.

Just opening the buy mode is a treat, mostly because the music is so very lovely. I tend to play Sims 2 and its descendants with the music off. Seeing all the old objects is a treat, and as I happily plop them down I wonder, "Why didn't they ever add this to the other games?" I note with amusement that in the lights section, there are no wall sconces, let alone ceiling lights. Those had to be downloaded from the Maxis website, or obtained through expansion packs later on.

The game is harder than I remember: Phineas' first opportunity was in the Science track, so I let him work in that with a mind of moving him to Business later on. He struggles for promotions: despite the fact that I've been playing this game for 12 years now, there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day. There's no neighborhood for Phineas to visit, so his only socializing takes place by inviting over the Goths. (The Newbies never came round to say hello.) Social interactions are completely different: I find myself looking for Sims 2 sub menus, but charmed all over again when the Goths bring flowers, chocolates, or fruitcake (which I always thought was meatloaf) over with them. Locked into Sims2+ thinking, I wait for off days that never come. Eventually Phineas gets fired from the job and finds another, this time in Business where I wanted him in the first place. He's now a Junior Executive, but needs more friends so I've taken a break to install Livin' Large. After it was finished, a promo for "Simsville" came up. Anyone remember that? I found myself thinking of it just last night, playing Sims 3 and watching the neighborhood's various activities. Simsville -- which was to focus on small town-neighborhoods, not just one family -- was cancelled, but after that Maxis came out with Hot Date, which introduced Downtown....the first time sims were EVER allowed to leave their homes. I have all the expansions except for Makin' Magic, and I think most of them are in that tacklebox, so I'm going to be exploring an old game once more. Now if I can just find some custom clothes -- or as we called them back in the day, "skins". :rofl:

So, does anyone ever play the original game?

[DigitalSympathies]

All the time. I have the complete collection myself and I play it at least once a week.

[Aegagropilon]

I've got the Complete Collection installed on my desktop :D It's weird playing a version of Bella Goth that doesn't get ventrilofarted by Nervous and his children on a regular basis. My favorite families right now are the Mashugas and Ginia Kat.

[Peni Griffin]

Believe it or not, it's still possible to get Sims1 custom content out there. Parsimonious still has its Sims1 section accessible, for instance. You just have to dig for it.

[StardustX]

I have the full set but don't play it often. I got it at a flea market for $2, brand new. xD It was a happy happy day.
But the reason I don't play it often is because the first PC Sims game I played was TS3. It's hard going back as far as TS1 after "leaning" with TS3, you know?

I still enjoy playing it though. I loooove the music. <3

[Kristin76]

I have the full set as well. I had tons of downloads or custom content as we call them now ... I actually had reinstalled all of them just a few months ago on my old computer before i got my fancy new one. Just seeing Bob and Betty Newbie took me back to when I first started playing back when the Hot Date EP came out. So of course I had to hurry and catch up. Before I knew it I was hooked and had to buy each EP as they came out. My favorite was Makin Magic -- I didnt get to play Superstar that much :( By then I moved onto Sims2 even after I said I would never abandon my Sims1 .... but I did :(

[Saturnfly]

I still play TS1, as well, I've played it since I was maybe 11 and it has yet to lose its charm on me.
One thing I majorly love about it, is that no.3 speed is so darn smooth. xD
I also love the shrubs and trees and beds, and wallpapers. ^^
And I love the cheap TV where sims have to get off their behind to change the channels. And I love the TV channels! I love the sound of the TV, hehe.

[haricots]

Even compared to TS2 and TS3, I still love TS1 the most. It's very....lovely, and original. :)

[Fivey]

I have a copy of Double Deluxe in my house, but it doesn't want to download into my computer.

All I remember about playing it in my youth is setting the Goth family aflame.

[Yazoo]

My gosh, I remember the first day I played, I played from like 7 at night to 3 in the morning. That game had me addicted. I had the Double Deluxe, and sadly, I couldn't play it on my new laptop at the time. I was like so devastated, and so, that is why I got the Sims 2. I was like, giggling the entire time playing it. However, when I saw that Bella Goth wasn't with Mortimer. I was literally shocked. And when I found out she had the Romance Aspiration, that was just another shock. Bella seemed more towards Family.

