The Sims
Windows - 2000
Description of The Sims
I have developed two analogies for understanding The Sims. One: this game finally creates interactive French cinema; and two: that we all live very sad TV lives.
Most movies coming out of Hollywood follow a familiar theme (no wonder John Grisham books are so easily translated). Young good-looking character challenges all odds yet manages to win the girl/guy and live happily ever after. While this can be great entertainment, it's certainly not art. For art, try a foreign film. Young average-looking character faces insurmountable challenges, meets an angst-ridden girl/guy and one or both die. That's life; that's art.
Martha Stewart's Living
If you enjoy an occasional foreign film and aren't already on anti-depressants, The Sims may be the perfect game for you. Which is a bit strange - The Sims is almost certainly not a game. After playing five hours of Unreal Tournament I rise from the chair feeling slightly bouncy with a heightened sense of excitement. After five hours of The Sims, I rise from the chair feeling depressed and unhappy with my meager existence, yet eager to play again. Very, very odd. Kierkegaard would be proud.
Have you ever dreamed that you were working? You know the dream - you work and work and work, waking completely tired only to face nine hours of real work at your real job. That, my friends, is exactly what playing The Sims feels like. After several hours of housework, cooking, bathing and watching TV, it's time to put the computer away and clean the house, grab a snack, take a shower and watch TV before turning in for the night. Yet as you lie in your real bed all you can think about is cooking, bathing, watching more TV and going to work (with your Sim family) all the while planning tomorrow's real world activities of working, cooking, cleaning and watching TV and playing The Sims. This is one sick life we lead.
Days of Our Lives
At first, The Sims struck me as an interesting academic exercise, but not much entertainment. My Sim-family was not happy, the house was perpetually in need of cleaning, and nobody got along with each other. No matter how much I tried, I never felt in touch with my family. I can have all of that without turning on a computer. Even when Child Protective Services took away that brat of a child (thank goodness), I never really found myself wrapped up in the game (and without my real-world bratty kid around, I have more time to play on the computer - just kidding). In a moment of enlightenment, I decided to create a Sim family reflective of my real life. I made a Sim wife similar to my real-world wife. I created a Sim mother-in-law that I didn't get along with, a Sim-brother with a Sim-babe of a wife, and a Sim-sister-in-law with a friendly Sim-boyfriend.
I immediately took over the role of my sister-in-law and pissed off her Sim-Mom (take that!). This was fairly easy, as I made Sim-Mother-in-law exactly like the real-world-mother-in-law. I then took over my Sim-Brother's house and invited myself (Sim-Ty) over for dinner. Once Sim-Ty was in the house, Sim-Babe started making nice in the hot tub. Before long, Sim-Ty and Sim-Babe were sneaking away for kisses. This was working out perfectly! Naturally, Sim-Wife got a bit angry at the budding romance, but she brought this on herself. For years I've been complaining that she doesn't... wait, is this getting too personal?
The next day (in real life) I came home, started The Sims, and found (to my horror) that my real-world wife had patched things up between Sim-Ty and Sim-Wife. All my hard work for nothing. Not only that, but she had managed to get me promoted at work and had bought me a large-screen TV. She was keeping the house clean, had taken a few cooking classes, and appeared to really want this relationship to work. Perhaps this was the spark we needed to re-light the fire after ten years of marriage. I felt guilty for trying to seduce Sim-Babe (especially for betraying my brother, who remained a loyal buddy). This was all very confusing. Maybe she was sending me a message. But was she simply playing the game or did she really want to revitalize our marriage? Was I getting the two confused?
On the lighter side, my Sim-Wife caught herself on fire while cooking. Sim-Ty came to the rescue to extinguish the flames. I sent Sim-daughter over to assist, but a child cannot use a fire extinguisher. Instead, she tickled Sim-Mom while she burned. I was laughing so hard it hurt.
The X-Files
This was just way too weird, like something from the X-Files. I happened across one of the many The Sims fan sites and uncovered X-Files skins. I downloaded a Sim-Scully and Sim-Mulder. I'm not much of an X-Files fan, but figured that playing as Sim-Scully/Sim-Mulder would be a good framework for the game.
I moved the X-Family into my neighborhood, used the money cheat to build a very nice house, and set about moving Agent Scully into a promising career in medicine. Police work isn't really an option, so I ran Mulder through the scientific career track (serves him right). I tried my best to fit into the neighborhood. Though Mulder and Scully are quite different, their personalities meshed well together. Their complimentary personality traits created an easy-to-manage environment. Before long, both had moved up the career ladder and seemed quite happy.
Then something quite amazing happened: Agent Mulder arrived home from work. Usually, a message box appears saying something like "Agent Mulder earned $450 today. [OK]" Instead, I received this message "Agent Mulder has found the remains of an alien spaceship, finally proving his theories. He receives $1,000,000 for the artifacts. [OK]"
As I scurried to grab a screenshot, the message box disappeared and a new one took its place: "It turns out the spaceship was another hoax. Sorry [OK]" Somebody at Maxis has a real sense of humor.
