A DAY IN THE LIFE: LET'S PLAY THE SIMS 3

One of the best parts of playing The Sims 3 is the open world - you can look at anywhere in the neighborhood at any time. So, when you're trailing your sim to work or watching them jog to Stonehenge or wherever you might just see something interesting. In this case, I greatly enjoyed watching some trashy sims make gross googly eyes.



This girl, from Riverview I think (maybe Twin Brooks), is badass.



Ew, no. Peter Buck was indeed gay, but(t)... Serious explanation: as a decently-leveled Stylist, Peter can make house calls for people who want a make-over instead of sitting around at the salon. In order to get a good review and get more business, it's important to chat up your clients. Sometimes, that leads to awkward situations like this.



Uhhh dude maybe you should put on some pants


From here on out, the screenshots are recent.



Welcome to the co-bachelor pad of the Slobby Roomies, Robert Schaffer (the blonde with the plumbob over his head) and Tommy T. Pringles. The plumbob changes color based on a Sim's mood - the greener the better. When it's red - which we'll see - you're in trouble. Upset Sims are not very good at following directions and often pause between actions to cry or moan, especially if they're in grief over a death or other bad event.

Each adult Sim has five traits that make up who they are and how they interact with the rest of the world. Younger sims develop from having two traits as a toddler to three as a child and four as a teen. Robert's major traits (some are more prevalent than others; usually a sim exhibits certain traits more strongly) are Natural Chef, Slob and Disciplined. His lifetime wish is to reach the top of the Military career and become an astronaut. Tommy wants to reach the fifth level of five different careers; to become a jack of all trades. He's most just a Slob, but is surprisingly also Eccentric, making him interested in machines and logic, and even more surprisingly a drama queen due to Dramatic. He whines a lot. When he gets drunk, he's liable to becoming a Party Animal (more on that later).



Here, Tommy T. is trying to befriend a cute girl while the paparazzi naps a shot of Tiara Angelista and some other chick who's also a celebrity. Tommy tried to impress the woman in denim, but didn't do so well. See, you have to impress celebrities before they'll talk to you. Being rich, advanced in a career or highly trained in a skill makes this easier. We'll see more of Tiara later, even though Tommy didn't actually meet her that day.



William Fangmann will pop up a few times in this LP. He's a vampire, seen here at a gym. Robert really wanted to meet a vampire, so I introduced him to William but they didn't get along. I'm just glad William didn't get so upset that he attacked and turned Robert!



This is Robert and Cressenda Wells (or something like that; she has an odd name) getting heavy in the gym. Big Hartley is not amused. Robert and Cres hit it off really well; their signs matched or the stars were aligned or something. They immediately decided to go steady, which means the game treats them as boyfriend and girlfriend.



After chatting up the cute girl, Tommy got a hot dog at the food wagon. While chatting with a co-worker, he met and got to know Barry Lowesomething (I forget, sorry! So many people!). This is only because I thought Barry was cute and I wanted to stalk him and see if he's gay.

You see, I use twallan's Story Progression mod (get it here). My favorite feature of it - besides making the town/city seem much, much more alive in terms of stuff actually happening - is that it updates you as your family, friends and your friends' families do stuff. (You can also set it to everybody, or nobody, or set just births to everybody; I set my notices universally to "blood and family.") You'll hear about parties, relationships, crushes, nerdrage and more. Extentions that allow for specific personalities to be designated, like the previously seen Tiara Angelista becoming the cat burglar attacking the Cook household on a regular basis, make it even better. So, when I eventually became official friends with Barry, I'd be updated on the general happenings of his life. (You can then share that information with other sims by gossiping, which pulls from real interactions your sim has seen to display and tell... heh heh heh.)

Robert apparently wants to start "baking" to lead up to a "bun in the oven."



He makes his advance as Cres's father, a big-shot businessman in town, walks in.



And then enters her sister. They go upstairs anyway, with half of Cres's family staring her and a man they haven't met down.



Robert makes a new and improved move upstairs, this time in private in what looks a lot more like her sister's room, but who really cares. Cres looks horrified...?



She denies him and OH GOD WHAT THE -



...she peed her pants, and Robert's the one who has to be all mopey and do the Walk of Shame.



No, seriously, Walk of Shame. They do chat a little afterward and make some amends. Their relationship still took a major hit, but it looks like they'll recover. The floorboards, however? Not so much.



