How Did It Start For You?

[VerDeTerre]

Hi! What first drew you to the classic game of The Sims?

I kept hearing about it from a friend and her son and it sounded like a hoot. Computer games were still fairly novel for me at that point and, even though The Sims sounded interesting, we didn't have a computer that could play it. When we finally got a new computer, we got the game for my son.

My son started a family and couldn't figure out how to make them happy. He told me there was nothing he could do, they were miserable all the time. I gave him a few suggestions, thinking of real life (silly me) and he tried a few of them, but it didn't work. I asked him if I could have them and he was happy to move on to a fresh family. That was it, I was HOOKED.

I think it was the appeal of taking care of electronic critters. Initially, it didn't seem so different from the electronic pet I babysat while my son went to school. I had my own problems with that family. I lost the son because he kept playing in the pool when he was supposed to catch the bus and he was sent to military school. Luckily, I didn't save then or after the time the mom was napping on a couch in front of the fire and burned up. I've remade that family on different computers - it's become my obsession.

[maxon]

Do you know, I can't remember. It was quite a while back. When was the game released? 2000? That was only two years after I had my operation and recovered from my illness - memory is a bit foggy from around then. I can remember playing the game with my nephews.

[VerDeTerre]

I remember we just didn't have enough in our game and wanted things - like wall lights (remember you used to have to put a lamp on a table or a floor lamp in every room, including the bathroom?), so after much consideration, we got House Party and Living Large. We purchased this right before my son's karate class and I sat just outside the dojo studying the box and the manual. One of the instructors walked by with a grin on his face and commented, "That is the best game - ever!"

[katya_stevens]

I saw the base game and House Party at a local game store and somehow managed to persuade my mum to buy them for me. This was around the time when I was just getting in to gaming and had already gravitated towards simulation games (at the time I had played Dungeon Keeper, Catz/Dogz, and also had my own tamagotchi) so the sims seemed like a natural progression. I had to get my computer upgraded to play Hot Date, but unfortunately my computer went "nope, not going to play that" when I tried to install On Holiday yet I still bought Unleashed hoping that one would work (it didn't, but I did get a bit of play time on a friend's computer).

It was a good few years before I really thought about getting the game again and I finally managed to buy the complete collection and install it.

[Phoeberg]

I'd started a new school and my new best friend had the game so we used to play it when I went over to her house. Eventually my parents caved in and bought me my own copy, then the expansion packs for Christmases and birthdays. I didn't have my own computer though, so I had to install it on my father's computer, much to his irritation because I'd leave the game running while I wandered off to do something else and he'd come into his study to find the Sims music playing out of his computer. That's probably what contributed to him buying me my own computer! :lol:

[lorinsv60]

While my son was away from home stationed in the Army, he kept telling me about this game he thought I would really like. I was more into puzzle games like Tetris and Dr. Mario, so I was like "Yeah, sure, whatever." Then, when he got out of the Army he brought me Sims 1, I think with all the pre-Vacation EPs, installed them on my computer, and then sat next to me and spent the next several hours walking me through the game. Little did he know he was about to create a monster - I was totally hooked and have been for more than 10 years. He also introduced it to my younger son, who was 7 at the time. After that, every time a new EP was released he would come home from work armed with a new copy for each of us.

My boys moved on from Sims about midway through Sims 2, but still, it's nice to be able to talk to them about the game, have them know what you're talking about, and not have their eyes glaze over like non-players.

[Gcgb53191]

I don't exactly remember how I was first introduced to the game but my earliest memory of it seeing my cousin and his friend play it.

Back then my cousin and I would play Theme Hospital (something like that) and Sim Copter :D I remember being horrible at sim copter because I never understood what to do in it but I enjoyed flying around the city and getting to know the areas. It would probably be a while after that before I had my own Sims game because it took a while to get my own computer. (My parents weren't into that sort of thing but I begged enough a got it) I had the base game along with House Party and then the dating EP and Pets.

Of course like many I would create my sim self and whatever crush at the time and we'd have a bunch of kids. I didnt have internet at the time so I never new about CC until I had The Sims2.

