Thursday, December 2, 2004 - Computer Games BAD...

I should know better to do this when I am in this kind of mental state, but a couple weeks ago, I bought _The Sims Mega Deluxe_ (with several of the expansions built in). I trust that you are all geeky enough to know of the game, so I won't explain it. As expected, I got caught up in it. Let me relate to you the sad, humorous life of my first character:

I thought that it would be easiest to start out with one Sim (turns out it's not easiest because of the social aspect, but that's unimportant). A few days into his miserable little life, he's making breakfast, and with no cooking skill manages to start the stove on fire. Now, no Sim can put a fire out by himself (he's too busy panicking - it's hilarious), so I endeavor to get him to call the fire department. Unfortunately, when setting up his home, I made the mistake of placing the phone on the wall above the stove. He watched his entire kitchen burn down. Then he lost his job, was too depressed to look for a new one, and I eventually let him starve to death.

I've been primarily running two characters now, and they have done quite well for themselves, moving all the way up their respective career ladders. Here's two good stories about one of them:

• "Chris" was getting ready for work one morning and needed a little dose of fun, so she went outside to play with her model rocket. She started a fire next to her, which would not have been a problem except that I was at that time running that game at the highest possible speed, so that by the time I paused it, 45 game minutes had gone by and poor Chris had started burning herself and there was no saving her. I felt justified in not saving that game.
• Chris moved all the way up the Science career ladder to the top position, Mad Scientist ( very cool). A few days later she drank one of her experiments and turned into a Criminal (one of the other career paths), so now she's a Criminal Mastermind instead (who happens to be living with an International Spy hee hee hee)! The money's better, but the hours stink.

Stupid game. Too much fun.