Back to Tommy! He's not involved with anybody, so he decides to call up Barry at his apartment to see if he wants to play some chess or videogames or something (he's a cultured slob!). No, seriously, I couldn't find a chessboard anywhere in Bridgeport for Tommy to play in a public space. It's annoying because Sunset Valley is absolutely full of chessboards, especially in the central park area. Ugh.



Barry's not at home, but Tommy saw Jun Xu in the lobby heading up to her apartment. Assuming correctly that she was something of a fan of going out, the two of them became buddies quickly and decided to go barhopping.



Unsurprisingly, a very drunk Cres walked out of Waylon's Haunt. Yeah, she deserves it after denying her boyfriend sex and then pissing all over her sister's room.

CHAOS IS A SISSY SO HE WON'T POST THIS

(Just be glad I don't use this hair, okay? It's described as "masculine.")

Almost everything pictured so far is from Late Night, Black magechill. Just so you know!

I recommend getting the Deluxe version, which comes bundled with Ambitions. There is no reason not to get Ambitions.




Robert, in all of his drunk glory, walks up to Ethan Wade (who he has never met) and cries on his shoulder. Surprisingly, Ethan consoles a complete stranger!



After making Robert feel a little better, Ethan asks him for a consideration at the next election. Because, you know, Ethan's the mayor.



Aerial nighttime shot - of Ethan's domain. (I don't know if this is SHOCKING to you guys, but I felt that it was a PLOT TWIST.)

This actually came later, when I was friends with Ethan and thus got notices about him, but apparently he was hitting it off with another man! With the outfit, that doesn't surprise me.



While Robert is making a fool of himself, Tommy T. is drinking the night away when he meets Tiara Angelistia from the very beginning of the story. She's a celebrity (2/5 fame stars - she's known, but not legendary), so she requires being impressed before she'll even consider talking to Tommy. Apparently, she thinks he smells.



He very quickly gets into her good graces and gets her phone number.

Great. The attractive roomie gets all of the bad stuff happening to him while Tommy is making friends and slowly making a name for himself (although he makes an absolute pittance as a ballot counter).



Speaking of friends, Tommy bumped into one of his co-workers, Toya Joiner. They did some grinding, leading to lots more hanging out at work (and thus failing pretty badly at getting promotions). They eventually became good friends!



After grinding, Tommy goes home to get down and dirty.



He expressed the desire to go get a tattoo, so I let him do so. Robert and Tommy T. have a good chunk of disposable money due to owning such a small house, but it's depleting much more quickly than it can refill...!

The two Sims in the foreground might not look like it, but they are flirting. The woman just asked the man if he was single. I have a screenshot but Tommy didn't have his tattoo yet so I felt like it would be a waste of space!



ROBERT IS A BROKEN BOY



Robert finally got that television he fixed back to Bianca Rubble. He then poured his emotions out. Bianca didn't really give a damn and left.

Robert doesn't have any friends. :<

Er, well, maybe not.



Jun got pissed and ran out of the bar!



*Tommy T. uses Ramble Aimlessly on Mixologist!



In a furious MUSCLE FOR STRONG mood, Robert hits the gym. Sadly, he doesn't meet a new Cres this time.



He does, however, train this random dude. He wanted to, so I let him. Sims that are highly skilled can sometimes train other sims, and there are even achievements for this! Each skill has a skill journal that details various statistics (most prepared meal, longest distance jogged, current rank in the town chess competition, number of romance novels written, etc.) as well as possible achievements. Each one has a benefit; for example, sims that have produced at least thirty paintings paint all future paintings more quickly.



Tommy's not doing so hot.



Similarly, Robert's combination of missing Cres, not having friends and yelling at a random man for several hours gives him a headache.



In his disgusting house, Robert eats sloppily and half-naked.



Tommy isn't as enamored with love as Robert's stomach, complaining to Lisa King (the black chick from the verrrrry start) about his situation with Jun.



To begin the healing, Tommy decides to temporarily focus on his career. Thus, he works on his charisma. This will also help with relationship building and possibly finding a mate! Charisma's biggest asset is unlocking new greets - conversations in the sims go through tiers, and the greets boost starting relationship scores and bump the conversation up a tier ("Cres thinks Robert is being flirty" eventually builds up to "Cres thinks Robert is extremely irresistible" as you construct a romance conversation chain; shared interests and generally being a varied person mean you have more topics to bring into a conversation and thus can build longer, more enjoyable chains).

Ironically, he soon learns Flirtatious Greet.

okay so I don't know whether to continue doing this or not since it only generates a little discussion! I'll just upload a BIG PICTURE of what TS3 looks like when not resized and tinypic'd. Usually the interface is lighter than this; dunno why it's dark here.