The point of The Sims is to be boss of the banal. You start the game with a dollop of cash and a shell of a house, and the challenge is to decorate and populate it. Ready-made characters are available, but most players craft their own. You can choose the basic attributes of their personalities—whether they are creative or anti-social, organized or slovenly. You dress them, name them, give them hairstyles and provide them with plumbing, a toaster oven and matching sheets (puppies and toy rockets, too, if you buy the expansion packs).
Then, you turn them loose. They wander their suburbia, muttering in their own strange language to one another and getting into all kinds of trouble. The only clues to their “thoughts” are little meters that track their mental and physical states and cartoon images that appear in balloons over their heads.
But the game allows no watchmaker gods. Without constant coddling, your Sims will quickly turn cranky and lonely, passing out from exhaustion or trashing the place. You must cultivate their friends and lovers, tell them when to wash, entertain them with hobbies or TV, get them hired and get them to work on time. Keeping your Sims employed is key, since the quickest route to happiness in the game is more and better stuff: tricked-out pick-up trucks, tiki-themed décor, ferrets that drink out of the toilet. More likely than not, pretty soon you’ll be taking better care of your virtual friends than you do of yourself.
