Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#1 Old 4th Feb 2017 at 6:51 PM
Default The Legacy of The Sims 1
Well, the first Sims game turns 17 years old today and it's been making me think about how much of an impact the game has had on the gaming industry. Simulation games definitely existed before The Sims, but The Sims is what made them as popular as they are today. It didn't have a specific target audience; all ages and genders seemed to find something worthwhile in it. It turned people who typically didn't play video games into hardcore gamers. You could rarely find two people who played it the same way. How many other games are there that have had that kind of effect? The fact that the original game still sells copies to this day while old players return to it after playing newer entries definitely says something about how fascinating (and timeless) it is.

What are your experiences with The Sims 1? Do you agree that it left a large impact? Let me know what you guys think

The simmer formerly known as Averex
My Claim to Fame
Advertisement
Mad Poster
#2 Old 5th Feb 2017 at 12:24 AM
Looking at the games on my desk now (aside from the fact that volume-wise, TS2 and its EPs take up by far the most space), what I notice most is that they're pretty much all sandbox games- really only one story-progression game in the whole lot. TS1 isn't the oldest game in the mix, but it's the one I've had longest, so I can kind of trace my fascination with the open-ended gameplay of things like the Sims/SimCity games, RollerCoaster and Zoo Tycoon, and even some empire-building games back to TS1. Definitely a big impact there...

Welcome to the Dark Side...
We lied about having cookies.
Test Subject
#3 Old 3rd May 2017 at 4:30 AM
I am just now buying Sims 3 and absolutely refuse to ever buy Sims 4 after reading everything about it. While researching it I found I can buy Sims 3 and all the expansions and stuff packs on Ebay for about five bucks each.
Anyway, this made me think a lot about the original game and the things made made me play such a simple and apparently boring game (which was somehow not simple or boring). First thing that comes to mind is the cheesy shopping music in buy mode. I felt like I was in a 50's grocery store or something. It somehow made the game more fun. I'm buying and thinking "God, what cheesy music." But it fit the game perfectly. Another thing I liked, being a villain in most games I play, was the fact I could buy those fireworks for sims I didn't like and let them shoot them off inside thus killing the sim and gaining a tombstone. I had one run down house (where lived a man named Hell Razor) with an entire yard of tombstones. Knowing the creators of the game probably didn't intend this made it more fun. And of course building stuff. I think I actually spent more time building things than I did playing. And this is the one thing that has improved steadily in all the sims games.
The number one thing I loved most of all was trying to create love/hate relationships in my sim's lives. Love triangles and hard to obtain successes and absurd failures. I had one house with a family called Holmes. There was Sherlock, Katie and John (Haha). I vividly remember one incident; Sherlock got a job and went to work. I continued to work on the house and wasn't happy with my efforts so I took down several walls and floors, resold some furniture. While I was pondering which direction I wanted to go, Sherlock come home. He saw the missing things and threw the most incredible tantrum I ever saw a Sim throw. He kicked and screamed and lay down right in the middle of the road. I laughed so hard and I don't think I will ever see a more comical effect in a game than I did that day.
But sadly EA, I believe, has lost the spirit of their original idea.
Field Researcher
#4 Old 28th Jul 2017 at 12:57 AM
I never played The Sims 1 but I can say that it made a huge impact, is just see it by it's sequels with the release of Sims 2 many people started to create machinimas since The Sims in my opinion is the best game for creating machinimas since you can fully control your characters and has a very good mod compatibility and from that many people become youtubers. This game made a huge impact in everyone's life specially mine.
And a fact: My birthday is exactly five days before The Sims' birthday
Firestarter
#5 Old 6th Sep 2017 at 11:12 AM
I've gone back to TS1 for now. I like the simplicity and that it's easy to mod. But it has been the strangest feeling revisiting my old game from around 2003 and nothing has changed. All my old sims are just fine. And they are exactly how I left them. It's a very weird feeling. Fourteen years have passed, but my sims and their world remained unchanged. It's almost like seeing old pets or old friends you haven't seen in many years. I think TS1 will always be a timeless classic.
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 12th Sep 2017 at 4:31 AM
I have all generations of the game currently installed, and I always jump around playing different ones. Right now I'm back with Sims 1, and I'm always surprised at how rich the gameplay is in such an old game. There have been all kinds of additions and improvements to the build features in later games, but the buildings that came with the Sims 1 are gorgeous and creative. I have all the expansions and there's always plenty to do. And even though you can't have generations of Sims living and dying, sometimes having an immortal Sim is wonderful because you have plenty of time to move forward in your career and gain wealth and build houses and make friends.

It's easy to see the Sims 1 as being a good start to the rest of the games, providing a good foundation for them to build on, but it's such a fantastic game in it's own right. The fact that I can come from playing Sims 4 to playing Sims 1 and still be satisfied (and sometimes even more satisfied with 1 than with 4) shows how solid a game it is.
Scholar
#7 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 12:52 AM
I probably wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for Sims 1. No, I don't mean it saved my life in some obscure way! Though it may have saved my sanity: nothing clears the mind of the daily stress and drama of work than a quiet hour playing The SIms.

I don't know what compelled me to get the game, because I'd never been a keen gamer before. But once I had it installed I was hooked and that led to sims 2 and then 3. I think what fascinated me most about it was building things. As a child I'd always loved working with Lego and other construction kits, and The Sims was just an extension of that - with the advantage that you never run out of the parts that you need! I especially enjoyed building hotels and sending my sims off for holidays in them. And it led me onto other kinds of games too. I particularly liked things like Stronghold, where I could just go wild and build the biggest, most badass castle I could! If somebody ever combined The Sims with Stronghold I don't think I would go out very often!

And although I haven't played sims 1 for a while now, I still have my Complete Collection, and one of these days I'll get round to re-installing it all.

The thing that I miss mostly is the music. Cheesy or not, I loved it. I always feel nostalgic whenever I hear the elevator 'muzak' in TS3.

Legend is history as we would like it to be. We pick through the dusts of time for what is worth keeping and, here and there, we occasionally find treasure.

Simblr: Elyndaworld *** Wordpress: Tales of Nantrelor
Mad Poster
#8 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 1:32 PM
@Carrigon glad to see you back with us, I thought we lost you and your great mods there for awhile.

The Sims2Workshop account has been suspended, will it ever come back?

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Back to top