[IzzyBess]

I first read about it in a magazine about games. Then I've decided it's "must have". I was hooked from a first minute - being just a kid, it was like playing doll house, only you could build your house and you didn't have to buy new dolls if you were bored with the look of current ones. I remember that my first family was pre-made, Bachelor dude. I've tried to flirt with Bella because I didn't knew that he was her brother X.x Oh boy, and I've kept wondering why she didn't want to kiss him.

[kitty40089]

I had played sims games on console, mostly sims 2 on DS. I knew there was a computer game, but I had never played. My friend and I were at a garage sale and the sims was only $1.00. I bought it, and soon after I was playing 16 hours a day. :lol:
This was about 3 years ago, and I continue to do the same thing everyday.

[revit]

I saw my friend played it and interested. so I borrowed disc and installed it on my dad's pc. Because the sims made me so addict, my dad decided to uninstall it. I was so sad even i couldn't stop thinking about it. Soon, my dad bought me PS2 and the sims disc for PS2. Well that's better than nothing. So i just stick with the sims console and the sims bustin out until i got my computer. now, I have TS complete collection, TS2, and TS3 on my computer. and live happily ever after.

[Lisen801]

How I started playing the Sims? Ha, ha, yes it is a special story! Earlier I had been playing SimCity4 quite a lot and heard of The Sims but did not think there was something for me, thought it seemed too childish.

So I was on winter break vacation in a cabin with my mother and grandmother. It was bad weather so we mostly sat inside and read.
So we went into a town to shop. In a game shop window, I saw that they were advertising for a new game - The Sims Unleashed. I saw that there were dogs, cats and other animals in it. As I always liked animals a lot, I bought the game even though it was very expensive.

When we got back to the cabin, I would install it on my laptop but then saw that it was an expansion and that I must have the base game to play! Why didn't they inform me in the shop?
After much persuasion, I managed to get my mom to drive me to the town again the next day. I was going to return the game. The dealer would not take back the game because I had opened the package. After some pondering, I bought also the basic game. Well, since then I have played Sims.

I now have all the Sims game, Sims 2 and Sims 3, all expansions and StuffPacks and dare not think about how many hours I've been playing the Sims.

I also learnd How to make objects for the game and love making different stuff. It takes alot of time and it's fine I don't have a family to take care of. Just my dogs and they don't complain!

Maybe it's time to get a life?
:lol:

[Tempscire]

I just happened to see the box at a store (Circuit City, I believe, who so faithfully provided so many good deals on EPs over the years...) and thought it sounded cool. I'm not even sure I made the connection between The Sims and any of the other SimWhatever games I'd played, though, haha. Took it home, installed it, and was instantly hooked. That was shortly before a school year started, and I remember how much I was looking forward to the end of the school day that first week, solely because I couldn't wait to start the game back up! (The second great shift happened when I learned that there were other players who could make these objects of their own to go inside the game, omg-- which is also the story of how I learned to use zip files and the like. ;) )

[DigitalSympathies]

We used to have it at school in our "disk catalogue", and we'd play it on these ancient desktops (with black and white monitors), but I never really bought it for myself until I got a good computer. At that time, TS2 was still new, so I got the basegame (and Nightlife cos it looked cool and we were out of money to buy University) and started with that (I was gonna get the new Harvest Moon that just came out but it wasn't in stock) . . . then I got TS1 as well.

I used to play Neopets a lot myself (and Roller Coaster Tycoon, where I used to take the house props and make fences and drop people into the yards to make streets . . . we won't go there) so I knew my way around the game pretty much instantly. I haven't stopped playing at least one of the sims games a day since, oh, 2001 or 2002. My memory's really fuzzy about the earlier times. My official start date to me is 2005, when I bought my own, but I'd been playing on friend's computers and consoles (the Urbz rocks!) and at school during lunch hour LONG before that.

[Kristin76]

Hmmm how did i get into The Sims (wasnt called Sims 1 back then ... LOL )
My mom, my younger sister and I went back to school shopping and I begged .... begged my mom at the store (I want to say it was Staples or OfficeMax) I wanted the game and I would do anything for her. I got it! Though I had to walk the dog that night which interrupted my game play but that was okay ... it was there when I came back.

