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The Sims Medieval
The Sims Medieval
- A living world of Sims in an age of adventure, drama, and romance
- Enhanced graphics, lighting, animations, and more lifelike Sims
- Create heroes, build up their skills and send them on epic quests
- Quests drive your kingdom’s story – Good or evil, cruel or kind, romantic or warlike
- Build a Kingdom – Start with an empty field and build up your kingdom, deciding its ultimate ambition and working to achieve its destiny
The Sims go back in time and get medieval! The Sims Medieval takes The Sims into the Middle Ages with all new features, new graphics and new ways to play. For the first time, players can create heroes, venture on quests, and build up a kingdom. In an ancient land of adventure, drama and romance, players will be able to get medieval like never before. The Sims Medieval is a brand-new direction for the popular single player Simulation game franchise, as the familiar gameplay mechanics of The Sims
List Price: $ 29.99
Price: $ 20.48
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about 4 months ago
It’s not The Sims 3 with a new “skin”… and that’s a good thing.,
Seems like a lot of people are disappointed having expected something that was never promised. A lot of reviews are giving the game 1 star because “it’s not The Sims 3 with medieval objects and clothes.” Why would EA release that? That’s more of an expansion for The Sims 3, not a standalone game. Heck, you could do it now yourself if you wanted to by downloading third party content for free. Thankfully, EA did not cheat us by simply giving us The Sims 3 with new decorations and clothes. They gave us an entirely new game!
The opening movie once you first start the game is quite amusing, and it’s full of win simply because it’s narrated by Patrick Stewart. The appropriately themed illustrations along with the narration explain that you’re The Watcher, revered by the people. Also, we learn that “people are dumb” (because they’re getting eaten by dragons and forest dwelling dire chinchillas), and that you are to give your Heroes gentle nudges to help guide them on the proper path to a glorious new civilization.
This game runs faster and smoother than my full Sims 3 installation, likely for obvious reasons, but even so, the graphics seem updated and quite a bit more detailed. The facial and clothing details in Create A Sim, including the new, sharply detailed eyes, are really a visual treat. When you’re choosing your sim’s voice, you’ll also discover there’s a new version of Simlish, sounding a lot more European than your standard Simlish we’ve all come to know and love.
Once you’ve made your Monarch for the tutorial (I chose to make a Queen, rather than a King), you’re dropped into the game for your first quest. Never fear, the tutorial for your first quest helps explain a lot, but I’d advise not neglecting to do something simply because the tutorial doesn’t tell you to. For instance, it never tells you where to go and when to eat. Don’t let your sim starve to death. Once the hunger bar is about 75% depleted, head up to the 2nd floor of the throne room and make yourself some gruel in the fireplace cauldron. You’ll sit down at the table nearby and eat it with your hand! Other than that, the introductory quest does a fairly good job of teaching you the ropes. This game is quite different from your standard “The Sims” series of games, so you might be a bit frustrated if you skip the tutorial… there are lots of new mechanics. One thing I did find a bit annoying was that the popup info in the upper right portion of the screen sometimes faded out as quickly as it popped up, not allowing me to actually read the flavor text. I missed out on the thoughts of my Monarch’s first romance because the overlay was up for only 1/2 a second and disappeared. Hope there is a patch forthcoming.
This game is about Heroes rather than households, and it’s quest based rather than freeplay or sandbox. It feels more like an RPG to me than your standard The Sims type game. You’re not on a linear rail, though, because depending on the Hero you’re playing and your Hero’s choices previous to the quest you’ve currently chosen to do (yes, you are given choices of which quests to complete based on previous quests completed, kingdom status, etc), there are different ways to complete quests with different outcomes.
In a nutshell, I’d call this a medieval-themed, quest-based Sims RPG. And it’s really a lot of fun and really nice to look at. EA could have cheated and thrown a themed version of The Sims 3 at us, but they did not, thankfully. It’s obvious they wanted something different for this game as evidenced by the new mechanics and, so far, I think it works. I’ve been having fun ooh’ing and ahh’ing and learning the new game. It’s a nice change if I’m a little bored with the standard Sims 3 but still want to Sim instead of playing something else.
Most importantly, don’t knock the game because you expected something less. The game’s website has been up for quite some time, and if you’re disappointed because you expected Medieval Sims 3, you’ve only yourself to blame… not EA, who’s done a fine job injecting some new life into the franchise.
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|about 4 months ago
A uniquely different way to play the sims, with enough small similarities to be comfortable with the game play.,
When I first received the game and installed it, I was immediately prompted to do a game update. Apparently one was created for the game even before it was available to buy. So be prepared after the initial installation process for a short game update to be installed prior to first playing the game.
Right out of the starting gate things about the Sims Medieval feel very different, but with enough familiarities included to make game play not totally foreign to those already familiar with the Sims games. You start out beginning with naming your “Kingdom”, not a city. Once you have named the Kingdom, you need to create a “hero” sim to rule as the monarch. Doing so open up the familiar create a sim screen. While things like age, weight, skin color and hair are all still part of designing your sims, selecting their traits now also includes choosing separate flaws for them as well, such as bloodthirsty, drunkard and uncouth.
During gamely, I found that the typical Sims Mood Meter has been replaced with a “Focus Meter”, basically working on the same principals of the need for your sims to stay well rested, fed and happy. The entire panel for controlling them is based on the same layout as the Sims 3. Things like your sims inventory, goals, navigation and game speed are all in almost the same layout, with only small differences.
