It was the year 2000, the fabled year when we'd all have flying cars, robot slaves and a set of fascist judges would assume power over the world, and dispense justice like a bullet out of a gun.
Well, actually it didn't quite turn out like that at all, in fact I'd just begun a new job, disappeared on a 3 month attempt to find a job and migrate to Australia, came back, found "The One" and rediscovered a love of PC gaming.
"The Sims" wasn't really on my radar at all. I'd always been the person who played Sim City and systematically failed to make any money beyond the first couple of years of "Shitsville" existing (my go-to choice of name for any city building simulator has always been Shitsville").
"You've got to get it! It's addictive like crack!" said a couple of friends, the siren song for me with my weak resolve to own and play every game on the planet. So of course I picked up a copy to run on my snazzy new gaming PC (Pentium 166 with a saucy 3DFX graphics card) and realised that I should never trust the word of friends when it comes to gaming recommendations. The Sims wasn't addictive LIKE crack, it was digital crack in its purest form.
Say what you like about the prospect of "playing dolls houses" - I'd always loved those games where you felt like you had an element of god-like control over a tiny little household. Remember "Little Computer People" on the C64 (which I managed to convince my poor Nan was 'real' and that there really was a little guy living inside my computer, which technically wasn't deceit). Yeah, sign me up for a modern version of that.
Complete with its low-poly characters, nonsense speech, lurid decor and accidental pant-wetting, who could possibly resist the lure of a game written by the Grandaddy of all sims games, Will Wright, back before EA picked up Maxis and did exactly what they always do to every company they acquire.
Will wanted to build a more 'personal' version of Sim City, concentrating on a household rather than an entire urban landscape, and "The Sims" perfectly summed up the haphazard requirements of running a home, avoiding being electrocuted, burgled or burnt to death in the pursuit of the blissful green crystal of happiness.
I remember wrestling with the build controls of The Sims several times before giving up, nabbing one of the pre-existing plots and just customising it into something that resembled a conveyor belt, with the Sims bedroom at one end, moving past the kitchen and leisure pursuits, past the bathroom / shower and out to the front door to grab the car to work every morning. Laying out a house in the most efficient way somehow encapsulated the tedium of modern life.
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| Too cheap to pick up a 5 Simoleon smoke alarm? Serves you right! |
One thing I wasn't expecting was just how many weird and wonderful ways you could end up dead. I seemed to work through a lot of Sims (mostly in pursuit of a garden full of tombstones, which I thought would be 'neat'). Stick 'em in a room and remove all the doors, and bung a cheap Black and White TV in there to keep them awake? Check! The old "Let 'em go swimming then remove the ladder" gag? Oh you betcha. But there were others, and in fact I began to look deep into the darkest depths of my soul wondering quite why I was doing that kind of thing in a game where the opposite aim was the key - to keep them alive, not kill 'em stone dead. I always called my main male Sim "Alexander Blacksmith" for some bizarre reason, and the poor guy really didn't quite make it to old age.
Shortly after The Sims arrived, and shortly after EA nabbed Maxis the add-on packs started to appear. Bear in mind that this was long, long before the Internet became where you picked up that kind of thing - these were physical disks that you had to load onto your computer (I know kids, I know!) in order to nab the new content. Some were great, some were a complete rip-off, but it began the whole aspect of franchising the living shit out of The Sims, with many many offshoots and alt-games appearing on PC and Consoles throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
Going back to The Sims 1 (through the recently released "Ultimate" versions dropped as part of the 25th Anniversary celebrations) I couldn't believe how quickly I got drawn back into it all. Being able to play on the Steam Deck (portable sims was the stuff of a madman's dream back in the early noughties) made it even more addictive.
Instead of my wife barging me to one side in order to play (as was often the case back in the day) I now have to contend with my daughter running off with the Steam Deck to play instead. So as much as I still have a desire to recreate my conveyor belt house of yore, I don't even get a look in!
Happy memories though. Whatever you think of EA, they have cashed in big time on The Sims 4 (long long outliving its original lifespan through digital DLC and umpteen million custom bits and bobs from the user community) and there's no sign of a Sims 5 yet (if indeed there ever will be, why bother making an entirely new game when the predecessor is doing so well and raking in cash hand over fist, with The Sims actually making more money than FIFA now).
EA might be one of the most evil corporations on the planet, but you've got to admire their foresight in picking up Maxis, and nabbing the rights to one of the greatest gaming franchises ever created.
One question though - what on earth happened to Will?
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