Shortly thereafter I joined a Sims forum online and got into the downloads and all that good stuff.

[MrUntuckable]

Ahh, The Sims 1!

I remember reading about The Sims in this upcoming PC games booklet back in '99. I had never heard of a game like it and just from reading the description, I knew it was an instant buy!

#nostalgiaoverload

[simsample]

Sims 1 was where I first met Sim Sample, so I have particularly horrific nice memories of that game.

I still have it installed on my computer, it's whimsical in a way Sims 2 and Sims 3 are not. Plus, you only get the Tragic Clown in Sims 1!

[ChickieTeeta]

Sims 1 was where I first met Sim Sample, so I have particularly horrific nice memories of that game.

I still have it installed on my computer, it's whimsical in a way Sims 2 and Sims 3 are not. Plus, you only get the Tragic Clown in Sims 1!

OMG tragic clown still haunts me to this day, always happy he isn't in TS2 or 3 =D I had Sim Slice's Flippy the happy the clown and also the street sign that banned the Tragic Clown from showing up lol.

DigitalSympathies (quote from their sig): "Quite possibly the owner of the largest TS2 downloads folder on this site. Last count: 75 GB"
I have a paltry 15.4GB for TS2, you beat me by a long shot lol.
I have 11.9GB for TS1, which is misleading since file sizes were so much smaller
I have 18, 925 downloads for TS2, and 41, 471 downloads for TS1.
Only a paltry 1, 388 for TS3 though.
(My actual file counts are higher, but since I have an image of most every download, I've halved the file count)


I'd wanted to check out the The Sims when it was first released, but I didn't get round to buying it. The local game store was doing a special offer on the base game and LL if you bought them together, just after LL was released, so I figured I may as well.
I remember being thoroughly disappointed with it, then the next day I figured maybe I'd missed something so looked on the internet to see what other people made of it or if there was a way to make it more interesting, and I came across the Well Dressed Sim website....once I discovered you could put custom clothing etc in the game and make your own to put into the game, I was so thoroughly overjoyed, the game has held great fasination for me ever since. I don't remember what I found disappointing about it initially, and looking back now it seems like an odd first impression to have had of the game, but I distinctly remember the moment I shut the game down regretting the money I'd spent on it....it could just have been the mood I was in when I first played it I guess.

[lazzybum]

I was 10 yrs old at Costco looking at the game section. I kept staring at the Sims box. It looked like a game for adults, because I've never came across a game where you can choose to do anything. But for some reason I kept reading it and it intrigued me. I asked my parents one time to get it for me, but it was $50 and they said no. But it still bugged me the next few times we went to Costco. I then bugged my mom about it and she caved in and got it for me. Then the Sims addiction continues till this day!

[itsamariokart]

My sister kept telling me about it and said I'd probably like it. Our PC was a pile of crap at the time so I had the PS2 version of the game:

http://cdn4.spong.com/pack/t/h/thesims89349/_-The-Sims-PS2-_.jpg

I loved it. Once we had a decent PC I bought the PC game and become obsessed :')

[VerDeTerre]

Ah! the console versions of the game. It was pretty funny, especially that whole bit with "Mom" and the helicopter at the end. Maxis had a whole thing with baboons then.

[annoainthere]

The obsession started when it was released, I think my parents bought it for me as a christmas gift, and oh what a joyous gift! It was great, because every birthday I got the next release/add on and I even bought a few myself. Of course I moved onto the console games when I discovered I wouldn't be able to play The Sims 2 (I had an apple computer at the time) and once I got my first laptop (windows) I went nuts and bought all the games and add ons cheaply (something like 10-20 dollars per game). Now I switch between both but like to play The Sims for some good old fashioned fun. :D

[rayray7876]

My cousins told me about it and i finally played it with my friend one day and i have been hooked sense its a wonderful game. And to all the haters of the sims 3 I did feel the same way but give it a chance, get some good downloads and/or expansion packs and the game is great! Hi! What first drew you to the classic game of The Sims?

