It has good points, it has bad points. I like it and I still happily play 1 and 2. They are all different, TS1 is really quite bizarre, TS2 has a great open plan style of play and TS3 is pretty and has the open neighbourhood. I like the questing but I don't feel obligated to do it, hell, I usually buy my goldfish from the shop.

UnDutchable: You said it exactly, IMO! I had a love triangle set up for my Sims 3 game and it wasn't half as fun as it would have been in Sims 2.

First of all I have to say I never hated the sims series any part of it and still don't. The Sims 3 is awesome and will keep on getting better.

Good Man.

I really still can't get why people hate the game. Its great.

Glad it is still great to you! You must have found plenty of ways to play it that I have not. It has become boring to me so I cannot say it is great! It was for the first few weeks but not now.

I think EA tried to go for realism in most of the sims actions and reactions this time around instead of over-the-top humor. I for one appreciate this move, because while some of the antics in the sims2 were amusing the first time or two you saw them, they got real old real fast. When I play the game I have a story in my head and it tends not to include grown adults acting like idiots at times. And for the people saying that the game is unplayable without mods, I can't count how many times that I heard the exact same thing about the sims2 (how quickly we forget ;) ). Personally I think both games are just fine without mods or CC and play them that way.

UnDutachable hit the nail on the head.

The new features introduced to TS3 are too big of steps to just re-package the previous Sims experience in a new iteration. This game needed to be redesigned, rebuild from the ground up. Looked at from a totally different direction. We were given all these new features yet none of them utilized... my Sim goes to his job and comes back home exhausted, hungry, needing a piss and having to read a book and/or write a report. Yet the game expects me to send the poor Sim out to the park to meet other townies, socialize and have fun. When in reality the game reinforces the Sim to just stay home, watch the most expensive TV (or whatever the best Fun per minute rating item is. Computer game?) and invite a single well know friend over to Chat > Joke > Inside Joke > Gossip > Chat with.

Sims 1 felt like its own game. Sims 2 felt like its own game but with huge advancements. Sims 3 feels like Sims 2 in an open neighborhood. It's Sims 2.5 IMO. Building is still the same but limited(when did sequels offer just more of the same? we can't get the building tools from Sims 2+expansions for a sequel? No? Gotta charge extra for features we used to have?), animations look the same and interactions aren't all that involved as Sims 2, furniture = same...AI...just as dumb as before it not dumber. Can't wait to buy an expansion just so I can get items we've had since Sims 1 base game and Sims 2 base game. Like diving boards(but is it so bad to get a slide too for a SEQUEL?), pinball machine, darts, coffee barista's and clothing stores from sims 2 base game, group activities like MYshuno...the list keeps going. Not to mention how we had over 30+ hairstyles for men and women each. We REALLY got jipped with Sims 3.

If Sims 2's engine was built better we would of gotten an expansion with an open neighborhood, much like Hot Date opened up Sims 1. The problem was the engine just was not designed for that. So we got Sims 2.5...I mean Sims 3.

As others have said, this game needed to be built from ground up, not taking Sims 2 and slapping it in an open neighborhood with a fresh new coat of paint. I just don't feel like EA/Sims division are at the level of talent they were at with Sims 1 and the beginning of Sims 2. It seems like they're either extremely talented but tied down by EA's suits(deadlines, lots of stuff being left out, rush jobs, caring more about share holders and marketing, etc) or the talent is just gone.

This ain't your daddy's Sims anymore. Actually, gaming in general isn't as it used to be. We've lost a lot of indie developers(it's starting to slowly rise again), which is exactly the kind of developer Will Wright used to represent. Too many developers are being swamped by share holders, suits in a board room and way-too-early deadlines rather than caring about the quality.

They should of started from scratch and thought about what it's like to live in a suburb. The kind of events and activities that take place. Like Undutchable said, the sims in Sims 3 barely react and it destroys a sense of real story unfolding. Where are the parties and cheating affairs happening around town? Peaking through a neighbors window and seeing an affair take place cus you saw Fanny Smith sneaking through your neighbor's back door? Being invited to parties, seeing a funeral taking place, a wedding...none of it! (I would need an entirely different post to explain what I would of done with this game :P) I need awesomemod to even get a slight feeling of how I thought this game would play out. And even with awesomemod, it can't even come close to how they hyped this game up to be what it wasn't. This is not the living, active town they tried to sell us before it came out.

Coffee barista's came in University.

Just saying.

