“I got home from work and checked my bills, then I had to go inside and prepare to serve dinner for some houseguests that should be arriving. However, my toilet was clogged and I almost burned the kitchen while cooking.” said James Johnson, a first year student at De Anza.

He didn’t have any bills to pay, nor did he have any houseguests. None of what he said was real, it’s all from a computer game that Johson plays that is called “The Sims.” Created by Will Wright, founder of the game company Maxis and the man who brought us the original Sim City, Sim City 2000 and Sim Earth.

“The Sims” is a game that allows you to manage a neighborhood through manipulation of a family, their house, furnishings and interaction with neighbors. Call it a chance to play God.

You start out with a neighborhood of several families and the ability to create your own family. You can choose everything from the sex, age, personality, name and amount of family members per family.

Once you are done with that you are able to then design your house from scratch or can move in to a pre-designed house.

The third step, which is my favorite, is purchasing items to furnish your house and choosing where they go. You can put a toilet in a family room if you want.

Those three steps are only the beginning. After that comes the game play, and that’s seeing your family interact with the house and furnishings you gave them. You also get to control what they do. The game play is done through a simple point-click interface, where you tell them to do everything from take out the trash to using the toilet. There is also a meter bar that is used to show a character’s current hunger, bladder level, comfort, energy amount and more. Together you use these to make your character happy.

“The Sims” can become so in-depth that you may find yourself noticing the game to become a soap opera. Neighbors come over for dinner, Wife A mingles with Husband B and before you know it, they’re kissing and Wife B and Husband A are throwing fits of rage. Affairs can also get more complicated in the sense that Husband A and Husband B can start to have an affair. This game seems to be tailored to the modern world.

As you play the game more and more, you have the opportunity of choosing different job tracks, such as working in the medical field, being a professional athlete, becoming an actor, etc. In order to advance in the job field you’ve chosen, you have to acquire skill a certain amount of different skill points. Such as painting to earn creativity points, reading cookbooks to earn cooking points, working out to earn body points and practicing your speech in front of a mirror to develop charisma.

Based on the facts I have seen this game has taken people who refuse to play computer games, sat them in a chair, and caused them to be glued to the computer screen for three to six hours. To put it simply this is the game for people who hate games.