I kept hearing about it from a friend and her son and it sounded like a hoot. Computer games were still fairly novel for me at that point and, even though The Sims sounded interesting, we didn't have a computer that could play it. When we finally got a new computer, we got the game for my son.

My son started a family and couldn't figure out how to make them happy. He told me there was nothing he could do, they were miserable all the time. I gave him a few suggestions, thinking of real life (silly me) and he tried a few of them, but it didn't work. I asked him if I could have them and he was happy to move on to a fresh family. That was it, I was HOOKED.

I think it was the appeal of taking care of electronic critters. Initially, it didn't seem so different from the electronic pet I babysat while my son went to school. I had my own problems with that family. I lost the son because he kept playing in the pool when he was supposed to catch the bus and he was sent to military school. Luckily, I didn't save then or after the time the mom was napping on a couch in front of the fire and burned up. I've remade that family on different computers - it's become my obsession.

[SingleClawDesigns]

My cousin played it but would never let me touch the damn thing. I remember she, my sister, and I would spend hours scouring the web for CC for the game and never use half of it(we could watch her play but never play it ourselves). I started right into sims 2 and in 2009 i bought the sims and makin magic, but alas compatibility issues because i have Vista. It works in compatibility mode I guess, but I'm so adjusted to sims 2 controls and graphics the appeal quickly wore off.

[RowenaLupin]

For me, sadly, it all started on the Gamecube. I had the Sims for the console because back then, I never thought anything about computers, and when I did get one it was one of those famous Flea Market types. It was as slow as a snail and it barely held Rollercoaster Tycoon.

But, I fell in love with it. I never finished the game, I always went far enough to open the stuff up, and then went off to play the Goth's or the Newbie's. After everything I'm seeing I might have to hunt around for copies of Sims 1. I'm especially interested in Makin' Magic.

[Roseblossom90]

It started for me close to my eleventh birthday. I was with my grandparents in Walmart and went to look at the video games (I was actually looking for a cheap deer hunter game) and happened to stumble onto the Sims. After reading the box three or four times I went to my grandpa and told him that I wanted it for my birthday so he bought it for me.

I stayed up all night that night on the game and the next morning when my little sister came out of her room to find me still on the game she got so mad she stormed back into her room screaming "Great! Now I'll never get a turn!"

Sad thing is, up until I gave birth to my daughter, I continued to stay up until sunrise playing the Sims, Sims 2, or Sims 3! :)

[hannahmh87]

My dad came home once with the sims 1 for me and my sister to play and it was love at first sight :luff:.

My sister was also hooked at first but she never took to it like I did.

I now have all 3 of them and she never got past The Sims 2.

[lovevslust]

For me it all started with a friendly neighbour I new for the longest time. I was around 11 or 12. She had a newer end Dell PC and Sims Life Stories (I believe, can't really remember). As I was in Middle school and Naruto and anime started to become obsessively popular she asked me as there was a 'adult' party going on outside if I wanted to play. She set me up with all the ropes and I created and moved my own "Naruto' themed family in. I was instantly OBSESSED. When I was unable to go to her house (she got mad because the only reason I continued to go over was to play) I kept thinking of who I would create and such when my family got out of the stone age. (However that didn't happen til I was in highschool four years later.)
I almost forgot about the sims until I went to my cousins house after she got hooked and played Sims 2 for the first time. A year later in highschool I purchased my first Laptop (which I'm on right now lol) And got almost the whole Sims 2 collection. When the sims 3 came out I was a bit skeptical because of all the words being tossed around by gamers and modders alike. Almost two years ago I opted out to get the third Series and have never regretted for one second all the hours and rigorously painful finger and wrist attacks I've had for four long hard years of mad gaming.
Sad thing is, I'm going into the Navy soon and won't be able to game.....how will I survive without my simmies!!! Oh well, I'll have to I guess. It'll just make coming back to them that much more of a reunion. I will die a sim fanatic I know.

[RomerJon17]

The Sims was my first game in my childhood! =D
Man I remember I used to hate the sound effects like 'Ghost sound effects' & 'Robber sound effects'.
They gave me bloody nightmares!

