By now, I think you have guessed that I am a Christian and a sim gamer.
The Sims is a game made by Maxis. The basics of the game is that you can first pick your characters and dress them up in the clothes you want. You then give them personality points, example you can make them neat or messy, nice or jerks etc. You then get to build them a house. Its really easy and loads of fun. You get to build the walls, wallpaper them, pick your floor, add gardens or swimming pools, etc. Then you get to furnish them with whatever furniture you pick (or have to pick from). Maxis has made 2 expansion packs to add onto your original game, called Living Large and House Party. They are also coming out with a new one called Hot Date. With these expansion packs you get a lot more furniture, which adds to the stuff you already have. Also, there are tons of sim websites that offer free downloads of stuff for your sims. You can also download tools from Maxis’s official Sims website, which let you design and make your own stuff. After you are done building and furnishing then you get to start playing the game. This involves getting them jobs (you pick the career) and then just making sure everything goes smoothly. You must make sure the eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and keep up relationships with their neighbors.
Ok, enough of the basics.
The good news and the bad. There are some negative things about this game, but I will tell them to you after I have told you the good.
Do I recommend this game for children? Read warning below. With parental supervision, this could be the best tool out there for teaching your kids about life. It teaches you to budget your expenses. It teaches you that after a lot of hard work you get rewarded. You don’t get something for nothing here, unless you use cheat codes, which you don’t have to do. (Maxis does not supply you with the cheat codes in their packaging.) If I had the money, I would send each of you a complimentary copy of this game. I think every parent should have it.
Lest you think I have flipped my lid, let me give you a run down on our gameplay criteria. First, we are in the store browsing through software titles. We read the packaging carefully, read the ESRB rating (Sims = teen), then we preview it on the free preview software machine (Wallmart), if after all of that I think that it might be good, I buy it and bring it home. Do I let my kids start playing right away? Nooooo. The whole family gathers around the computer (which we keep in the living room), then we all fight over who gets to control the mouse. No, actually, if it’s a new game, I (the adult) control the mouse exclusively, until I have gone through the whole game to see if its any good. My kids are all sitting on the edge of their seats to see what will happen next. If anything inappropriate comes up, this gives me a perfect opportunity to discuss with my children why this is inappropriate. Most times I can tell from the packaging and rating if its any good. But sometimes we have had to get rid of the game completely. I think all of the games I have had to get rid of (because, they were too bad for my children and me to play) have been games with ESRB ratings for everyone. The Sims is the first teen rated software that I have bought, and frankly I was not to sure about it at first. I have read Christians critizing this game, but for me, the good far out-weighes the bad.
There is the God aspect. You do get to play God. This sounds sacreligious, but there is some good of it. For one, it gives a person an appreciatian for God and what he has to “put up with” with us. In fact, I even read on a website that this aspect alone of the game had caused the writer to seriously evaluate their life and recommit themselves to God. In the game you can control your characters completely, or you can go to the options screen and uncheck that box. When you give your sims free-will, they are unpredictable. They will not go to bed when they are supposed to and they will eat when they are not hungry, stuff like that. Then it becomes very important what characteristics you gave them when you created them. Also, if you are a control-freak and would like to control everyone around you to make them do what you want, then you should definitely get this game. It will satisfy your urge to control and may actually make you less controlling in real life. This God aspect is what I view as ironic, in the critizisms of Christians. Most Christian parents want to control their children’s lives so much that they deprive them of any free-will. I guess if you are not going to take the time to “teach” your children, then maybe you should keep them away from everything and everybody. There is a delicate balance to giving your children some freedom, but not too much. The neat thing about the sims, is that you get to see how your children will react in certain situations, before they encounter them in real life. When you click on a character in the game, several choice options are displayed, you decide if your character does something negative or not. Also, when you create your character at the beginning of the game, the attributes you give it determines a lot of the choices during game play. In our house, we give all of our characters the following attributes: completely full “neat”, only 1 or 2 “outgoing”, only 1 or 2 “active”, only 1 or 2 “playful”, and completely full “nice”. Some people might think this boring, but since I have children this is what I have decided to do, to make the game less objectionable. This also helps to control the neighbors, since you create your sims’ neighbors as well. Remember, you are in control, all of the time, you don’t have to allow anything to happen in the game that you don’t want to happen. But, even if your child did try out an objectionable option, its not the end of the world, don’t you want to know now that he/she is curious about that sort of thing, before they do it in real life. After all, this is only a game, it will not harm their eternal soul, but if they get out and do it in real life, then there are dire consequences to be paid, that will affect them forever.
Another thing I like about this game is the success factor. Here is game where you can be actually be successful in life. You can go out there get a job, study hard, move up the corporate ladder and end up at the top of your field. If that is not enough success for you, then after you get to the top of your career, you can start another career, and go through all the promotions again until you are at the top of that field, etc. I don't know about you, but for me I have not been that successful in real life. And depression is a constant battle for me. When I'm feeling extremely blue, and I start thinking that my life is meaningless and hopeless, this game has helped me to forget my own inadequacies, and has bolstered my morale.
This game is extremely fun to play. Each of my children like it and for different reasons. I have one that is only interested in building “masterpieces”. Another that likes to “work” their sims to the bone, and move them up the corporate ladder. And another that likes the “dress up the sim” feature and taking care of baby sims. I have designated one neighborhood for each of my children, so they can have all of their houses together. And several neighborhoods that we all use for public buildings, like churches, stores and parks. We are pre-Hot Date. I don’t know if I would recommend it or not, I doubt it.
The negative: There are some objects used in the game that are questionable. But those you can delete from the game or just not put them into your game. There are some websites that have the sims engaging in homosexual and promiscous behavior. Don’t visit those websites, and especially don’t let your children surf the internet unattended under any circumstance. (I have visited all of the links on my links pages. And I don’t have any of those kind of websites on my links pages, unless they've added something objectionable since I last visited them. However, after having said that, I still don't recommend that any children should go to the links to other sim websites. The Christian links should be alright.) There are a lot of sick people out there in the real world that are much worse than anything that could possibly happen in the sims game. Teach your children now, before it is too late. When your children encounter these sick people in real life, how will they react? You say they won't ever encounter them. Let me tell you, if your children are in the public school, they already have encountered many vulgar and sick people. And there are even some in private Christian schools. I know, I had to deal with them when I was a child. How are your children reacting to them? The sims game can be a training manual for life, that you and your kids study together. Talk about quality family time.
Warning: Children should not play the sims game without parental supervision.
Warning 2: The sims game (or any other game) should never replace the time you spend studying the Bible with your children.
Warning 3: The Sims game may be habit forming and you may become addicted, to the detriment of your “real life”.
My last word on the subject: If your child would do it in the sims game, they will do it in real life, and the consequences of the latter are too high for me.
