Amazon.com customer reviews

Wow, it definately looks like those of us who are critical are no longer alone. There is definately a brewing storm against EA, and if they don't get off their butts and do something major really soon, we could have another spore debacle...

Yikes, I'm getting scared by all the bad reviews. Though one was very informative which tried to be unbiased, expressing both pro's and con's. To each gamer, there's gonna be something that either makes or breaks the experience. Though one thing I'm concerned about, the story progression mode in which chars may randomly move out, not just townies, and be deleted?

They are working on a patch for the story progession right now. They talked about it on the ea forums. Hopefully it will fix the problems that customers are complaining about and won't take too long to get put out for download.

That's exactly the main issue I have with The Sims 3. I don't want my Sims moving out or in whenever they game decides they should... especially a family I've spent a long time working on.

Really, instead of tons of patches, why can't game developers finish/fix their games before market. This exact sort of thing was why my bf and I quit playing Age of Conan and switched back to EverQuest II.

They have testers and such, they know what these game issues are. We (consumers) expect to pay for a "finished" product. Would you go to a hair salon for half a haircut?

These first week reviews are some of the most crucial for the game to not completely flop. How many Sims fans bought the Sims 3, hate it and are now reselling it on E-bay or yelling at EA Games for refunds? The gaming community is very reliant upon word of mouth.

Granted one person will complain about the very thing another person loves. And I've seen comments about horrible graphics, yet others say the graphics are beautiful. I guess opinions are like snow flakes.

It won't flop because the game looks good enough at first, to most. Plus they either bought their reviews, or the reviewers are no longer permitted to spend too much time with their games.

remeber sims 2 and the jump bug? grrrr. always the bugs! is why i am pondering whether or not to buy sims 3 yet.

The store stuff is what really annoys me how bloody expensive it all is!

Yes, this is scandalous. Its not only EA, its almost all game producers. So sad. Dont they realize it OUR money who allowed them to go on ?
What is upset me the most I think is this awful "Sims STORE" . Didnt we spend enough money on their creations (sims base game + all expansion packs) ? Cant they just add more content in base game and deliver us a REAL finished and complete one ? ... ;( This is really annoying...

But about the game itself, i'm not as disappointed as people I heard nowadays. I like many many of new features, and I think it could become a very nice game.
Sure we first need to fix some stupids things EA does (like skip sims memories, or remove photo album), and of course I think what we need the most is Custom Content ^^. Some new hairs, new clothes, new face shapes, made by our fantastic modders community will help more than A LOT

But all in all, despite all the mistakes EA did ( i didnt expect anything better from them, unfortunately), I like the Sims 3.

Well, they know we'll spend the money. As we've proven to them with the previous incarnations. Soon we'll be getting Pets and Seasons and Vacations.... They know their game is addictive. Though I think I'm addicted to downloading CC. I just downloaded a bunch of Eyelashes, Brows, Eyes and Lip colors, when I haven't really played the game much since we just got me an account with EQII. I haven't even gotten to really try my latest expansion Bon Voyage, well, long enough to get pick pocketed by an Unsavory Charlatan....

I do also try to be unbiased, but I really feel like it's personal when someone (EA\Redwood Shores) so heavily screw up with my passion for this franchise.

There is certainly cause for optimism - the essence of the game is strong, and the potential for expansions is enormous - but sadly it seems they've pushed out a beta version in order to save EA's butt as a whole. They needed fresh funds badly, and The Sims 3 is just the game to make that happen. There is no getting away from the fact that EA is exploiting us, although I'm sure they plan to make good on it eventually. Meanwhile we have every right to be pissy and frustrated, I feel.



I'm mixed on the issue of graphics. I'm not completely content with the graphics engine because structures appear to be disproportionate, and some flowers and bushes really look very, very bad, especially when you move the camera on axis and the flowers seem to follow you, that's very eerie. The scenery (sky, water, grass, rock etc.) though is absolutely gorgeous, the trees are nicely done and likely work better because they're bigger and have more surfaces which give volume. I do hope they upgrade graphics in future expansions, since my computer is a year old and has no problem at all running at max detail and high-res, but the sims as a game is definately not all about graphics, it's about core gameplay and customizability, and they've really drop the ball there with the exception of CAST, which I love and reminds me of the 3D Studio/Bryce material composer about 10 years ago



Exactly... EA needed money badly... unfortunately I think this can hurt them in the long run.



