The Sims Social

        As a gamer and a fan of “The Sims” since the first installment on GameCube, I was very excited when I heard that EA was creating a new version of Sims for Facebook. When “The Sims Social” first appeared, I quickly clicked the link and began to create my Sim, which I named Natalia Davons after my Sim on my PC version of “The Sims 3.” Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t as huge of a selection of customizable facial features, hair, and clothing that I’m used to, but about a year and a half later I’m still playing.
“The Sims Social” is by far one of the best social media games I’ve played, completely blowing Zynga’s “Mafia Wars” and “Vampire Wars” out of the water. Instead of “text quests” where you can’t actually view your character doing anything (see example below),

in “The Sims Social” you can actually see your character completing the task you told them to do. “The Sims Social” is also inherently more social than other Facebook and MySpace games I’ve played. To craft certain household objects you’ve bought, you need certain collectibles, depending on what the object is. Sure, some collectibles are randomly spawned when you do certain actions, such as your Sim being rewarded with Plans after cooking or a Muse after painting or playing guitar, but this is a very lengthy process, and some collectibles, such as Hope, are very rarely generated randomly. So EA gives players the option to “Ask Friends,” which sends a game request to your chosen gamer (and non-gamer) friends for help. This shows up as a notification on their screen, and when they enter the game they have the option to send you the stuff you asked for, or be mean and delete the request. Players are also given the option to ask friends for collectibles needed for quests, which are very useful for the limited edition quests that go on every other week or so.  The picture below shows the reward for a limited time quest (the dragon that my Sim is riding).

There is a once a day request limit to this game, though, so if your friends don’t get on much or you don’t have many friends helping you out, it can be problematic. EA has “solved” this problem by introducing Simcash, which you can buy certain packages of with real currency. They have also implemented a feature that allows you to send requests to your friends that don’t play the game, and if they accept the request and play past the mandatory tutorial, you will be sent four of whatever you asked them for. EA also gives you 3 SimCash for every new player that you add as your neighbor in the game. With SimCash a player can buy exclusive shop and clothing items that regular players cannot. To lessen the jealousy gap, and probably also to increase the amount of people that actually purchase SimCash, EA gives up to 10 SimCash for every fifth consecutive day that you log on to the game (although I only seem to get 4 each time). Players also need to ask their friends for help building new rooms that they buy and signatures and contracts to expand their property. The amount of friends you need helping you to build your room increases with the size of the room, and the amount of signatures and contracts you need for expanding your land increases depending on the current size of your property.
EA has created an exceptional social game that requires players to invite their friends to ensure making significant headway into the game. This can be problematic if you don’t have many friends playing, your friends never get on, your friends stop playing all of a sudden, or if you try to do too many things at once. People with the problems just listed could always buy SimCash, which EA hopes for (or create a bunch of fake accounts that will give you SimCash for free).

-Megan Commings