But, I miss the original. So very much. Such an amazing game :)

[esmesqualor]

Just opening the buy mode is a treat, mostly because the music is so very lovely.
Now you just need to copy/paste the mp3s over to your S2 music folder and you'll be set!

[TortureTheNannies]

Sims 1 is the only game I bouth every disk to complete it. It'll still run in Win XP, but I haven't tried Win 7. I'd take the objects and CC from Sims 1 with the socials from sims 2. That would be my favorite. I remember, after all the huge pile of CC and EPs I installed, Sim 1 seemed much more complicated than Sims 2. The first DVD of Sims 2 barely held my attention. For all the socials, the sims werent that complicated or interesting. It was Nightlife and some CC that finally brought me to play Sims 2 almost exclusively. I still like the objects, but the graphics of Sims 1 seem primitive to me now. Also, their socials prove to me that the game was imagination driven, not program driven. In Sims 1 I used maybe 3 socials for everything. The parties show the difference in the games. Sims 1 parties are object driven. Sims 2 parties are social driven.

[SiliconAI]

I had to flush my laptop's hard drive that had Sims 1 installed but it will soon be joining Sims 2 on my current game machine. Its very interesting that so many people still find Sims 1 playable after all these years despite the "prettiness" of Sims 3 which in my opinion was more about image and setting definitive objectives and less about letting your imagination guide the gameplay. Sims 2 seemed to be that happy medium of better graphics than Sims 1 but with more features to really define families and relationships.

Sims 1 was such a deviation of anything that was out at the time that the appeal was in its innovation of just being a game that would let you do whatever you felt like without having a set goal to attain, points to rack up, or bad guys to kill. For me it was also the fact that much like SimCity you could build things the way you wanted them but this time on a much more personal scale, one family at a time. IMHO Eaxis has lost its way in the franchise and has adopted the theme of "pseudo-RPG" and will stray further and further away of what made Sims 1 the No. 1 selling PC game of all time in favor of slapping together something with pretty graphics but limited appeal for long-term playability. I'm not looking forward to seeing what Sims 4 will be like! In the meantime many of us still have our Sims 1 discs and whenever we're feeling nostalgic, we can just load up a game that was made with imagination, innovation, and care. Y'know, the stuff a good video game should be made of!

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now!

[AlexandraSpears]

I found a copy for $3 at Goodwill but didn't buy it...I knew I'd want all the EPs.

[sierrakusterbeck]

Ugh, you're making me want to reinstall, but unfortunately I sold all my TS1 games to Half Price Books a couple of months ago. :(
Good thing I sold them though, cause I only have a little space left on my laptop and I think it'd explode if I tried to install another sims game!

[TortureTheNannies]

I haven't touched my disks in about three years, but I still have to ask, why did anyone sell them / get rid of them? I must be jealous of my games.

[LittleMrs]

I still love sims 1. The Makin' Magic EP is what keeps me playing. It's so much fun! Magic in the sims 2 just isn't the same...I miss Magic Town :(

[zauberlinda12]

I haven't touched my disks in about three years, but I still have to ask, why did anyone sell them / get rid of them? I must be jealous of my games.

My reason for getting rid of my complete collection Sims 1 was that, at the time, it was like crack to me. I was so addicted to the game that I finally had to get rid of it.

I've been playing sims 2 since it launched. I am much better at keeping my playing time under control so I've been thinking about purchasing another complete collections Sims 1 cd. I desperately miss the hysterically funny Sims 1 descriptions of buy mode objects.
(Those descriptions are just not as funny in sims 2).

I would love to find a sims website that shows those Sims 1 object descriptions...I've searched with no luck. :(

[TortureTheNannies]

Thanks for your reply. When I get the game installed, maybe I can send a few object descriptions. Sims Wiki has none of this?

[Eran of Arcadia]

My mom had all the Sims 1 expansions; I was working on the night shift one summer in college and I would play it when I came home in the morning. In fact, I was playing it when I got the letter that told me where I was going on my Mormon mission . . . when I came home 2 years later, Sims 2 had just come out.

