Wednesday, July 08, 2009

The Sims


I had a video about Twittering up here, but as I was vacuuming the house, I decided it was stupid. And since I'm committed to bringing you the best of the trivial, I decided to delete it.

And talk about The Sims instead. :-)

I have to confess--when I finish my work quota and am looking to relax, I either watch a movie or play The Sims. The other day I sat down with the Sims, and the next thing I knew, three hours had passed!

What is it? Sims stands for "simulation," I suspect, and the game has been around for ages, but the latest and greatest version recently released. I tried to play it on my old computer, but the grahics were so intense that the two-year-old machine just couldn't handle it. But my new desktop handles it just fine.

It's so detailed that you can see incredible facial expressions if you zoom in. And if you hang a mirror in your Sim's room, you can actually see reflections of the furniture you've placed on the other side.

In The Sims, you can either play with an already-established family, or you can build your own Sims and go from there. These Sims are remarkably life-like. They have to eat, take a bath, use the toilet, and go to work. (They don't get sick, though. Hmm.) They have babies; they die of old age (suddenly, without much warning, the Grim Reaper appears and hustles your Sim's ghostly outline away.)

And to create a baby--well. Clearing throat. You have to have two Sims, one male, one female, and they can't be gray-haired. You have to move through the stages of friendship and hand-holding and affection . . . and then half the time one Sim will throw up his hand and declare he's "not in the mood" right now. LOL. I tell you, it's just like real life!

About the only things missing from The Sims' lives are 1) religion and 2) illness. Although I have heard some characters sneeze, I've never heard one pray.

The Sim's television sets--you can change the channel to different programs. And the commercials, though spoken in Sim language, are amazingly real! Too funny.

I love the babies. They need their diapers changed and they need bottles and high chairs and proper cribs, or they'll end up sleeping on the floor and being grumpy.

I could say more, but I need to get going today, so let me sign off with this. The Sims has given me an obvious solution to those who can't seem to reconcile man's free will with God's sovereign ordination. When you create a Sim, you choose his personality and attributes. And, knowing those, you can pretty much predict how your Sim will behave in any given situation--unless you step in and command him to do something. (And even then, your Sim will wave his hands and loudly complain.)

So . . . what's the problem with free will AND sovereignty? I see it play out every night. :-)

Enjoy!

Angie

16 comments:

Connie said...

I love how you can design the furniture in that game, change the fabrics, etc. The problem with free will is these silly Sims rarely do what they need to do when they need to do it! They are falling down hungry, but yet go play in the sprinkler. But I've been guilty of not doing what I knew I needed to also, so...

Bonnie Doran said...

Interesting game. It might give writers some fodder for their characters. I may look at it someday after I conquer my blog, email, Twitter, Facebook, and cat (good luck with the last one).

Kay Day said...

I'm just surprised that you have free time.

I loved the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the old Willie Wonka one, too.
But one thing that came across more clearly in the new one was the idea of free will and sovereignty/ foreknowledge. Willie didn't create these people, but he knew themand their personalities.
He let them make choices, but you could tell that he already knew what they were going to choose. And he set them up, too. So there you have all of those things working together.

I played an old version of Sims and couldn't get interested. I already have people begging me to feed them all the time. Maybe I would like the new one better.

Sue said...

I love it... and I love my Sims3 game too. I've been a Sim fan for YEARS, since the first one came out and have somewhat of a little addiction to it. I mean, I never have to move my real home because all my housing fantasies become real when I play my Sims game. I live in my dream house & when I get bored of it, I just move or reconstruct. I even can have children in my Sims world which I can't do in real life. Gotta love it ... although I do feel convicted when I play too much and ignore God in the process :-(

Love how you made me think about the whole free will thing though... I see myself in that analogy!

Leslie said...

