Sunday 17 April 2011

Epic Fail

I've been falling into a worrying frame of mind recently. You may remember I decided to make it physically impossible to give into playing WoW again - destroying the disks, destroying the authenticator etc. Well, I thought I had found a game to occupy my restless gaming fingers, until I noticed similar behavioural patterns cropping up again. I thought I should warn former addicts about this game, and when I explain, you'll see why it could become dangerous.

The game in question is The Sims Medieval. For those who don't know, it introduces the RPG element into The Sims, so you have quests, professions and fantastical storylines. Sound familiar? In short, The Sims Medieval is what WoW would be if you took out the button-mashing element, the obnoxious other players and the monthly subscription fee. You can even do things like herbalism, and mining - it's a very strange feeling rushing for a node and then realising that no one else is going to steal it.

So you can see why any ex-Wow player would love this. Unfortunately I found myself rushing to play as soon as I finished work and finding the whole evening would fly by in a blur. At 11pm I'd go to bed with dishes still stacked high in the kitchen, my mind still buzzing with the pixels that had electronically stimulated my pleasure centres.

I had to nip it in the bud fast. I'm not criticising EA Games in the slightest - The Sims is a great franchise still going strong after eleven years, and The Sims Medieval was a much needed development in its evolution. But be warned former WoW players, it might leave you hankering after a little more than you bargained for.

3 comments:

  1. I played the Sims Medieval once so far since I've gotten it haha. I should dust it off! I could see how it could be addictive, but I didn't really feel that pull. Do you play the Sims 3 as well?

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  2. I guess it was the similarities between Sims Medieval and WoW that started firing off similar reactions in my brain. I always loved the profession levelling side of the game and I'm slightly gutted I never maxed out my alchemy on my main!
    I've played The Sims 1, 2 and 3 all to a great extent, 2 being my favourite. I'm heading more down the adventure game route at the moment though as I like the sense of progression and storyline you get.
    What other games do you play?

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  3. I can see that if you loved professions, I always hated them haha! Maybe that's why I don't enjoy the Sims Medieval that much! I played Sims 1 quite a bit, a little bit of Sims 2, and Sims 3 so far I have all of the expansions and stuff packs :) http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/FadedNovelty is my page if you'd like to add me there! I love adventure games too though, Zelda, Harvest Moon, Fable (all of them!). I don't play console games that much though because they tend to give me motion sickness for some reason.

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