I played The Sims for 4 years and I remember I always sneak in to my computer and play The Sims in early morning.

And who remembers Claire the Bear who always messes up your trash can!?
http://images.wikia.com/sims/images/4/4f/Snack_hunting.jpg

[Black_Barook!]

There's this commercial complex in downtown Hawally, an urban district, that was predominately geared to gamers, nerds and geeks. You want a game, they've got it and if they don't then they'll pirate it for you. Now I was, and still am a computer gamer so there was only one store that catered exclusively to PC gamers and that's where I discovered The Sims.

I originally wasn't interested, and looking back I never understood why. I kept walking back and fourth looking at all the games they offered and either I had them, or they bored me. This left me with one choice, well technically two, they had Diablo but that scared me so I went with The Sims.

Of course it wasn't that easy. My mother noticed that two of the Sims were locking lips and made sure to have a little chat about that. I didn't see what the big deal was, I just wanted to build homes and terrorize the little b*****ds.

Three years later I'm downloading nude skins and "WooHoo" animations.

And that's how I become a whore. :giggler:

[smellincoffee]

Strictly speaking it started in Wal-Mart, where one of the computers on display had SimCity 2000 installed. I enjoyed playing with that, and eventually bought it, followed by SimCity 3000. My 3000 disc was "lost", so I bought SimCity 3000 Unlimited to replace it...and when I installed that, I saw the trailer for The Sims. I was instantly smitten. I bought it within a month of its release, and had a BALL watching Bob Newbie dance to the Latin station during the tutorial. I spent most of middle and high school engrossed in the adventures of my pixel-people, in building homes and designing restaurants and living vicariously so many lives -- gangsters, movie stars, preachers, marooned Starfleet officers, Ward Cleaver-esque family men, sleazy retired country music singers, professional gamblers....

Good times. At the moment I'm enjoying a neighborhood with a Maxis theme: it has homes from SimCity 3000 and the original game in it, and the Sims are mostly named after petitioners and so on from 3000. So I'm paying homage to my roots.

[justeffingpeachy]

Oh man, the memories. The Sims was one of the very first video games I'd ever played. I was around 8 and we had just gotten our first computer right around the time the game came out, and my cousin brought over a copy for us and showed me how to play. I still remember my first family, it was a blonde lady who was in the medical profession and lived in the Goth's house. I also couldn't figure out how to make her happy enough to go work or do anything and so abandoned her very quickly, but I soon caught on and got hooked. I still very vividly remember when I got the expansions too. Good times, haha

[Maranatah]

Ah, down the Memory Lane. :)

It was propably 2001 or something like that. I was visiting my friend who asked me if I want to try to play a game she liked and I tried. I remember that I had a male sim who kept wetting his pants all the time. LOL I was also more interested in decorating. I remember I furnished a nice big house and was quite proud of my work...Until another friend of mine came to visit my gamer friend and he started a fire in my precious house and it burned down. Damn, I was mad! Anyway, it took about 6 more years for me to get a computer that could handle games, and I bought the Complete Collection a month before I found TS2. I still have the collection pack installed and I play it now and then. It's so nostalgic!

[TheSlothPrincess]

When i was really little, my mom got the first Sims City (which didnt really interest me) but when she got the sims, i would sit beside her drinking a chocolate milkshake while she played and eventually she let me play and my dad taught me how to download CC when i got the Sims 2 when i was about 7 or 8. It's been all downhill from there ;)

[Peni Griffin]

In the late 90s, our living situation was complex. Our housemate, M, had an "office" set up in a sunroom in the back of the house. His girlfriend C (who during this period came to live with us, too) is, I think, the one who introduced him to Sims. He'd sit up late back there playing it, and they had contests, married their self-sims, and so on, and told me about them. Our house, which was built in 1910, is in continual need of work and I would get very frustrated at all the things I wanted to do, but couldn't. So Michael showed me how to build and turned me loose in his neighborhood, with permission to use it when he wasn't on the computer. And then I had a period of severe insomnia.

