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The Sims: Medieval
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Graphics & Sound:
About 10 years ago, a new type of game came out called The Sims. It was different from everything else at the time because there really was no "winning" to it. You simply kept on playing, continually improving your characters and friendships. This can be a lot more addictive than it sounds! Over a decade later, The Sims has been released in many versions and expansion packs on practically every platform and console, all leading up to the new The Sims: Medieval.
Now I must admit that I have been playing the last few The Sims games on either a console or DS, so it's been a long time since I've played one on a PC. I do think that this one was a good choice to return to PC gaming. The graphics are quite beautiful and, for the most part, they flow seamlessly. The only time I had to wait on things was when I switched from outside a building to inside, but my laptop doesn't have the world's fastest graphics card, so honestly, I was impressed with how smoothly the game ran. Unlike a lot of current games, you can actually play The Sims: Medieval without having a brand new machine with a massive videocard.
I really liked the medieval background music of The Sims: Medieval. It reminds me of being at a Renaissance fair. As is normal, the sims all have voices, but you can't understand what they are saying. You can, however, understand the announcer at the beginning and I really like his voice. |
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Gameplay:
Like a lot of things lately, the install for The Sims: Medieval takes a long time and then after you're done, there's already a patch or two available, so basically count on 30 minutes minimum to get the game installed. But that is about normal for current games. That first patch will "reset any in-quest progress," so I recommend you patch before starting your game. The ones since then haven't hurt your game. After you're done with the install, you get a nice intro. The intro reminds me of Black and White and you are the "watcher." You need to help guide the people since they're a bit stupid at times. You do this through heroes that you can guide so that the people will follow them. As you play, you'll gain experience in your watching which will allow you to take on bigger and better cultures.
When you start the tutorial, you'll create a monarch. You can choose from two different characters with very different traits or you can create your own. Anytime you need a hero, you can create your own sim for the job, which really makes the game a lot of fun. You can even throw your real friends in there. There are a lot of choices for both male and female, so you can pretty much make your sim look like anyone you want. After you choose your look and clothing, you will need to develop their personality. Each character has to have two traits and one fatal flaw. You have to have that flaw since just like in real life, there are no perfect people. Some traits and flaws can't go together since they are essentially opposites of each other. After you have your monarch, you can start the tutorial. Keep in mind that saving is "disallowed" in the tutorial except when it is teaching you to save, so be prepared to play for a bit straight or leave your game running until you can get back to it. The tutorial shouldn't take you too long though and it does tell you a lot of helpful things. The one thing I wish it had told me was that I needed to go home to cook. I kept running around town hoping I could borrow a stove to cook on and there was none to be found.
After you're done with the tutorial, you'll select a quest to start. Each quest is worth a certain number of points that you can then use to buy buildings to build up your kingdom. Some quests are done by specific heroes and some allow you to select your own heroes. If a quest gets stuck and you can't find a solution online, you can always cancel it and choose another. Don't spend a day trying to wait on it to fix like I did. You can always choose to retry it later and hope that it doesn't stick again. After you've completed your quests on the first Ambition, you'll be given the option of two new Ambitions to choose to try. There are 12 Ambitions total, so completing them all makes this a pretty long game! |
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Difficulty:
Once upon a time, The Sims was one of the easiest games ever, if you were persistent. All you had to do was direct them a bit. There was no time limit or things that you had to do at any given time. Granted, if you wanted to move the bit of a story that there was on, you needed to eventually do certain things, but you didn't have to if you didn't want to. The Sims: Medieval has decided to change that a bit on us, and things are somewhat more difficult because of it. With the new quests that you have to accomplish, if you're not working on them hard enough or quick enough, you'll be marked on the list to go to the stockade, which causes you to lose focus from then on out. So far, I haven't been able to get my sim actually thrown into the stocks yet and I tried pretty hard when I had a quest stuck (which I never managed to get unstuck, unfortunately and just had to quit it).
The quests are actually pretty easy to complete for the most part. You just have to work on balancing the daily duties of your characters with the quest duties and their health and energy bars. It is a true balancing act, because you don't want to run through the quests too quickly. You still need to talk to people and build up friendship, so it's not as easy as it sounds. |
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Game Mechanics:
You will need a combination of the keyboard and your mouse to play The Sims: Medieval. A lot of things can be done with just the mouse, but things like rotating the camera are keyboard controlled. It's pretty easy to get the hang of and you can always refer to the key commands pages in the manual if you forget anything. The tutorials do a pretty good job of explaining things, so you should be fine if you pay attention. I did find that a lot of the time, the default camera angle had me staring at trees, so turning the camera or zooming in was important to see what was going on. The only other thing I had trouble with was clicking on moving people to talk to them. I found it was easier either to pause the game, click on them to interact and then unpause it or wait until they were offscreen so that I could click on their marker. You will also find the Go Home button very handy. You can send your sim home so that they will then be able to cook and eat, both of which you'll need to do for them to survive. There are no cleanliness or social bars in The Sims: Medieval. I guess they weren't as important to middle ages people as they are today.
I haven't played a Sims game in a few years now, but The Sims: Medieval reminded me why I used to be so addicted to them. There is something to training these characters, socializing them and teaching them, that just keeps you playing for hours on end. I recommend you check out The Sims: Medieval today, if you have the time for another addiction. |
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, or Windows 7, Processor: XP: 2.0 GHz P4 or equivalent, Vista/7: 2.4 GHz P4 or equivalent, Memory: XP: 1 GB, Vista/7: 1.5 GB, Hard Disk: at least 5.3 GB with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games, Graphics: 256 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0, Sound: 9.0c compatible sound card |
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Test System:
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 3, Processor: 2.4 GHx, Memory: 3 GB, Hard Drive: 10 GB free, Graphics: 128 MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, Sound: DirectX 9.0c |
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