MAC Requirements
EA has now published the requirements for The Sims 3 on MAC.
From what I understand these are not minimum requirements, but rather the recommended requirements. (Not 100% sure though)
Source: Sims 3 Maniacos

MAC OS Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or Higher
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB
HDD 6.1 GB of hard disk space, with at least 1 GB additional space for saved games and custom content.
Vídeo ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of RAM or Intel Integrated GMA X3100 Supported Video Cards

ATI Radeon ™ X1600, X1900, 2400, 2600, 3870, 4850, 4870, NVIDIA GeForce 7300, 7600, 8600, 8800, 9400M, 9600M GT, GT 120, GT 130, Intel ® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) GMA 3-Series . This game will not run on Mac systems with processor PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) or video cards with integrated GMA 950 series.

Anyone who own an iPhone will know about the press conference being held at Apples HQ today, featuring the announcement of the iPhone 3.0 OS, soon to be released. But one thing that stood out was The Sims 3, which was also featured.

One things which O really liked was the ability to link your music library to the game, so that when your playing you can listen to the music in your library or play lists! This is going to be a really unique and interesting feature to the game. Wonder if your play lists will be the radio stations?

Another very nice feature, although I personally hate pay-per-content functions, is the ability to buy new content (in your game, so you don’t loose any gaming time) for your game from the Apple App Store, so far the price has been confirmed, and each item will be sold for $ 0.99 each. However, I doubt that Apple will support the idea of their app store being used for Sims 3 Custom Content, so you will most likely find a Sims 3 Mobile store from which you can buy Custom Content, although this is only a personal theory)

Overall the game and the new OS looks awesome, included below are 4 photos taken from the slide show.
Unfortunately this is the biggest possible size for them:

Kotaku has a fascinating article about the link between Montessori education, Will Wright, and Wright’s games (the Sims and SimCity franchises, and Spore). Will Wright attended Montessori school when he was a kid, and the article features several quotes from him where he draws the connection between his early education and his game design ethic.

The article is interesting and thoroughly researched, but for me the biggest take-away point was all the ways in which Spore falls flat. Wright describes his ideal game as an infinite playground where players, in interacting with the game, learn about the nature of life. He mentions that the failure space is often the most fascinating part of his games. (As opposed to a traditional game, where death just sends you back to the beginning of the level, and the player grinds through endlessly until they finally break through to the next level. Which is just the same as the first.)

Spore fails dramatically in both of these areas, and I think that’s why it’s been so poorly received by so many people who form the Sims’ core audience. As for the failure space - when your Spore creature dies, it dies, and you start all over again. I find it puzzling that Spore does the one thing that Wright identifies as “unsatisfying gameplay.”

As for the infinite playground aspect, Spore is nothing like that. Even though it has levels that range from “primordial soup” to “vast universe,” the world outside your playing zone is essentially empty.

At one point in the Tribal level, I zoomed the camera all the way around the entire world and found… nothing. Until I finally looped the planet and returned to my own little guys, of course. And I was unable to colonize those remote areas, but was stuck at the base that the game had generated for me when I graduated to that level.

The same thing happened in the Creature level. When I sent my Creatures to venture off the map, they found endless terrain which was empty of everything but grass and trees. Could I start a base out there? No. Once I fell off the migration path, I had to either return to it or starve to death.

Your activities are similarly limited. In the Tribal stage, you can either charm your neighbors or kill them. There is no live and let live, no way to assert a diplomatic truce, or move far enough away that your neighbors won’t bother you. And the only way to get “stuff” is to either kill or charm your neighbors, so unless you engage in either of those two activities, you’re stuck with the same single digeridoo hut.

With all of the levels, once you have reached stasis by either conquering or charming the required number of enemies, the game hustles you along to the next level. I found this evolutionary pressure to be one of the most frustrating parts of the game. I had been thinking that “now I’ve gotten everyone under control, I can have a bit of fun.” But the game’s swizzle stick clock, spinning and flashing and giving you a forward-pointing arrow that you can’t overlook, seriously distracts from any fun you might have once you’ve “won” the level.

It occurs to me that this frustrating experience may indeed be the lesson that Wright is trying to teach us. That life is an endless loop of either fighting or charming, endlessly repeated, with no time to sit back and just have fun.

