I'm cooking da ribs in da oven

Which isn't the point of the post, but since I don't want to nap while the oven is on, I thought I'd take a bit of time to give my impressions of other people's reports of the Sims 3. I actually already posted some of this in a comment to an LJ post but I've since read and seen more and figured I'd do a bit more complete post with like, categories and more words. A lot more words.

To be clear, yes, this is based entirely on other people's reports and screens, but that's what word of mouth is, and so far, word of mouth isn't making me any more likely to go out and get the game anytime soon.

Graphics

Sim Appearance

The word they're using over at MATY for Sims seems to be "pudding" (though a few people seem to favor comparisons to marshmallows), and I kinda can see why. Although I have seen people make slim Sims and various skin tones work out better than others, the fact is, there's just something about the new Sims' faces that looks... off.

For one thing, it seems difficult to make a Sim with a face that is not pretty rounded, and by rounded I do not mean "round", but rather... plump. Fleshy. Full. Something like that. Now, in some cases, this is good... for instance, if one is going to make a fleshy Sim in general (or, if you like, "fat"), the face should be fleshier, too. But if you're looking for someone with a long face, a horsey face, a sparse face, a drawn face, I imagine you'll be playing around a while to get it.

For another, the eyes are, in a word, awful. I mean, look, I'm not a champion eye maker (I like my custom eyes, but acknowledge that they're not precisely realistic), but then, I'm not getting paid to make graphics for the best-selling life simulator in the world. And in a game that's trying to be more realistic (even if I feel they fail at it), the eyes are particularly jarring. More than one person has used the phrase "doll eyes", and that is exactly what they look like.

Also, I still don't like the skin tones. A lot of people who have said that have had people rebut "Well, you're just used to all the CC skins". Except, well, I use Maxis skins, and the couple CC skins I like are effectively Maxis-match with a bit more detail. I really am not sure what it is about them, to be honest; one moment I can see how they're at least more realistic than the TS2 ones, and then the next I'm like "urgh, all wrong!" and I can't figure out why.

The new hairs are not bad. The big advance there has been colouring, because it's now possible to both a) easily recolour hair to all sorts of shades and b) put in things like highlights and lowlights. The meshes themselves really aren't a big improvement, though... but to be fair, hair is one of the hardest things to do well in 3D, especially once you get into animation, and I wouldn't expect a huge leap forward there anyhow.

Clothes

Here, again, the big advance is colouring, although the fact that clothing is now actually separates is the bigger news, as it was a design flaw in TS2 that they were not. The whole drag-and-drop patterning and colouring thing, both here and in the house decor, is probably by far the most interesting and attractive thing for sandbox players (but more on sandboxing, or the lack thereof, later). The meshes themselves are not necessarily significantly more detailed, though they seem to have all acquired the bump-mapping that only certain items in TS2 had and the texturing is at least somewhat improved. Which brings us to:

Texture and Related Things

There was a common problem with TS2 texturing, mainly present in clothes but visible in other items, wherein the edges of textures sort of bled into one another... shirt colour bleeding onto the neck or skin onto the shirt, for instance. It didn't happen with all items, but it wasn't precisely uncommon, either. I always chalked it up to alpha problems, a relic of the fact that they were trying for low-size textures, something probably unavoidable to meet the system specs they shot for.

TS3 still has this problem. But this time, I'm wondering if it's related to the fact that they handle anti-aliasing poorly.

There is an anti-aliasing setting in the game, apparently. But it doesn't seem to work very well. Even people reporting fairly good video cards are showing some jaggies, and it seems like their clothing is more likely to suffer issues as well, though I'm not sure to what extent the correlation is there.

And that's a big fail for them, because even low-end cards these days tend to handle AA fairly well (at least at low settings, which are enough to reduce jaggedness if not eliminate it). Jagged edges are so 1990s.

On the other hand, some textures are decidedly improved. For one thing, they seem to have much more liberally applied bump-mapping, which means that the textures have, well, more texture overall (although in some cases with particularly low-poly objects, they don't necessarily look any better). For another, they seem to have implemented an aniso filter on a lot of their surfaces, giving streets and floors and such a more detailed feel.

Of course, they're still using a lot of the same meshes, but with improved textures, even those can look better. Their wood textures in particular look a lot better. Their landscaping looks pretty good, better than anything with the possible exception of M&GS (which I don't own).

Special effects like musical notes, the foam from brushing teeth, fire, sound waves... not improved. In fact, I think they look worse, stylistically speaking. Especially ghosts. I hate the new ghosts.

Lighting... I'm mixed on this. One the one hand, it looks like they put a lot more thought into realistic lighting (and I saw a pic of a sunset that looked gorgeous). On the other hand, from the way people are reporting problems with screencaps and a few of the glitches I've seen, it looks like the way they did it (and I will note they are not alone in this) they would make it difficult for me to, say, override the gamma setting in the game using my video card's settings, which could be an issue for me if I'm used to doing software colour-correcting (which, erm, I am). I'd have to dig into the possible settings in-game myself before concluding how much I do or don't have issues with it, though.

