I Replayed The Sims And It Kicked My Ass

While The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was among the first games I truly loved and Final Fantasy VII was the first to profoundly impact me, The Sims was the first to utterly consume me. Despite it being a good decade or so before the phrase "no life-ing" hit the internet, there is no better way to describe my relationship with the game. Every night--after I had finished my homework, dinner, and familial obligations--I would slink my way over to the family computer and live out my countless virtual lives in The Sims. On weekends, it would take a stern lecture from my parents to pry me away from the uncomfortable wooden chair that seemingly every family owned going into the new millennium. I was a woman--okay, seven-year-old girl--obsessed.

25 years later, EA has finally re-released a direct port of the iconic title as a part of its anniversary celebration. I approached the game with the same zeal and delight as I did all those years ago, eager to see if it held up. Although this might be surprising to hear, and might seem somewhat refuted by the time this article concludes, in some ways I truly believe it does. Despite going through multiple iterations since, the core gameplay remains essentially the same: You chug away at a career, struggle with work-life balance, save enough money to buy things that help you better attain said balance, then repeat. I know that sounds miserable, but it's a grand time.

I was shocked by the fact that, despite feeling threadbare in comparison to later Sims titles, The Sims remains clever, well-designed, and fun. That said, I think a large part of why I had fun with the game was because it completely kicked my ass.

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