Sharing My Love For (Plus 9 Fun Facts About) The Sims

If you read mental_floss with any regularity, you already know that I get easily addicted to certain types of video games. My husband can't get enough of FIFA Soccer '08 for the Wii. I'm so not interested in games like that. Or games like Call of Duty. But I'm scarily obsessed with Guitar Hero, Rock Band and World of Warcraft. And during my freshman year of college, long before any of those games came about, I was holed up in my dorm room playing The Sims.

Creator Will Wright says the game is like having a virtual dollhouse to play with. And he's absolutely right. But it's strange that I like The Sims so much, because I never liked playing with dolls. (In fact, I find them rather terrifying.) At first, it was just fun building houses and decorating them. Then I got into the positively addicting habit of making and naming Sims after people I knew. It was fun to see if the Sim versions of us would interact like we did in real life. Plus it was always fun to kill your friends off. "Hey, Courtney, I accidentally built a room with no door around your Sim and it starved to death. Sorry about that." This might mean I have psychotic tendencies. Whatever. Also, with my love of trivia, I liked finding Easter eggs and inside jokes scattered throughout the game, such as the "See Me, Feel Me" pinball machine.

Of course, just when the fun of the Sims was starting to wear off, Maxis started rolling out with the expansion packs. And you'd better believe I bought all of them.

"¢ House Party added rave-like objects like a lighted dance floor, a mechanical bull, a go-go cage and a DJ booth. If you have a rockin' party (enough people, enough food, etc.), Drew Carey might show up. You can't talk to him or anything, though, you can only watch him work the crowd and talk on his cell phone. If you're having a boring party, a mime shows up and annoys your guests until they all leave.

"¢ Hot Date allowed your Sims to, well, go on Hot Dates. This was especially fun for messing with your real-life friends.

"¢ Vacation allowed Sims to take skiing holidays and camping trips (among other destinations).

"¢ Unleashed introduced the world of pets.

"¢ Superstar was one of my favorites. You could become an actor or singer and become celebrities, complete with groupies. If you are good enough to win a "Simmy", Marilyn Monroe hops out of a limo and presents you with an award.

"¢ I thought I would really like Makin' Magic, an expansion pack that capitalized on the Harry Potter trend by letting Sims cast spells and make potions and brews. But it was, eh, only OK.

2) Sim teens get zits if their hygiene levels drop.

3) Social workers will come and take away babies if your Sim isn't caring for them properly.

4) The NPC character Mortimer Goth is most likely based on Vincent Price.

5) Depending on how many expansion packs you have, you can become a ghost, a vampire, a zombie or a werewolf. Oh, you can also be abducted by aliens.

8) In The Sims 2, your Sim could be randomly struck and killed by a satellite falling from the sky. This is pretty rare, but it does happen.

9) There is a Sims movie in the works, which I am kind of uncomfortable with.

Anyway, at some point my PC crashed and I ended up getting a Mac. Being a poor college student, I really wasn't up for buying everything over again for the Mac. So I fell out of my Sims habit. I did eventually get The Sims 2 for the Mac, but I guess my addiction just burned itself out. Until now.

I was more than happy to help, and when it was complete he said something like, "Wonderful! I can't even tell the difference between this and the real thing! ...and neither will my customers." Shady Sims. You just can't trust them.

Well, are there any other Sims addicts out there? Bella Goth fans? Am I hopelessly outdated?