Review: The Sims 3
http://www.thesims3.com/

I had a lot of fun exploring this site and what appears to be a rather intriguing gaming sub-culture based on virtual people and virtual lives.

The movie quality animation is fantastic and the ability to manipulate your character and his or her story arch is indeed the ultimate toy for those of us who like the interactive experience, or those of us with a God complex.

In addition to the usual Forums associated with games and the like, this site also contains an ‘exchange’. Here players can swap everything from characters, their clothing, tattoos, households or even entire worlds, and if you don’t want to swap you can buy. On further exploration of this buy option, it appears that gamers can charge for their piece of person or real estate (we’re talking real dollars, and not always cheap).

Perhaps where this site gets interesting, and the thing I found somewhat amusing is how committed people are to their character and the world they have created for them.

If you want your character to be a star, why not create a music video, movie, comedy or drama, then your character can burn brightly for all to see (these can also be viewed on YouTube). If however you want others to feel what you and your characters feel in more detail, then why not write about the life of your character. But be well advised, some of this if fairly heavy going and these virtual guys and girls have more of a life and are more alive than their creators. As one person has commented: ‘WARNING: If you cry a lot get a hanky before reading this. I'm serious. This chapter is so sad I was almost in tears writing it. Emerald soon relizes her family tree and relives the most distressing and saddest moment of her life.’

An intriguing mix of media that works well -- if not a little on the addictive side‑‑.

George Michael: True Faith