I mostly built, but M didn't know how to build on an empty lot, so I also had to build families in order to build. Whereas he and C tended to make their selfsims and then populate the neighborhood with people they wanted their selfsims to meet (I remember a Scotsman in a castle modeled on Sean Connery and a sybaritic house full of women called the Twinkies), I would make the March girls, or a single dad with a kid, or a lesbian couple, each of whom brought a child from a previous marriage. But mostly I built amazing unplayable fantasy houses. When M got Hot Date, he let me use his base game disk in our machine, at which point, with only one neighborhood to work with, I reached a point where I either had to stop building and start playing, or tear everything down. And anyway I'd gotten curious about how the houses would play. I'd go through phases of playing and not playing. At some point he moved out, and I bought Double Deluxe and found my own sources for custom content, which is when I began to get good at it. And when Unleashed came out, I failed my saving throw against buying it - had to have pets and vegetable gardens! Eventually my husband got me Complete Collection for a birthday.

It was never as engrossing to me as Sims2 is now, but it saw me through many hard times when I just needed something to do besides fret, and I still have the Complete Collection in case I ever need it again. 'Cause you never know.

[Juliana19285]

My mom came home with sims 1 one day and, well, i loved it! (even before i realized that the outside of the house was not the inside. Heh... xD) then, when i bought sims vacation, i saw the advertisement for sims 2 and bought that one myself.

Been hooked with sims 2 ever since. Now if only those expansion packs weren't forty bucks a pop and barely in stock anymore, i'd finish my collection. *facewalls*

[miss.pink]

For me it was when i was 10 my mom had a new phone and it had i game i would play for hours called the sims 2 mobile so i never knew its a pc game and i had a crappy pc,what i liked about the game controlling a person life i had a sim amy i would have her marry a guy or make a lesbian sim so i would to school happy and proudly say i made a girl kiss another girl she is a lesbian like its something amazing,i learned the game had a pc version when i had a laptop at the 7th grade i was searching the web and i saw a pregnant male sim and i thought that is wired and kind of cool so i watched a lot of vids about the game and finally bought the cd off the internet because i never found it in the gaming stores and i never had a lot of time to play it in first days because i had school the next day wonder what i would do if its wasn't a school day,now i have some eps and buying another ep and everyone in my family think im hooked to this game and they would say : stop buying this game cds,but i will never stop.

[gazania]

It all began with Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon. Kind of.

My daughter had received a Game Cube for her birthday back in 2004. I had a go at Ocarina of Time, but I was positively awful at fighting. My daughter eventually took pity on me and helped me out (I should mention that she was in elementary school at the time!) because I was getting a record number of "Game Overs". I did finish the game, however. Finally. Enjoyed it thoroughly, don't get me wrong, but could never say I was any good at it!

From there, it was on to Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon. I seemed to do a LOT better when I didn't have to fight bosses. I thoroughly enjoyed those games and played them for several months. I liked this kind of game! Originally, they were for my daughter, but we both wound up playing. It was a fun thing to do with her. I also seemed to be pretty good at button-mashing games, but I'm going off-topic now.

AC and HM kept both of us occupied, but I wanted something more for an older person. I had heard about this game called The Sims. When a local store went out of business and was liquidating its stock, I picked up a copy.

It might have helped if I read the manual more thoroughly first! My Bob Newbie had to be the most annoying character I ever saw. He kept setting himself on fire, falling asleep for no reason, arguing with everyone. etc. If I were Betty, I would have tossed the stinky bum out.

I had no idea you could toggle Bob. Oops. For a while, I thought it was some sort of survival mini-game: "Can you keep Bob Newbie alive before he does still another stupid thing to kill himself?" But even after I learned to toggle, I played Sims 1 for a couple of months and really liked it. My daughter also started playing it and enjoying it around the same time. She had pretty much outgrown Animal Crossing by this time, and was looking for something different. (We both still play many of the Harvest Moon games, though, even now.)

At that same store, I had also picked up The Urbz. I confess ... long loading screens aside, I liked The Urbz. I might be one of the ten people here who did. With those two games, though, I became hooked on The Sims.