[smorbie1]

Every now and then I think of trying to buy all the sims 1 games again. I did love it. But sims 2 fixed so many of the things I didn't like about the game. I didn't like not having children grow up or having regular lifespans and I didn't like not having weather. So, I would play it a time or two and then go back to my sims 2. It is, inho, the perfect game.

[WooHoo31]

I do have the Complete Collection, and do get the urge to play a lot, but I never do because I hate how fast their needs and friendships decay. :( I just don't have the attention span for that. :P

[zauberlinda12]

Thanks for your reply. When I get the game installed, maybe I can send a few object descriptions. Sims Wiki has none of this?

No, I've checked. I couldn't find any. Any you could send would be a real treat :bunny: ...it's been so long I don't even remember which one's they were. I have a vague memory of some of the paintings having funny descriptions.

Have fun with your game!

[Phoeberg]

I reinstalled the complete collection last summer, although I haven't played it in months now. I find it hard to switch between the three games because of the massive differences, such as children not growing up in TS1/the open neighborhood of TS3 etc., so usually I'm only playing one of the games obsessively (at the moment it's TS2). I found loads of custom content for TS1 when I reinstalled though, you just have to search around a bit!

[gazania]

I used to play Sims 1 on console (Urbz as well), tried Sims 2 on the DS (LOATHED it), heard about how great it was on PC, got hooked on the PC version ... still hooked. But I admit that there is something special about Sims 1.

When I got my netbook a few years back, it really didn't have the power to run Sims 2. I sometimes visit my mother's house, which is a throwback to the 70's ... no Internet, cable, cell phone signals, etc, so sometimes, it's nice to have an older game or two around to pass a little time (computer junkie that I am). I bought several used Sims 1 games off half.com, and managed to get everything running up to Pets. (The netbook did NOT like Superstar, for some reason. I need to reload Sims 1 on another PC to see if I have a glitched version of this expansion, which I know did exist, or if the netbook really can't go beyond Pets. That might be a summer experiment.) I found several sites, as well as a Yahoo group or two, that had Sims 1 downloads (and there are forums where, if you can't find a "famous" hack, people can help you in the WCIF section).

There is a quirky charm to the game, and I can still play it for hours. Can't put my finger on it, and I don't play it often, but it is great for when I get a Sims fix at my mother's, or want a break from SIms 2 and my (console) Sims 3.

[Spretten]

I had all games except the Holiday pack, (which i borrowed from a friend who didnt play anymore, remember back when lending each other games to install wasn't offensive lmao) anyway, I had tons and tons and tons of skins and custom downloads, i was competely obsessed with the game, even up at around the time my friends were playing sims 2, i was like no no no, i loooove my sims 1 game!

So I saved all my custom stuff, and including the nHoods and such on a cd... a few months back I tested installing the games (though I had to ahem, cough cough, obtain holiday) and ahhhhh sure thing, there was the amazing music, all my custom stuff, and even all my simmies! Just waiting for me to play again, haha.


simsville, i remember that too, it looked very interesting. Sim Societies is close to that I think..:) very enjoyable game!

[Tga Kiwi]

Gosh, I remember discovering the sims1 . I had the deluxe and superstar ep. Then I discovered Sims2 and haven't looked back, though I still have my sims1.

[maxon]

Yeah, I was a complete addict too. I played that game to death but I put TS2 in the drive on the day of release and have never once played it again. I read the threads on here about it and posters remind how awesome it was but I still never want to go back.

[Darby]

I just did some digging. I was a lot later to Sims 2 than I realized! In fact, it had been out for several months before my daughter and I got into the original sims. :blink:

I think maybe we knew Sims 2 existed, but we'd been curious about the original game for awhile and figured we'd start there. My simpage on the BBS is dated July 2, 2006, which is when we finally got Sims 2 and my daughter created that simpage. That's nearly two years after the base game release date of September 2004!

Anyway, I'm guessing then that we probably obsessed with the original game for at least a year and a half before diving in to Sims 2. Once we had aging, zoom, and infinite angles of view, I couldn't go back to the original Sims.