Whoops, I just depressed myself.

Although most of the background music in The Sims was provided by noted soundtrack artist Mark Mothersbaugh, Maxis has a long history of tapping up and coming recording artists to lay down Simlish versions of their tracks for the game. Most of these came bundled with the expansion packs University, Nightlife, Pets, and Free Time.
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I briefly mentioned “hidden skills” in yesterday’s post, and I wanted to expand upon that today. As the player, you already have access to a lot of the skill levels, and can make some good assumptions about how your Sim is going to behave.

For example, if your Sim’s personality scores towards the high end of the Neat to Messy scale, they are likely to spontaneously clean things. (One of my Sims is 10 for Neat. Every morning when he wakes up, the very first thing he does is take out the trash. It always makes me smile!) They will also clean things faster and more efficiently than a Sim who is messy. Furthermore, a messy Sim will frequently cancel your action out of their queue if you tell them to clean something (and you have Free Will turned on, of course).

Other skills are more obvious. As your Sim maxes out their Creativity by using the painting easel, they will gain the ability to paint better paintings, and to paint custom sill lifes or portraits. However, if you take that same Sim and have them use the guitar (an object that boosts Creativity), they will start out by playing badly. Although they will move more quickly through the guitar-playing developmental stages compared to a Sim with low Creativity.

This is an excellent example of how “hidden” skills manifest in your Sims’ behavior. In this case, “painting” is one hidden skill and “playing guitar” is another. Both of these hidden skills correlate with your Sim’s Creativity score, but not directly. The ability to paint well does not automatically mean that your Sim can play guitar well. Although it does mean that they will learn to play the guitar more quickly.

Homework is a hidden skill which you will want to leverage. The more your Sims do their homework, the better they get at it. If it takes two hours for them to do their first homework assignment, it may take them as little as half an hour to do their tenth assignment.

Another hidden skill involves the pool table. If your Sims spend enough time playing pool, they will eventually be able to do trick shots (like the Xylophone trick shot, shown here). They will also gain the ability to “Hustle” another Sim. This can be handy, because a good pool hustler can earn up to 100 Simoleons for successfully hustling another Sim!

Hidden skills are not the same as hidden attributes. The only similarity is that they are both, well, hidden!

One example of a hidden attribute is your Sim’s gender preferences. According to the maker of the Bonsai of Wisdom, whenever you create a Sim, their gender preference starts out as zero for both sexes. What moves their preference in one direction or another is the amount of same sex flirting which they both give and receive, regardless of whether or not the flirt action was accepted or rejected.

This is kind of demented if you think about it, but it can be handy if you want to “turn” one of your Sims. Just line up another Sim of the gender you want your target Sim to prefer, and have them start hitting on your Sim relentlessly. (Not to overthink things but… yeah. WTF, Maxis?)

Aside from all of the skills that you know about (like Cooking), there are dozens of “hidden skills” in The Sims 2. A lot of clever people have dug into the code base for the game, and discussed these hidden skills online. One clever person even created an in-game object that you can use to see some of your Sims’ hidden skills! The usual caveat regarding cheats and custom content applies (to wit: back up your files early and often.)

One hidden skill which I haven’t found discussed is parenting behavior. I started thinking about this issue when I watched my newest Sim, Makoto, display parenting behaviors that I have never seen before. This particularly surprised me because Makoto is a Romance Sim, and Romance Sims aren’t usually known for their excellent parenting abilities.

Makoto is really good about feeding the baby. In fact, he is a little too good. Their kitchen is littered with discarded bottles, because he insists on spontaneously feeding the baby a bottle about once an hour. (As far as I know, babies need only two or three bottles per day. Certainly twelve bottles a day is a waste!)

If Makoto has to relinquish the baby, he never puts it on the floor. In fact, he will go to great lengths to hand it to another Sim, instead of putting it back in the baby bed. When I was playing yesterday, I noticed that he held the baby until his Bladder need went red. Instead of setting the baby down, or putting it in the nearby crib, he ran outside and all the way around the house to hand the baby to the nearest adult. He then ran all the way back to the bathroom to relieve himself - and it was a close call, indeed!

Here is a partial list of parenting behavior - good, bad, and mediocre - which I have seen:

BAD PARENT

* Doesn’t wake up if the baby starts crying in another room. If the baby’s crib is in the same room, a bad parent will wake up when the baby cries, but will be very grouchy about it.

