Very fun... for the first 3 hours

You start in a tiny little home, maybe 400 square feet, broke and unemployed. You find a job, meet the neighbors, and spend your time studying. This is my favorite part of the game, knowing there is so much to get done, feeling great anticipation, because it's my job to turn that little sim's life around.

My only fear when playing The Sims was that I'd eventually get to the point where I'd know pretty much all the game had to offer. Your sim will, sooner or later, be filthy rich, married, popular, and happy. You'll have expanded the home into a luxurious mansion, and furnished it with every conceivable object. You'll have met all the neighbors, mastered every craft, and generally be just where you imagined you'd be when you first began playing.

Then what?

That's it; that's the extent of the game.

Do you remember Sim City? Remember when you built everything you could possibly build? It's not fun anymore. There's just nothing to do after that.

Before you go investing your money in this game, think of sitting at your computer, making computerized characters eat, sleep, bathe, work, and play in order to progress in life. Then think of getting to that point where you've completely maxed out your sims, where there's simply nothing more to achieve. The next time you make your sims eat, sleep, bathe, work, or play, you're going to think, "For what?"

That point is only about 3 hours away from installation.

If you like hand-puppets, I think you'll like The Sims. You can act out roles between them and such. You can make a Friends or Seinfeld scenario. You can build your own dream house using the Sims' platform as a cartoony little architectural designing program. But nothing will ever be a mystery to you. Game events are designed a little too predictably. And you will create each character yourself, including every neighbor, and you'll habitually perform the same handful of tasks on them again and again to keep them alive and cooperative.

I don't think it resembles real life, because real life is mysterious, dynamic, and exciting. Playing The Sims is like playing chess, where you know exactly the extent of the entire game, and move the pieces around the board within the limitations of the game's design. But there's no long-term objective in The Sims; you just play the same game, performing the same tasks, to no end.

If you like advancing toward objectives, then you'd probably get bored of this game quickly. It's like playing House. Of course, if you like playing House, I think you'll love it.