Complexity-itis and Sims 3

The things leaking out on Sims 3 lead me to fear that it will suffer
from a "complexity-itis" syndrome that I've seen in other games where
the game designers take a good game and add lots of enhanced details
for some aspects of the game then greatly reduce the overall scope of
the game in compensation.
In Civilization 1 and 2 you conquered the world. In Civ 3 and 4,
you conquer a tiny island with city options so varied that you need to
build a data base to try to predict what they'll do. In Zoo Tycoon
you ran a zoo. In Zoo Tycoon 2 you brushed pandas.
In Sims 1 and 2 you evolved a neighborhood. In Sims3 you tie your
shoes while the neighborhood evolves elsewhere?

I recall an interview on Sims2 where they said they had three types
of players: Builders who built things, storytellers who created
stories and experimenters who liked to see what strange things they
could get to happen. It doesn't sound to me like Sims3 caters to any
of these three.

I have Sims Castaways on the Wii, and while you have the ability to
create several people on the boat that sinks, you can only play one at
a time (starting with whichever you initially pick until you find
where the others have washed up). I play it as one character, letting
the others do whatever they want, and frankly do not find it anywhere
as interesting as Sims2. It is a much smaller-feeling game.

Well, I get enough tieing my shoes and tripping over wastebaskets in
real life, thank you very much. I don't play games to replicate that
experience.

I guess--like many who have posted here--I want MORE scope in a game
when the next one of a series comes out. Not less.

On Mar 30, 8:14 am, "Madame Mim" <mad.... DeleteThis @bigpond.net.au> wrote:
...
>
> I liked moving from Sims  to Sims 2. I hope I don't end up mourning Sims 3's
> creation.
>

When they went from Sims1 to Sims2, they basically took the same
game concept and expanded it to take advantage of better graphics and
computer capability. Might and Magic did this very successfully game
after game (most of which were just beyond the ability of my computer
to play at the time they came out). (Yeah, well maybe 8 and 9 were a
comedown from 6 and 7.) But the descriptions of Sims3 remind me more
of the Sims Castaways on my Wii. It is not a bad game, but it is
tremendously limited compared to Sims 1 or Sims2. You build, for
example, by picking a building out of a catalog to place (once you get
the "tech" to put it in the catelog). I only play non-main sims to do
something like get them a 'job' going fishing or whatever. It is more
like an old 'adventure' game where you go from screen to screen and
click on a puzzle to solve it than it is like creating a life story.
And that is what Sims3 is starting to sound like. For example, the
decription that you click on a button to fullful the sims needs
implies to me that you cannot click on the stove or fridge or grill
and select whether to fix hamburgers for a group or a bowl of cereal
for yourself and so maybe ultimately cannot find mods of interesting
coffee pots and grills to put in your game, etc. Maybe all that
pretty architecture is only available in big chunks...and if you only
have one sim, how many houses do you need to build, anyway? I fear
Complexity-itis compounded by Consol-itis.