I love most of the game! I just hate how it crashes so much (My PC has great specs anyway). I've fixed the crashing to desktop now I need to fix the overheating by buying a new power supply and fan or a new computer.
I hate how:
The neighborhood: is set in stone and you can't customize at all. If they mixed the customization of TS2 with TS3 it would be great
Weird genetics. I know how in sims 2 the children were all "clones", but a child with two parents with straight hair like most white people have, end up with curly hair like a black person. My child ended up like that and i'm waiting for her to age from a toddler to change it. (Not sure about the dyed hair inheritance as well)
4 save files...give us more
CARS AND BIKES. EA are just being plain lazy. (Even worse because they already have animations)
N.B. I wouldn't mind it if people get run over and cars don't go through Sims at 80 mph
Seamless Neighborhood: If people are going to get married and stuff I'd like to actually see it happening like in the park or something
The Store. I say no more.
Of the little hair there is they are almost all identical.
Items taken out for no reason...hot tubs etc
Sims look great in CAS and look dodgy in real life.
Faces have gone from jagged and doll like to chubby and even more doll like.
Still not much to do in the neighborhood.

I just hope that WA adds gameplay and hair etc. I hope it's not a boring TS2 BV remake.
Even after all of this I wouldn't mind if it would just work for more than 10 minutes!

Honestly, i've went back to playing the sims 2. i reinstalled it on my laptop and i'm having fun. i've become attached to my new sims 2 sims, and i haven't been playing it as long as the sims 3. I just wasn't extremely impressed, i mean i like the graphics in the sims 3, i like that the neighborhood grows, but it's like it's lacking, maybe if they came out with some more expansion packs for the sims 3 and people start making some more custom content, then maybe i might like it better. a big reason i may not like it as much because my sims in the sims 3 kept having girls, only 2 boys were born out of 11 girls. i was extremely frustrated/ angry, so i stepped away and started playing the sims 2 in which i got my boys finally. i mean i may have had 5 girls born but atleast i got those 4 boys. . Another problem maybe i wish my computer would go faster with the sims 3, they take forever just to do a simple task.


i mean the game is alright, just it doesn't sit well with me, i agree with what others have said about their problems with the sims 3 as well. by mid july i wasn't playing the sims 3, now i sparingly play it. like today i was thinking of playing it, but i changed my mind just thinking ahead of having to watch the town walk around with nothing to do, except stand in a park or sit on a bench or stand in their house. that thought immediately turned me away and i came onto snooty instead for today. i would be playing the sims 2 but my mom has got my sims freetime cd so she's playing the sims for the day.

Well, there's an easy way to have a girl: have your Sim eat a lot of watermelon.

But, anyway, I've also gone back to Sims 2. Honestly, with custom content, the graphics are almost just as good.

You mean to have boy I have to eat watermelon? I tried doing too . It seemed like no matter what I do they wont have a boy.

No....

Eating WATERMELON increases your chances of having a GIRL

Eating APPLES increases your chances of having a BOY

This title is getting on my tits nerves. "NO EVERYONE DOESN'T HATE THE GAME! PEOPLE STOP REPLYING!"

Sorry to the OP but it is really getting on my nerves. xD
Just wanted to get that out of my system...

Anyway...
Apple = Boy
Watermelon = Girl

I tried the apples too. Maybe it's just a glitch or something in my game with that particular family.

I sadly still play Sims 3 but there is a few things that will probably lead to me losing interest in the game soon. I still don't like the rabbit holes in the grocery store and restaurants. Limits so much of the game for me to the point where I don't even want to really leave the house when playing families just to watch the sims "disappear" for a couple of minutes doing something i can't see. I also don't like how children can't interract with toddlers at all from what I have seen. Just seems like they rushed through this game and left out a few key things from the base game sims 2 that made the game great and entertaining. It just leaves much to be desired.

I definitely don't hate the game, l love it! What l hate is my old computer that makes it crash almost every time l use CASt

Well, to answer the question, no, everyone doesn't hate this game. I, for one, love it. And apparently, so are many other people. The "haters" just are more ready to express themselves.

The only thing that really bothers me are the simplified actions : actions with toddlers and babys mostly. But I put up with that, thinking it helps keeping specifications in (at ? something else ?) a reasonable range.

As for the rabbit holes, I couldn't care less, and let's say it honestly, though I admit it lacks realism, it suits me perfectly the way it is. My Sims don't have time as it is to perform all of the carefully tasks I keep on planning for them. I can't event imagine what it'd be like if I had to follow them and hold their hand while shopping...

Of course, it would be nice to send them sometimes at the restaurant, and actually watch them eat and talk at the same table. But even if I appreciated that feature in the Sims 2, I seldom used it because my Sims were already very busy. And when I think that in this version, the time doesn't freeze when performing such actions, it would be much worse and I don't regret it more than one (sim)second...

So all in all, and as I said before, I love this game and hope it will go on for many years to come...

^My thoughts exactly, especially about the rabbit holes. I would never be able to say it so nicely though.