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Our latest IMG feature is a look at the phenomenon of The Sims. Entitled SimsMania, the article takes a look at the game and its expansions along with taking a look at the future of the series.

Here's a preview:

Like all great inventions, they thought it would never work, but Electronic Arts released it anyway, considering it more of a favor to its creator than a serious contender on the PC gaming scene. Two years later, Will Wright's The Sims is the best-selling computer game of all time, inspiring five subsequent expansion packs (a sixth one has just been announced for the PC), a user community of unprecedented scale and an online version of the game. This powerhouse franchise was brought to the Mac starting in July of 2000 thanks to the collective talents of Westlake Interactive and Aspyr Media, Inc.

Like many other Will Wright creations, in theory The Sims is exactly the type of game no one should want to play, and in practice it is fiendishly addictive. At first glance, The Sims looks like a game of deceptive ease. The Sims, those marvelous little embodiments of human needs (eight in all, called "motives"), are guided (or not) throughout their environment by the player by way of interacting with their living space, the objects within that space and other Sims. Although gameplay is extremely open-ended (and various acts of sadism are curiously easy to perform), the general object of the game is to keep Sims happy enough to get by and advance in their social lives and careers. The challenge lies in finding enough in-game time to keep every Sim contented enough to function and the house running smoothly. Each subsequent expansion pack has features that both help and hinder Sim self-fulfillment, but this basic premise remains the same throughout the series.

SimsMania

Aspyr Media (add to watch list)

Maxis (add to watch list)

Westlake Interactive (add to watch list)

The Sims (add to watch list)

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