I agree, word of mouth is crucial. What confuses me is how raving and positive the official reviews from game mags are. But someone pointed out to me that they are hardly to be considered independant with this huge ad campaign EA is running towards Sims 3, and most of them are probably not simmers anyway, so it's easy to let EA/Redwood get away with all the nastiness in the core game.

Word of mouth so far is pretty devestating though... the game definately has potential up the woozah, but it's obvious that it's been pushed out way too early... and we must wonder what they've been doing from december-june, because this version is essentially identical to the one they showed off.

Wow. I acknowledge that the sims 3 is reeaaally f***'d up. But somehow, I like it. Possibly because I see the potential within it. Once some patches and eps come out, it'll be great.

Any media that concentrates on video games, be it magazine or website, is of no quality. Journalism at it's worst. There's no investigations, no critical analysis, no unveiling of scandals, not serious questions about the industry, no deep analysis of impact on society and the industry, hardly any economical reports, no structural articles about companies, their teams and the changes of them, etc. etc.

They are mainly concentrating on how fun that game is and how unfun that other game is.


To review a game like The Sims 3, you need at least a whole week of constant playing during the workday, meaning 40 hours. Most reviews, however, need to be put out before release, meaning that they are "granted" a few hours by the developers or publishers to judge the game. No wonder no professional review noticed the Story Progression bug, as the recommended option is "On"...
That "grant", however, no self-respecting journalist would accept as it is journalistic nature to dig in as deep as possible and find out everything there is to know. All there is to find in the specific press is what the publishers offer and the reviews.
For other types of games, like an Ego-shooter for example, you simply need to finish the game. Or does a book reviewer read the first 10 pages then says how good the book is? No. He finishes it.

Quality newspapers frequently interview retired politicians on current political developments just to hear their opinion, to compare to past political developments or to get an expert's opinion. Correct me if I'm wrong but there's not a single interview with Will Wright about The Sims 3 even though many many many many many people would just eat that interview up... multiple times. Even a standard, not particularly skilled journalist would very likely have the idea to make an interview. And that is just an example. I would like to read about an analysis of the past and present Sims-development teams. What changed, what does who focus on and how come The Sims 3 has so many faults, whether they are just perceived or justified. And some annoying journalist continually questioning the responsible people about the heavy criticism from player can only do good things for the games.
Besides, the more attention anything gets in the press, the more pressure is on it. Most people who post here will always buy the newest Sims game, no matter how bad the series goes. Our voices are not truly heard if the media doesn't pick them up. I doubt that a writer for a PC gaming magazine frequents forums other then their own.


Do not take game-reviews seriously. None of them. Not the overly critical, nor the overly positive. They are not proper journalism nor respectable literature.




And those reviews on Amazon tend to be somewhat inconsistent and incomplete. They are either praising entirely, or bashing completely.

Interesting--it's averaging 2.5 stars now, which means it's official:

Sims 3 = SimCity Societies.

Unlike Simcity Societies, though, there's a chance that rating will go up over time as EA fixes its shit and hopefully reassesses quite a few things. And adds xpacs.

I concur with TheShady, 'professional' gaming news sites hardly ever give any game a truly bad, much less in-depth, review these days.

I installed the game yesterday (the game shipped on release date rather than delivered on release day), and was already prepared for some of the bugs from reading these forums. My expectations were already pretty much adjusted for me, so I wasn't as disappointed as I may have been had I played it Tuesday.
There is a long history of software (Vista) and hardware (XBox 360) products not ready for release being released anyway. I've played a few MMOs and it is pretty much an unspoken rule that there will be bugs at launch and the first few months are essentially an open Beta.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning or enabling EA in any of this. I think it's a despicable practice... but unfortunately a reality in the software gaming industry. I am a programmer by profession, and despite best attempts at QA the users always seem to find something we had not though of... it's just the nature of the beast. For that reason I'm rarely an early adopter of new software or hardware, but the Sims 3 really piqued my interest... and playing with my virtual fish bowl is a very soothing escape from RL.
I'm certain that there will be fixes, patches, expansions, and stellar community content and we will look back on this as growing pains.

...I feel their pain.

It really was a big let down.

I think EA took over more this time around.

