Writing this post on only a handful of meager hours of sleep, haunted by images of hyenas, hearts, and pictures of beds, I'm barely functioning at school. All because of this game.

Certainly, this is a comman refrain on gamer blogs. Lack of sleep, grouchy mumbles, and psycovisual episodes where the game flashes behind your eyelids each time you snap them closed.

Then this Sims game must be GREAT! Right?

Well, define great. If great is nodding off during loading screens because you just want to "deliver the drum to the cheif" before you go to bed, and then being invited to a Luau, and of course, being much too nice (vs grouchy), you decide to "attend the luau" before sleeping in RL... then yeah, it's great.

But, my big beef is: It's such a joyless game sometimes. And that's saying something, considering it falls in the genre of simulated life. Isn't that depressing, that our imagined virtual life is just as mudane and meaningless as our real ones? Except for those fantastic moments, when we're invited to walk across hot coals by our current mate?

And another thing: How come my Sim is constantly aspiring for something more? I mean, no matter what I buy, what I do, she's always craving something else once I've fufilled it. What does THAT say about the way the designers view real life? If you really think about it, nothing is a more evident proof towards our society as insatiable consumers.

Or, maybe, like with every Sim game, I've started to question my interest level in watching the daily bowel movements of my virtual partner, timing my own to "save time" while playing. Ha. Gross.

All complaints aside, I'm goign to devote many more hours to playing the game, because I'm hooked. I can't turn it off, because I want to see more. More content, more of the story. And because, admist the mudane, awful and boring, there's moments that are utterly charged with human hope. An example, I'm insatiably curious to see the unpredictable outcome of genetic mixing, when my Sim has a baby... I want to see what its skin tone is, what eye colour it has, what it's personaility traits are... etc.... THAT'S the true beauty of the Sims games, the unpredicatable, uncontrollable events that make you scream with rage (peeing yourself before making it to a bathroom) or shout with joy (being awarded random skill point after aliens lift you away)

Life, REAL life, is truly intriguing in its most unpredictable moments.