I still get a visceral thrill when I hear music from the original game, though. It was a fabulous obsession while it lasted. :)

[katya_stevens]

I have never played a sims game without at least 1 EP* -- I got in to the Sims 1 when House Party had just been released (and I don't think Hot Date was too far from being released) but sadly my computer refused to play anything beyond Vacation -- I even bought Unleashed hoping it'd work, but it didn't. Thus I missed out on Superstar and Makin' Magic the first time around.

I did manage to pester my partner enough to buy the Complete Collection a couple of years back, and it's been a real nostalgia trip every time I play it. Yes, there's no aging or genetics (two of the main things I love about TS2) but it's so quirky and charm-filled that I still go back to it on occasion. Well, when I forget how stressful it is running a household with cheap starter furniture and a low paying job.

(*For the record: Sims 1+House Party, Sims 2+Uni+NL, Sims 3+WA+AMB.)

[WooHoo31]

I'm curious. When you guys play TS1, do you ever use cheats like maxmotives? Because I hear stories about everything people have accomplished in TS1 and how much fun they have with it, but when I play, I usually find myself just making them go to work and then spending the rest of the day taking care of their weak needs... :P

[Saturnfly]

^ - Lol, yeah same here. :/ And they don't have days off, which is annoying. And the friends required for promotion is always some insane amount. But in saying that, the challenge was more present in the first game. TS2 is easypeasy, but at least sims can do more other than work 9 till 5 then go to bed. xD

Is the maxmotive cheat the same in TS1? I might consider using that once in a while, so my simmies can actually throw a party after work, or go visit Magic Town.

[Liv Lukas]

I think I am the only person in the known universe that did not like Sims 1. Maybe I need a lobotomy? :-) The only game I've ever returned.

But I love, love, LOVE TS2. It was love in the first ten minutes. I was hooked - and remain so years later.

[VerDeTerre]

I don't know about maxmotives, but I used to regularly play by using "move_objects on" and deleting my Sims to get their motives maxed. Now I like the challenge of dealing with the declining motives. I let them take an occasional day off from work so they can entertain or visit the community lots. The only thing I wish is that motives wouldn't fall so quickly at the community lots, but I believe there were some hacked objects that you could put there to take care of that.

[IzzyBess]

Just remember to save before deleting sim, otherwise it will banish all the skills that he/she has learned since last save ;) At least in my game it worked like that.

[Peni Griffin]

My sims used to get every third day off. You only got fired if you missed two days in a row, so, in a typical family on my three-day rotations, I'd have both halves of a couple to work on the first day; on the second day, one partner would stay home and invite over the three friends he had the lowest score with; next day, it was the other's day off. If I wanted to throw a party or go to a community lot other than Magictown it took some planning, and if I got a baby during the rotation the rotation was extended till the baby grew to child, so I could keep track of who needed to go to work. Sometimes, though, I deliberately stayed home two days in order to quit the job. Sometimes I needed the extra time, and in the absence of LTWs, there was no in-game motive to prefer one job to another, plus sometimes you could generate more money by taking a position the sim was overqualified for and getting a string of daily promotion bonuses than you could by sticking in an existing job; so there would be sound strategic reasons to quit.

And no, I didn't, for the most part, use cheats. I didn't even know any, apart from move_objects (which has always been a troubleshooting tool rather than a cheat) and rosebud, which I used during the phase when all I did was build houses. I did have a few hacked objects - an energy shower and a superespresso machine were the most useful - but other than that, it was a matter of mastering the game.

[Yazoo]

Yes, I used maxmotives a lot. I have this thing of keeping my Sims up late at night, and I have not a clue why.

However, different from Sims 2, in the Sims1 game, if you put in:

motherlode;

and hit enter, the cheat was still there, so you could hit that cheat a bagillion times, and become the richest person alive.

[Darby]

Yup, rosebud was about the only cheat I knew of for The Sims. And I was completely oblivious to the existence of CC, mods, and fan forums. Far cry from where I am today, with Sims 2. :lol:

[ButchSims]

the thing I remember most about Sims 1 was making a sim with no points at all, then using the chem set until I made the potion that reversed your points. Boom, (sorta) instant super-sim.
That, and spending most if the first few days canning.

[Chawanmushi<3]

I used to love building the houses more than actually getting my Sims to do stuff.
But I miss the humor in the item descriptors in Build Mode,which Sims 2 doesn't have. :(