I think i prefer The Sims Busting Out for the PS2 more then this...

I mean I thought it was going to be better then the Sims 2....

Well, then you should know that bug != bug.

Some are acceptable if fixed a few days later. Some are unacceptable. A checkbox not doing anything without being disabled is such an unacceptable bug.

I am actually happy with the game now. I read some of those reviews, and the game seems to be crashing for a lot of people. I don't know why it would unless your computer did not meet spec requirements. My game hasn't crashed any. It's been running smoothly and fast since I installed it. However, I had an issue with it going from dark to light a lot. It made it hard to play the game and to customize things.

It was because my driver needed updating. There was a new windows vista driver update for my video card that I had not installed yet. Once I installed that it has been fine ever seen. The graphics even look a little better since updating it.

So if people are having trouble with it I would try updating your direct x and your driver. Once you find out who make's your video card you can go to the manufacture’s site and look for updates. If that doesn't work it might be that your computer doesn't meet requirements.

It's sad to see all of those bad reviews. I am happy with the game now that it doesn't go from light to dark all the time.

^^^^^
I agree... people may not want to face that their computers just aren't good enough to run this game. Why blame the game because one's equipment is insufficient?

I have NO problems running the game, with crashing or anything else. It literally loads and saves in under 3 minutes.

And not only game producers but also software producers.
Let's take Microsoft. They got it wrong with Vista. And they have learned the lesson - Windows 7 has an open engineering blog and now, when Win 7 RC is out, people like it much more than Vista. Because they feel that developers have listened to their requests.

So this would really be great to have EA do it similar way - getting our feedback while developing Sims. At least then we would not have reasons to complain - we got what we asked for

Anyway, I think, the platform for TS3 is mostly great. It is fast (although I have noticed that there are usually less people on the screen simultaneously than in TS2, maybe developers have optimized guest randomizer, too )

For now (I have played just a little) I do not like only some minor things - like not being able to see what my sim is doing, while inside some community building - at work or in the restaurant. Of course, it is good that sims now do not disappear totally while at work, at least now they enter some building. But in TS2 I *could* see how my sim eats at the restaurant. Do we need some "Open for Dinner" expansion pack, to get it back?

The other thing I (and some other users) have noticed - although the CAS has so many advanced features, sometimes it is not possible to create exactly the same sim's face that was in TS2. And of course I still miss the first person camera (to look through my Sim's eyes) and height adjusting for sims.

When I heard about TS3 the first time I thought, it will contain all the contents from TS2 EPs Oh, my. It seems, they are migrating the contents to the new TS3 and putting them on the Store.

I was a little disappointed not to see a height slider here. For some reason, I remember reading somewhere that height would be adjustable, and that they had fixed the animation issues in regard to this.

To be honest I don't take amazon "reviews" seriously. A lot of those are just a joke to read. It always just boggles my mind when someone complains that the speed is bad on their end.

I hope this doesn't bring big problems to EA though. They really need to get their shit together with these bugs. Although I haven't experienced any.

I bought TS3 yesterday, and there is, in my opinion, a lot of potential.

Going from TS2 with all the add-ons and massive goodies to this one with very few items made me scowl. I have not visited the EA Store, but I got this $10 voucher to buy stuff. I do not know if there is an option for user-created stuff for poor people like me, or if you can only buy it at the official store. I have not looked into it yet.

I do like the town and being able to go from one place to another without load times.

I like the expanded personality traits and interactions.

Is it just me, or do all the sims look like McGee from NCIS? Now only if I can create a Gibbs and they slap each other on the head.

The graphics are not what I expected. I do have a very nice computer with a high end graphics card, and still, the graphics seem "flat" and dull. Perhaps I am missing some setting. Anyway, it did not look like the previews.

The food choices seem better. :D

Anyway, to me, this game is like getting a Ferrari with a Yugo engine. It looks really cool when you first look at it.

I wonder how I will be able to d/l a patch. The pc I have my game installed on isn't connected to the internet, and I tried to redeem my codes for bonus content (for pre-ordering the CE), but my game HAS to be installed on a computer connected to the internet. Basically, I have less than 2 weeks left before my opportunity to download this stuff is gone.

You can adjust height??? You mean for the actual sim? Where???

No, but I remember reading somewhere that they had resolved the animation issues with adjusting height. *shrug*