* Always sets the baby down on the floor.

* Cancels your baby-related actions (i.e. change the baby, feed the baby) out of their action queue. Always has to be told to provide the most basic level of care.

* Refuses to bathe the baby, no matter how many times you tell them to do so.

* Never spontaneously holds the baby. Once they’re done doing the action you assigned them, sets the baby down on the floor and walks away.

MEDIOCRE PARENT

* Wakes up when the baby cries, even if it’s in a different room.

* Usually puts the baby back in the crib. Rarely sets the baby down on the floor.

* Spontaneously cares for baby. Occasionally has to be told to provide basic parenting services.

* Always bathes the baby when you tell them to do so.

* Holds baby for 30-60 Sim minutes before getting bored and putting it down.

EXCELLENT PARENT

* Wakes up at random to care for baby, even when it doesn’t cry.

* Never puts the baby on the floor. Hands baby to the nearest adult Sim, or puts it in the crib.

* Occasionally has to be told to STOP providing care.

* Spontaneously bathes the baby.

* Is always holding baby, until extreme personal need (i.e. Hunger or Bladder) intervenes.

The Sims franchise has always been egalitarian regarding same sex couples. Unfortunately, there is no way around the simple biological fact that boys can’t make babies with boys, and girls can’t make babies with girls. Here are the options, if your same sex couple wants to have a baby:

1. Adoption, the obvious choice.

Have your Sim pick up the phone and call Service -> Adoption Agency. If your Sims meet the adoption agency’s requirements, a youngster will be delivered to them the next day. When you adopt, you get to choose between Baby, Toddler, or Child, which is nice!

2. Plantsim Spawn

If you have the Seasons expansion pack installed, you can turn one of your characters into a Plantsim. It’s not easy to turn your Sim green, since the change is related to the number of times your Sim sprays his or her garden plants and fruit trees. And you have to wait for the plants to need spraying, you can’t just send them out there to spray things willy-nilly.

Once your Sim has been turned, they have the option to spawn a Plantsim baby.

3. Alien Abduction (Men Only)

When your male Sim is abducted by aliens, they may return to your lot having been impregnated. The pregnancy proceeds just as it does for female Sims, with morning sickness and everything. At the end of the pregnancy, your Sim will find themselves the proud parents of an alien child.

Side note: the alien child’s other father is the Pollination Technician, from whom the alien child inherits its “distinctive features.”

4. Tombstone of Life and Death

The Tombstone of L&D is a cheat object which you can make appear with the boolProp cheat. Once you have spawned the Tombstone from your Sim, you can use the Tombstone to then spawn a child from your Sim.

This is an excellent way for a same sex couple to get a “true” child, but the usual boolProp caveats apply. If misused, boolProp can trash your entire game, so use this option with extreme care!

5. Infidelity

It’s not a savory thought, but it can be kind of fun - the challenge is not to get caught! If you decide to go this route, you will spend a lot of time shuttling your Sims on and off your lot, to keep them from learning about the hanky panky going on.

Female couples have it relatively easy, because they can carry on a simple affair. (You will probably want to sign up the other Sim for a job first, to leave the house free for a set period on workdays.)

Male couples will have a harder time, because somehow the female party will have to stay on the lot long enough to carry to term. This means that you will have to Propose -> Move In, so that she lives on the lot, and keep her apart from your Sim’s boyfriend/husband. One suggestion is to create a second house (more of a stand-alone room or shed) on your lot, and lock the door. Think of it as a love nest!

Keeping your Sim properly fed can feel like a challenge sometimes. And of all the Needs, Hunger is the one which is most lethal, and least-likely to self-correct. A Sim low on Energy will collapse and fall asleep on the floor; a Sim low on Bladder will wet themselves. But a Sim low on Hunger could easily keel over and die. I’ve seen it happen!

Because it is so lethal and because hungry Sims don’t have an easy fail-over option, Hunger is the need that you want to monitor most closely. Before your Sim engages in a long-term activity like studying or going to bed, check their Hunger level first. If it’s getting low (less than 30% remaining), have them fix something to eat first.