Much like the city view in Sims 3, there is a view called Eye of The Watcher. In the original city view, you panned from left to right and north to south until you came to your cities edge. The Eye of The Watcher mode allows you to pan though your kingdom in a 360 deg. circular view. As if you were at the center, looking around. Just like in the Sims 3, you can go out into your world, interact with everyone, go places and find things to gather . The difference in the Sims Medieval is that only sims working in certain professions can collect specific items. One must also spend time investigating an item before it can be gathered.
The gathering of items plays a crucial roll in this version of the sims, as it’s how you expand and build your kingdom. If your familiar with the Sims Castaway game, the gathering for the purpose of building items works similarly. Your goal is to build your kingdom and advance your sims through their quests. You can work on your quests, or just spend time doing other things. Much like in other sims games, you can do everything, or nothing. It’s up to you.
Instead of necessarily having your sims spend their lives working a specific 9-5 job, now they have quests. You work to continue advancing in their quest throughout their lifetime. Each day they are also issued 2 responsibilities. They can do them, or not, but it can drastically affect a sims focus (mood) either way.
While the menus and buttons may look familiar, it would seem everything inside of them is completely different. About the only interaction that has remained the same is “chat”. Everything else is something new. Each class of sim also has special interactions just for their type.
Remember the days of sims fighting with each other when one sim flirted with another’s significant other? Well the days of the dusty ball of fighting in the dirt are over! Now, you challenge a duel. You hit someone with a glove and whip out your sword. But details like how heavy your armor is and weapon play a crucial roll in if your going to win the fight. The match begins and you can see every strike. There is a stamina and health meter displayed for both opponents, and the first one to run out of either is the looser. So your going to want your sim in a good mood when you brandish your sword against another.
This game is PACKED with stuff to do. This is by no means a small game. It seems to have everything from every version of the Sims. The gathering of items to build and eat reminds me of Sims Castaway, the clothing and mysteriousness of it has a touch of Sims 1 Makin’ Magic. The whole layout of the menus and workings is just like that of Sims 3. The quests of building a Kingdom and advancing your sims in it is like no other. This is not a remake of just the same old game with new clothing and hair. This game has a whole new design of how it works and how to progress though it. There is so much going on that you spend very little time worrying any more about what a sim is wearing, because it almost seems unimportant.
The sims are so realistic looking in the create a sim, it’s almost scary.
You’ll find the game follows what it would be like in the medieval timeline quite well, in that your going to be cooking over a pit instead of a gas stovetop. Your female sims don’t have makeup to wear, and the hair styles are quite entertaining. Your going to be walking everywhere, since cars are not around and if you want to mail…
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|about 4 months ago
The Sims gets a breath of fresh air.,
it’s been a long time since a Sims game captivated me enough to really sit down and play for long periods of time and so far Sims Medieval has some magic in it that I didn’t quite get with the 3rd iteration.
Without going back too much into what other reviewers have already stated, one of the things that I really enjoyed is that there seems to be more things to do to give your characters focus and that seems to have been missing from other Sims games. You have quests and mini quests that you can do to pass the time, you have decisions that you can make that affects the entirety of the game.
I also enjoy that as you build your kingdom you can shape other characters to perform missions without having to play the whole game as your primary character. Some of the same elements remain however as your playing is only as good as the interactions that you have with characters within your kingdom and making sure that you sim’s wants and needs are balanced.
The Focus meter is a new change in that I have noticed that certain tasks will not be done as efficiently if you are unfocused as the would be when you are and like any RPG you get XP for completing tasks correctly.
I also like the fact that as you play through your story when speaking to certain sims about aspects of the kingdom, you don’t always have to guess what’s going on as a pop up on the screen will explain certain situations are going on like ‘yes we need more stone” or “Hey, I need you to rescue the fair maiden.”
The environment and sounds will pull you right in to the medieval world from the style of dress to the music to the Simlish which has a noticeable accent.
As someone else has mentioned, early on in the game you will always have things to do although it seems like some of the tasks that your king does (like collect wood) should be delegated to a lower minion. However that gets made up in the fact that certain traits you imbue on your sim may take a menial task such as wood gathering and add that you discovered treasure or a monster that you have to slay.
As far as controls, it’s as easy as always especially on a Macbook Pro and even with the graphic setting on medium, it’s really nice to look at with slowdown occurring if too many sims are on the screen at once.
My only complaint with the game so far is that sometimes trying to get from point A to point B is not as easy of a transition as it could be because the mapping is not as responsive as it should. Sometimes if you don’t click on that ‘sweet spot’ on the map the game won’t respond. One other thing I would like to see added to future iterations if this is expanded upon is bringing back generations of sims. One of the main focal points of that era was the focus on families contending for the throne. Maybe it’s a bit contentious to think something like that could fit into a family friendly game like this but it would be nice to have some sibling rivalry play out on this game and see it mature; the old king dies and 2 siblings compete for the throne. Who knows maybe we can get that in an expansion?
if you have followed the Sims, this choice is easy…by the way EA, if you can make the Sims 3 for the iPad, can you try for the same with this???
**As someone else stated, be prepared to play through the WHOLE TUTORIAL as you cannot save your game until you finish it!!!!! And you will need at least 2 or 3 hours for that!**
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