The game review
Haven't heard about it? The Sims Social is a new Facebook application, that has been released in August 2011. If you like EA's The Sims, you would definitely love this addition for social network. The main reason why people have started to be addicted to this new videogame is the interaction. You can't only create your own Sim, you can also interact with your real Facebook friends and their virtual characters.
This videogame was developed by EA and Playfish (company, currently property of Electronic Arts, which has created a lot of social network games, for example Pet Society, or Farmville) and the version for smartphones is also being prepared.
The targets of the game are not only girls or children (because The Sims used to be labeled as a girl's game), but it is fun for everyone. It contains motives of more kinds of videogames, so it is certainly possible that also an experienced gamer could like it as a leisure fun.
The basic duties of a Sim is to take care of his needs: fun, hunger, hygiene, bladder, sleep and social. The last one, social, can be fullfilled only by interaction with other Sims. When the Sim is sociable, he gets Social Points, as a reward. Relationships with other Sims are similar to those in The Sims series. Social points are one kind of currency used in the game. You can also buy stuff with Simoleons, the most basic currency, and SimCash, which you can purchase with real money. While doing other activities, like developing skills (art, music, cooking and writing), you can be rewarded by varieties of items, which you can combine and craft to special potions and complete collections. The Sim earns all the rewards randomly and the can improve their virtual lives.
Your virtual character does not have to have a job, he earns money by doing all activities above. It is very important to have enough Facebook friends that also play The Sims Social, because in some cases, there is no other option, only to ask them for help. For example, when you need to get an item to unlock a part of a quest.
A little disadvantage might be the energy (only 15 energy points approximately every 2 hours), that you can spend very fast, and the view of the game, which you can't rotate. It's only a beta version anyway, so I am sure the game will be improved many times.
Despite of the fact, that The Sims Social was released only in August (one month ago), it has already accumulated over 30 million players and on September 9 has surpassed FarmVille to become second-most popular Facebook game. So if you like The Sims series, I definitely recommend The Sims Social for you.
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