Meals are more filling (which means your Sim tanks up more quickly) when they are cooked by someone with high Cooking skill. Of course, your high-Cooking Sim isn’t always around when you need them. In order to forestall any problems, I’ll periodically have a high-Cooking Sim fix several meals in a row. Before they dish up the meal, cancel that action, and command them to “put away leftovers.”

Once leftovers are in the fridge, any Sim can simply fetch them back out. (Even children, which is handy, because it can keep the Social Worker at bay.) Click on the fridge, select “get leftovers,” then choose a leftover meal from the pop-up menu.

Leftovers seem to have an indefinite lifespan in the refrigerator, by the way. My Sims recently ate a Thanksgiving turkey which was cooked by a member of the previous generation.

As a side benefit, many Sims with high Cooking skills will roll the aspiration “serve meal.” When another Sim eats a leftover meal that your high-Cooking Sim has cooked, it fulfills your high-Cooking Sim’s “serve meal” aspiration.

Food can also go in your Sim’s inventory. If you have a Sim with no cooking skills, and no money, and you want to send them off to another lot, you can stick one (or many) meals into their Inventory. Simply click on the Inventory panel, then grab the plate of food and drop it in there. I’m not exactly sure where your Sims keep that plate of pork chops… maybe it’s best not to ask.

Fresh fruits and vegetables can also make meals more nutritious. (See my earlier blog post on sparkly food for more information on this.) An excellent strategy, if you have the Seasons expansion pack, is to have your high-Cooking Sim prepare several meals with fresh produce, and stick them in the fridge. These super meals will top off your Sims’ needs very rapidly!

A caveat: the more filling a meal is, the more fattening it is. (Ain’t that always the way?) If you use this strategy, you will find that your Sims get fat quite quickly. Fortunately, they lose the pounds just as quickly - a few turns on the workout machine will get them right back into shape.

If you want your Sim to hit the top of his or her career ladder, the first thing you need to do is get their skills up as quickly as possible. Once your Sim takes a job, there will be precious little time for skill building, so start them early!

Your work as a slavedriver begins when they age to Child. Obviously they need to keep their homework done enough to prevent the Social Worker from showing up. Focus on having your child Sim do just enough homework to maintain a C or B grade. This will leave them with enough free time to engage in skilling.

I find that trying to get child Sims to boost any skill other than Creativity is often an exercise in frustration for both of you. Plant them at a musical instrument or painting easel and let them Creativity the hours away. Some child Sims may enjoy boosting their Logic skill by playing chess or looking through the telescope. If your child Sim protests or gives up on these activities, don’t push it. You’ll have plenty of time to skill them up later in life.

The same essential strategy holds true for the Teen years. Except that teenage Sims seem to be more willing to boost their Charisma by practicing their speech in front of a mirror. (As long as they’re there, you may as well have them use some acne cream.) Teen Sims can also benefit from using the telescope to search for alien life. If they get abducted, it makes them eligible for a college scholarship - bonus!

By the time your Sim gets to college (if you have the University expansion pack) they should be at level 3 or 4 for most of their skills. At this point, you will want to start focusing on the skills you know they will need for their chosen career. For example, if you intend to put them through the Culinary track, you will want to have them focus on studying Cooking. For the Athletics career track, put them on the exercise equipment and max out their Body skill.

There are several ways to increase the speed at which your Sim levels up their skills. The most notorious of these is the Thinking Cap, which is an aspiration award. Unfortunately, if your Sim dons the Thinking Cap while their current aspiration level is less than gold, the Thinking Cap can malfunction and deduct a skill point.

Each career track has a career reward associated with it. If you get high enough in the Business career track, you can get a mini-golf putting green. The Athletics career track nets you a punching bag, and so forth. When your Sims use these career rewards, the associated skill is boosted more quickly than it normally would be. This can be very helpful if you are running a legacy family, since each family member can climb their career ladder and essentially donate a career reward to their heirs.

The speed at which your Sim learns new skills is also partly determined by their personality. Sims with a high Neatness score will pick up Cleaning quickly, while Sims who are slovenly will protest your request. I once had a Sim whose meter was pegged on the sloppy side - whenever I told her to study Cleaning, she walked over to the shelf, picked up the book, then self-canceled the action and put the book back. I was never able to get her past Level 1 in Cleaning. Some Sims just don’t have what it takes!