The Sims: Life Stories

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Maxis
Genre: Virtual Life
Release Date: Feb 6, 2007
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Crude Humor, Violence, Sexual Themes Number of Players: 1 Player

By all accounts, this should have been the version of The Sims that finally won me over to the franchise. Although I understand the appeal of the games, simply moving little people around, buying them lamps and making them hate each other never appealed to me. I want my games to have a point. A story. A beginning, a middle and an ending. So now, Aspyr brings us The Sims Life Stories, which actually gives preset characters, a plot and a climax to reach. The problem? They forgot to make any of them the least bit interesting.

Certainly, by now, you understand how The Sims is played and what it's about. You've got these little people, and you get them jobs and you decorate their homes and you make them fall in love with each other or hate each other and take showers. It's reality TV for the gaming world, with you as the puppet master. And, like reality TV, it seems impervious to our defenses. Through something like twelve dozen expansion packs and plenty more looming, The Sims has become the largest selling franchise in gaming history.

And so, you can look at The Sims Life Stories in one of two ways: either EA is trying to breathe some new life into the series with a new style of game play, or they're just milking it dry. Regardless of their motivation, I wanted The Sims Life Stories to be good. I think a Sims game in this style can be, but Life Stories really isn't.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 1.4 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2700 MB

Screen Shots

Download
part1,part2,part3
part4,part5,part6
part7,part8,part9