I get to jump in about the Sims too :) I had been looking into buying the Sims for awhile and managed to get a deal on it - I was hooked (very addicted) for several weeks and then finally weened myself off so that now I play at a reasonable rate (about once every two weeks for an evening). I too love it and also see the theological implications. The funny thing is... you CAN turn the free will off where they don't go and doing something else. But I chose not to.

I also figured out its a great tool to use if you want to create a character or a setting when writing.

I'm not going to shell out the money for Sims 3 yet... my computer probably can't handle it... but I'm enjoying what I've got.

The fun part? I started out with a family of sextuplets... LOL. And the eldest daughter kept having twins when I married her off.

Leslie said...

Oh - and YES they do get sick.. I'm surprised this hasn't happened for you before because it happens to mine on a regular basis - they get a cold or the flu and have to stay bed-ridden or lying down until they are well. Let me tell you sometimes that's a pain cause they refuse to do so sometimes and it takes forever to get them well again.

Angela said...

They DO get sick? Can't wait to see that! Thanks, Leslie, for giving me something else to look forward to. The game is so complex, I learn something new every day.

Tonight I told Brandilyn Collins about the Sims--she didn't know about them. I've just opened an entire new world for her . . . :-)

Angie

Leslie said...

Oh my goodness! Well it is possible to kill the characters off (starve them) and there are lots of times they want to be saved from death... so I can just imagine what she'd do to them!

You also mentioned you never see them pray....but (and this is stretching it) have you ever had them look towards you and throw a temper tantrum? Similiar to some folks version of praying.... "Why AREN'T you getting me what I want/need!"

Connie said...

The most I have seen them get sick in Sims3 is from eating bad food or being pregnant, although I did have an older Sim grandma who kept throwing up for no apparent reason. I have though, ummm, accidentally electrocuted and killed a Sim. I was traumatized the first time I saw that happen! I haven't seen them want to be saved from death is Sims 3 either, only in 2.

Angela said...

LOL! I would love to know how you electrocuted a Sim! Standing in a pool of water while using the food processor? The imagination boggles!

Angie

Leslie said...

Connie, in Sims 2, do you know how to save them from death? I keep getting characters who want to be saved, but I have no idea how to try to kill them off besides starving them....

Connie said...

Angela, in Sims 3, if they get electrocuted by repairing something, for example the dishwasher, trash compactor, or computer, and you have them attempt it again while they have the electrocuted moodlet thing there, it will most likely kill them. The grim reaper comes and all the sims in the house get very sad for two days. And if you leave the headstone on the property, the ghost will come at night. It's LOL'd the first time I saw the ghostie levitate furniture. You may be able to save them from death by playing chess with the grim reaper, but I've only seen the option once and didn't click on it in time.

Leslie, I think in Sims 2 one sim has to beg the grim reaper to spare their loved one. I had one sim die after losing his job and catching his wife cheating in the same day. He wasn't hungry at all (so maybe he offed himself?) And I think I saved another one from death but I don't remember the circumstances, if they were hungry or upset. As I recall that sim was a female and pregnant too.

Angela said...

Wow. And here I was thinkin' I was all that just because my Sim had twins last night--Wilkins and Winkie.

So far I've repaired things with no electrocution. I'll have to see what happens, tho. :-)

angie

Leslie said...

So THAT'S how you get them to see a ghost. (The tombstone in their yard) I didn't know that.

I've seem them get electrocuted before, but didn't realize that if you sent them back it would kill them - but that might be a difference between 2 and 3

I've only had one character die, but I was in fast foward at the time so I never saw the Grim Reaper.

I have had multiple children taken away by The Social Worker however....

Connie said...

I saw that happen once with the social worker. Can you get them back?

Leslie said...

Not as far as I can tell :(

But it was with the first few days of playing, so I didn't know a lot of stuff at the time.

I think the last time it happened I exited out of the game and didn't save it and was able to save them after that.

I also finally figured out that as long as someone does the homework, that child's grades stay up - so sometimes if one if them is refusing to do homework I just make one of the other kids do it.

I figure, like in life, that's better than being taken away from their parents.