The Sims Life Stories (Windows)

THE SIMS LIFE STORIES lets you choose to play as a young woman, Riley Harlow, who finds herself caught between a new beau and an old flame, or as Vincent Moore, a successful tech entrepreneur in search of someone to share his comfortable life. Each story takes place over 12 chapters, plus you can also choose "free play," which is more akin to the classic The Sims storyless gameplay. You must micromanage the lives of virtual people ("sims") by having them eat when hungry, sleep when tired, develop relationships, and take on a job to make money so you can buy items to customize their homes. The game mechanics work more or less the same in Life Stories, except you follow a specific story. Consider Life Stories a romantic comedy.

Similar to past Sims games, much of the humor lies in the gibberish language spoken by the sims, along with the cute animations, such as tickling someone, tossing out a stinky bag of trash, or the pixilated body parts when your sims need to use the toilet. Life Stories offers a fun twist on Sims gameplay, but it isn't perfect. A number of artificial intelligence problems can disrupt the experience. Another problem is related to time, which sometimes seems out of sync in the different locations.

Other odd behavior might be fixed with a downloadable update from EA: Riley can serve drinks at a house party in her underwear, for example, yet her guests don't say a thing. Despite these shortcomings, Life Stories is a very fun game, whether you've played any of the past Sims games or not. In fact, you may find that you're more interested in what will happen to your sims than you are willing to admit.