I initially bought Sims 2 for the DS, and HATED it. Got rid of it as soon as possible. That almost ended my fascination with the series. Then I kept reading about Sims 2 for the PC and how much better it was than the DS version. I thought I'd give the game another chance. This was now in 2006. The PC version certainly WAS a whole lot better! And a whole lot more addictive.

In 2006, I was chatting with someone on MySpace about the game, and she told me about this great site she found called Mod the Sims 2. This site was a bad influence on me. I learned about the lure of custom content. Bad site. Bad, bad site. :)

And here I am ... I guess both of us are. My daughter still plays as well, though not quite as much.

NOTE: I should add ... and this gets the post back to the topic of Sims 1 for PC, that my netbook has all expansions up to Unleashed. Back in 2009, I wanted a Sims game I could take with me when I went to visit my mother, who does not have a computer. Sims 2 and 3 would give the poor netbook too much trouble. Then I remembered how much fun I had with Sims 1. So it's a return for me to where the series started, I suppose!

However, Sims 1 will just will NOT cooperate on the netbook with the Superstar expansion. I read that some Superstar expansions were badly glitched. Is this true? if so, I might want to get another copy of Superstar and give it a go again. If not, I certainly have enough to work with.

[acid_fairy]

I remember I saw an advert in a magazine, it had a few screenshots and a letter written from a child to her dad, and it went along the lines of 'Dear daddy, if you don't get me The Sims for Christmas, I'll tell mummy where you are when you say you've gone to golf.' (That could be utterly wrong by the way ;) )

I was absolutely SMITTEN by the pictures and begged for it for weeks. I was finally given it the same day I was going to the cinema with my mom to see 102 Dalmations and I really didn't want to go, I just wanted to play my beautiful new game!

[Miuki]

Oh wow, a Sim 1 forum! How did I miss it?
My Sim history started with Living Large EP than my cousin from another country had. She showed me some families she created, different fun objects, etc. And I instantly fell in love, previously I played strategies and shooters mostly and this simulation was a revelation for me. When I came back home I begged my parent to buy me a copy and afterwards all following EPs. I didn't have Internet at home then and didn't know about cc and hacks, so played the game as it is. Actually I remember managing a household of 6-7 sims easily, which is really hard for me now after playing sims 2 and 3. And then I found out about 7 Deadly Sims and All Around the Sims and the rest of excellent free sites. Let's say I had a lot of cc downloaded. I play Sims 1 still, there is some sense of humour and gameplay style that I cannot recreate with following sim games.
Ah, I distinctly remember that exciting feeling - loading a new EP for the first time, seeing all new objects, travel opportunities, pets... Those were the times.))

[aeval99]

I had never played video/computer games until I was in my 30s. My husband was a gamer and after we married he bought a playstation. He and his buddies would spend hours playing that thing and I would have to retreat to the other room to surf the web or read...and being a good husband, he felt badly about that. Not too long after that Sims was been released, so he brought it home for me one day as a gift. :lovestruc

He created a monster! In the years past, I have bought every single EP, a bunch of SP's, and become an avid gamer. First it was an ad for SimCity on the back of a Sims game, then it was ancient city builders, then golf games, then came the day that I got an X-box. Needless to say, after spending the last dozen years updating a series of computers for me (honey, I need more RAM/a better video card), buying me an X-box(360), a Wii, a PS3(2), PSP and a bucket load of games, he probably regrets that decision. And the really funny thing...he doesn't really game anymore. ;)

[The SimWhisperer]

I never had a computer really before 2002, only an old lap top, that I didn't think would handle the game. Anyways, when I was in stores, I was always attracted to these Sim games, and what you could do with them. I always though they looked fun! Once I got a computer in 2002, and realised I could get these games, I bought a few of them at once, and I was sold on them! I bought every ep that came out. I didn't know about the Sims site really, so I never joined or even got patches that would have helped my game out a lot. But, then I heard of Sims 2, and got really excited about that, that once I got the new version, I could never go back to Sims1. At times I'd think I'd like to- seeing I still have them all. However, I'm used to the age progression now, that family is recognized, that building is much easier, and I know cheats! I never knew any, and the ones I did, like rosebud, never worked for me, I always go a message "no cheating"!
But, as I see the pictures and knowing I didn't go very far with Making Magic, perhaps for kicks I just might try it again. Particularly if Sims 4 sucks....

