Oh man, the monetizing of everything is killing me. I'm reluctant to get Sims 3 because of all the bullshit expansions I know they'll release, and I'd rather get 'em all in one fell swoop at a decent price.

The neighborhood gameplay does seem quite nice. As a man, though, I still only really care about building my lesbian sorority house. I'm vaguely worried that they've cut out the really fun stuff.

The expansions for Sims 3 are a lot better than the ones for 2.  I've been very happy with em, but I'm also sure they'll never stop coming.

Until 4 is out.

Hah, they're only on 2 right? There is no way they are done with it yet. I mean I had all the Sims 1 + expansions minus one, and I think all of Sims 2 + expansions except one too but maybe 2 of the stuff packs I picked up for around 7 bucks at Circuit City before it went belly up. With 3, the DLC, stuff packs, expansions... it just turned me off from the series in a major way.

The DLC & stuff packs are largely ignorable.  I bought some because I felt like it and played way too much of the game (still do) but *shrug*.  It's just eye candy, doesn't really do anything for the experience.

The expansions are great though.  In Sims 2 the only expansions I really felt added to the experience as a whole were University and Open for Business, everything else was so limited in what it did.  I can't wait for the next one for 3.

I picked up Sims 3 out of curiousity (and just a disk check - kudos to EA on that one).  Was playing Lord of the Rings Online for close to 6 months exclusively until Sims 3.  I can see how this game gets addictive.

Lotro isn't that good though. Good world, bad gameplay design.

It's still the only MMO I can stand for more than a month.

I used to like City of Heroes a long time ago, but Champions Online is too glitchy with my connection.

LOTRO isn't that bad. If anything it's just not "hardcore" as the death penalty is pretty low to the point no one cares if they die really, and there is a lot of solo play available making ad-hoc groups difficult to form and even more difficult to sustain. It's not a bad game though. I enjoy it for just under a year myself, and I love the Sims! The Sims is still so unique and fills a certain niche I thought for sure someone else might try to do, maybe with a little less kid friendly focus. Oh wells.

Hmmm. Sims Medieval is out now and I'm not seeing any of the usual EA DRM on it.

Where are the activation limits or the need for an EA account or secuROM? This could be impressive. I might just buy this.

I bought it today for my wife as an early birthday present. She says "I like it a lot". Let me put it this way...we went out and got it at 2 something this afternoon. Since we've gotten home, she's only stopped playing it long enough to eat dinner, and even then, she ate in front of the computer..lol. I've glanced over at it a few times, haven't played it yet, but just from looking at it I will say it does actually look kinda cool for a Sims game. After she falls asleep tonight I'll probably get back up and try it out. If anyone's interested to know what it's like I'll be able to report back after I try it for 5 or 6 hours.

Having a wife who also likes to play games has both it's pros and it's cons. It's "cons" being I have to put up with hearing her play some games I just really can't stand, like this XBox360 game I got her called "Kameo" which I think is really annoying. But "pros" like her understanding how important gaming can be to a guy who's been a gamer all his life. There are also plenty of games we like to play together for the Wii and 360.

Over-all it's a good thing.

Hmm...I don't know. I think that all depends on what your definition of the words "useful tools" is...Mwhahahah!!!

....er...um...nm.

I picked it up but I won't have it downloaded til sometime tomorrow morning/afternoon most likely.

I hate that EA is still giving Steam the shaft though.  EAs downloader has earned my wrath again (it still eats CPU cycles when you aren't using it for anything) and Impulse...I obviously like the company but the client still feels unfinished in some respects.

I think I'll hook up Kinect while I wait and get some exercise.