Gameplay and Glitches

Overview

Pescado made a rather insightful comment about the distinction between TS2 and TS3... I can't recall precisely how he worded it, but more or less, it was the distinction between toy (or, for me, "sandbox") and game. TS2 is a toy/sandbox. TS3 is a game.

A sandbox is open-ended, with goals only defined by the player. There might be suggested goals, or a common framework people adapt, and certainly there will be self-imposed goals, but the game itself doesn't really offer any goals. TS2 was generally like this (things like pet coat unlocks and BV collectibles aside), and even before mods it was easy to circumvent the basic limitations (money and lifespan, essentially).

With the traits system making more complex characters, the "moodlets" (stupid word, btw), the increased difficulty of jobs, the focus on a single Sim or family of Sims, the increased difficulty offered by the world moving on without your intervention (and yes, this does constitute increased difficulty IMO), the collectibles, the timeclock on fulfilling the new want-replacements, and probably other things I'm forgetting, TS3 moved itself from sandbox into game territory. It may still have many sandbox-like features, but it's started to define goals and limitations much more sharply.

Back when details started coming out about TS3, I said it was sounding a lot more like the failed Simsville project than a real Sims game. A few other people have mentioned this connection as well. And I was actually disappointed when Simsville was cancelled, so the existence of it in a new incarnation shouldn't sound like a bad thing to me... but the fact that they're presenting it as a sequel to the sandbox while giving me a game is tainting that. I might like it as a game. But as a sandbox, it's not sounding so great.

The Possibly Good

Traits, while I mentioned them as a reason why TS3 is more "game-like", actually could be seen as being pretty sandboxy, too. I think the trait system is pretty interesting-sounding. The problem is, a lot of the traits seem to have very little impact on how Sims behave. This may be a case of it being too early and alien to tell, though.

Jobs sound a lot harder... which may or may not be a good thing. On the one hand, it's sounding like there's a lot more flavor to jobs than "make friends, skill a lot, come home with promotion". On the other hand, some of the reports make it sound like it's actually duller, particularly since you can follow your Sims to work but still not see what they do. This, again, may be a case of it being too early and alien to tell.

Moodlets, no matter how I despise the word, may actually be a genuine improvement over the generic overall mood from TS2, since they're situational and specific. I'm not sure yet from reports but it sounds like traits may play a part in this, so that does make the trait system sound a bit richer.

The Not So Good

A lot of people are talking about "enforced Legacy-style play" when it comes to the "one household is your focus" thing. Which is funny, because it seems like no one whose legacies I read regularly plays legacies that way. But let's not quibble about the term when I can instead complain about the concept.

It's stupid.

No, flat out. It's stupid. It removes all the flexibility from gameplay and enforces focus only on one household... unless, of course, you don't mind losing progress towards Sims' desires, that the household may completely change while you're gone, that they may simply pack up and move out of town, etc. Which, while I've seen people claim that they in fact prefer it this way, I find completely bizarre in a game calling itself The Sims.

Now add to that the fact that the "story progression" toggle, which is supposed to limit how much this happens, apparently actually does nothing... and that if you set your aging to any non-default rate, it only affects the active household, which sort of completely screws up precisely what they supposedly were trying to accomplish, to wit: the rest of the town grows with you.

These two things may be bugs, but they're pretty major bugs considering the gameplay change (and the fact that said change was a touted feature). And, by "major", I mean "show-stoppingly" major. As in, "how can you have shipped the game without making sure that worked the way everyone was thinking it would?"

The WTF

Ghost babies? Really, EA?

And Finally...

I still hate that they've given people permission to make a living off of modding. Bugs the heck out of me. I'm from a tradition of free modding, not just in the Sims but in many other games.

Also, early reports suggest that actual modding, meaning, gameplay changes, are going to be a lot harder to implement, and that you'll probably have to have a One Size Fits All mod from a single source for that sort of thing. While this may turn out later to not be the case, I would be willing to bet actual money (albeit not a lot) that this was a deliberate move on EA's part... and I would be willing to bet actual money that no one is going to come up with a version that truly satisfies me. For instance, I don't have the TS2 MATY DC, even though I probably have about 85% of what's in it... because that other 15% contains stuff I flat-out didn't want.

That leaves the store.

Okay, look. I'm not against microtransactions... but I'm not sure that the actual "part of the game" to "what you have to pay extra for" ratio is particularly good. Now, you could argue that this is just a variant of stuff packs, and you'd be right. And I haven't done any sort of cost analysis for number of items in a stuff pack versus number of items you get for an equivalent amount of Sim Points, so it may turn out it's actually cheaper. It's just that reports are suggesting that the stuff included with the game may be a shorter list than makes the store palatable.

So... that's it. I'm gonna go check on my ribs now. I think they're gonna need some more sauce. Which, btw, I made myself.