[Ponderosa]

Building houses building houses building houses BUILDING HOUSES!! :D

[ButchSims]

I was a big fan of SimCity, and when I saw the commercial for the Sims on TV, I wanted it. But I didn't have a good computer to run it. It wasn't till a few years later that I got the base game and a bunch of expansions for 5 bucks each at a flea market. I still have them. maybe I should load them up.....

[DJ.]

Well, it was a typical boring day, as usual. I didn't go to kindergarten, because I'd always get sick after two or three days.

My dad's best man's son and I were always best friends. His parents got divorced when he went to first grade, so it was quite difficult for him and he'd often come to my place to hang out and stuff.

When I first got the computer, I was 9. Of course, I immediately knew where the games are, I knew how to change the desktop and stuff (my mom's an administrator in the ministry of seas or something like that, and I used to go to job with her. There are a lot of computers).

My dad's friend, who got me the computer, installed the first game on it; Need for Speed Underground II. I loved that game so much, but I didn't attend races, but instead I'd drive around the town.

So, my friend (my dad's best man's son) came over and he'd always play the game. Of course, as many of my other toys, he SOMEHOW managed to uninstall the game (or he didn't? But I remember he did something to it). In lieu of the racing game, he offered me The Sims. "Simpsons?" I asked. "No, Sims. Something different, you'll see."

He brought me his game (which was on a recordable CD - so my first TS game was pirated. Mods please don't kill me). He showed me around, and when he went off home, I created myself and moved to an empty lot. Soon after, I started building (I remember, that the hardest thing was placing the doors and windows. I'd always miss a wall where I wanted doors and windows to be, and I'd always have to get back for the wall tool. How the hell do I remember that?!), and then I switched to Buy Mode. "Damn, I can furnish their homes, too?!" So I did. Very lazy, a bunch of non-matching furniture and a huge pool in the backyard. And then, I was able to type klapaucius faster than anything else.

Finally, I switched to Live Mode. After a while, I got used to it, and when my friend came over (after a week or so), he said "Oh, so you got the point of the game?". I was like "Yes", and was hoping that he'll show me something I didn't know. But he didn't. That was the first game I knew from heads to toes.

He also liked to play the game, and he was borrowing it to his friend, and he to his friend and so on. Therefore - my gameplay was muted the whole time. Nowadays, when I watch Let's Play videos on YouTube, I can't imagine that TS had sound the whole time.

I remember that one family had around 20 kids. All of them got taken away from me, because they went to military school.

I've been playing the game for so long, that when I opened Paint, I pointed my mouse at the edge, hoping that'll scroll the screen. :lol:

Four years have passed, and right when I was coming home with my friends from school, we somehow managed to start a topic about Sims. My friend said, "Oh my Gosh you still play that crappy game? Here, I'll borrow you my game, The Sims 2, tomorrow. You know that pajamas with hearts your female Sim wears? Well in TS2, you can change that. You can select as many hairstyles you want, as many clothes you want. Trust me, if you loved TS, you'll adore TS2." We had a deal.

She gave me the game and I installed it, and as she said, I loved it. But one tiny little thing is, I STILL didn't give her CDs back. Actually, I got them out of my drawer, and they're right next to my mouse. :lovestruc Ah, the memories. After that, I started buying expansion packs for the game (and yes, I almost forgot; for the four years I've been playing TS, I never installed a single EP. Four years with only base game, no CC. I think I made a record!). And years have passed and it's not anymore TS, so I'll end the post, right... here.

[kithri]

I bought the Sims for my sister, thinking she'd like it. She never even opened the CD package. So I eventually opened it, popped it in my computer...and became totally, completely hooked! I just loved that game, bought all the Xpacks, and downloaded cc like crazy. I especially loved Dincer Hepguler's furniture, so lovely...