LONG waiting times used to deter my ambitions to be a Casanova with 10 girlfriends at the same time.
That was in The Sims 1 and 2, when the game took forever to load whenever my Sim tried to get out of the house. Not any more.
In The Sims 3, you are no longer limited to the confines of your home and can freely roam the bustling beach, sizzling nightspots and even the chilling cemetery to score a hit. Gone are the loading windows of yore, all Sims have to do is step right outside the door and walk to their desired destination.
My Sim has already hit the bull'seye with three women and he is well on his way to hit the double-digit mark. And the beauty of it all - you are no longer restricted to using the home phone and can now make a date on your cellphone.
The Sims' technological advances are quickly matching that of ours, with laptops available for purchase. Your Sims can also own multiple vehicles, so instead of calling in sick for missing the car pool, he can now drive himself to work. Players choose five character traits out of a list of 60, which make for some amusing personality combinations.
Make your Sim grumpy, neurotic but a flirt, all at the same time.
Customisation goes one step further as well. Sims can sport multi-coloured highlights in their hair and be decked out in bling that span from head to toe. A friend of mine spent three hours creating his Blair Waldorf - the female star in Gossip Girl - look-alike.
Instead of the five Aspirations that The Sims 2 permitted, one can pick from a randomised list based on your selected traits. My Sim was given a choice to be a Star News Anchor, Gold Digger or have The Perfect Garden. The possibilities are more creative than The Sims 2 ever allowed, even with their expansion packs.
You are in for many surprises, because the Sims you do not control are capable of making their own choices. Ignore some of your friends for a while and you will discover that some of them have passed on or have started dating other Sims.
Much of this resembles real life, but it also loses the intimacy you had with your Sims as it was the case in The Sims 2. The influx of things of to do and discover can be overwhelming, as you struggle to keep your Sims feeling fulfilled.
While The Sims 3 promises characters who are apparently capable of fulfilling their basic needs, I still found myself preoccupied with making sure they had enough sleep.
For someone who is more interested in seeing what mischief my Sims can get into, this is dreadfully time-consuming.
Despite purchasing a steel bladder for my Sims with their lifetime happiness points, my Sims still managed to get into embarrassing situations of peeing in public.
Another gripe is that you cannot switch between families you are controlling in one game.
So unless you have a lot of love for one family, you might tire of them after a while. This leaves you with two options: either continue playing or restart the game from scratch.
Still, The Sims 3 retains much of the charm of the previous Sims, while presenting itself as a riveting new game that boasts amazing 3-D graphics. While my Sims' productivity at work went up, mine went down, and before I knew it, a whole six hours had happily gone down the drain.
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.