A Docu-Drama
I am very impressed by this game for a variety of reasons. It doesn't provide the traditional gaming experience (which is a good thing), and though I can't say the game is fun, it certainly is addictive. Well, maybe not addictive, but I don't mind playing it. I am also surprised at its wide audience appeal. My real-world-wife doesn't play computer games. The last game she played was Theme Hospital and before that, Super Mario World. She doesn't enjoy computer games. But The Sims is very different. I can't keep her away (and now she's neglecting housework and our kids go hungry and unbathed). She's probably spent more time with The Sims than she has with her family in the past week.
The Sims is also one of the more-polished games I've played. >From its open-architecture design to the highly-flexible gameplay options, everything about this game feels complete. For example: I loaded my favorite MP3 files into The Sims directory and can listen to them when I turn on a Sim radio. I downloaded new furniture from The Sims' web site. I downloaded new skins from a fan site. With this expandable game engine, fans will quickly enhance the game in ways the designers never imagined. I have already seen Star Wars skins, log cabin houses, and a variety of interior decoration schemes. I am already imagining The Simpsons living next door to The Brady Bunch.
A Re-Run
On the negative side, as with most of Maxis' games, a higher-goal never materializes. Once you've played through the life-cycle of a family you won't get much else from the game playing again. The game sometimes feels a bit too tedious. Instead of telling a Sim to "Clean the kitchen" you must select each individual dish to clean. It's not any fun to point and click, yet this happens far too often. As a result, practically every gamer will eventually hire a maid for housework and a gardener for yard work.
Two other activities also take up too much of your time: bathing and using the toilet. While I agree these are both important (and sometimes pleasant) activities, The Sims should have a bit more autonomy with these actions. Instead, the game never rises above the micro-management details of everyday life. I want that level of control, but I'd also like to take a more general approach to some actions. You can't let your Sims coast even for a day without unpredictable consequences.
Finally, cheating is not only helpful, but also downright essential for success. Some career paths require a large number of family friends. If you haven't yet built a neighborhood of families, your Sim can never advance. To fix that problem, build a house for "The Friendlies" and stuff it full of happy, friendly people. Then return control back to your main family and start making friends. Fortunately, cheating doesn't ruin the game. Even with the money cheat enabled, your life becomes only slightly more tolerable. Everyone still uses the toilet regardless of income.
The Sims is not fun; it is not a game; and is definitely worth buying. Just keep it away from the wife.
Review By GamesDomain
The Sims has an addon available: The Sims: Unleashed, don't miss it!
External links
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
Sounds!!! 2024-04-08 0 point
Please note!!!! For those having issues with sounds in the rip version, in addition to copying the entire Music folder from ISO version, you should go to Sounddata\stings folder in the rip version and convert all of those .mp3 files to .wav in order to have them in your game. There's a bat file that automatically converts them but it didn't run on my system.
frozen 2024-03-01 2 points
Windows 11, the rip version does not run well as it has some glitches. Resources won't load properly (the graphics are lost while the game is running). No idea how to fix it.
Patentcrane203 2023-01-18 -2 points
Can I install this game first and install the expansions separate in any order I want or I have to install the complete collection?
Michael (Revision 2) 2023-01-16 2 points
Does anyone know where to find the original, unpatched US release? Most sites seem to just host the same patched international version.
me 2023-01-16 1 point
hello, i have extracted the music from the complete edition iso to the rip version on this page. it should fix the lack of music in that version. however this is from the complete edition, so it might have some useless megabytes wasting space.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_5bBjdxISyB_mVQJF2NhB_274hdlTaZZ/view?usp=sharing
just extract it in the rip version and it should work.
discopegz 2022-12-19 2 points
Everything seems fine, but no voices or music :( anyone got any ideas?
hay 2022-11-24 -1 point
I'm trying to install the deluxe version however it won't finish installing as it is asking for CD2 however i don't have the physical discs, is there any way around this?
Windows-95 2022-11-12 0 point
you can install it anywhere in windows 10 atleast but i reccomend using a virtual machine
https://virtualbox.org virtualbox for the iso's to work
https://archive.org - windows or linux iso's
luckyluke 2022-11-02 2 points
i've downloaded the files, but after the installation the game doesn't start, i've tried to run it as admin and it still doesn't go, can someone help me? i have windows 11. contact me on telegram @thekingnocap, i'm italian
The Boz 2022-09-18 0 point
I can't believe The Sims is almost a quarter of a century old. I have Sims 1, 2 and 3 but still not played number 4 as of yet. Novel, engrossing and a quite indepth, I spent God knows how many hours on these games. With news of every new sequel I always prayed that the graphics would be more realistic rather than cartoony and the game itself a bit of a more mature experience, but now it's just a cash in franchise with more add ons than you can shake a stick at. Brilliant franchise when first released, but like anything modern, the gamer of today killing the industry by encouraging payable DLC diminishing from the real experience. A construction kit should be available for everyone to make their own stuff.
emily 2022-08-31 0 point
i cant seem to get the money cheat to work, using rosebud or klapacious
Dude 2022-07-05 2 points
Hi y'all! So: I can't see any pictures in the build-mode, it's all just blank boxes..
I can click em and place em fine, but i have to check them individually to find, for example, the right windows, and i get no infoboxes either.
Also, whenever text appears on screen, such as "are you sure you want to quit", it shows for a microsecond, and then goes invisible, but when clicking in the "air" where the clickbox is, it still works...
Maddie 2022-05-23 -1 point
Hi i was going to ask if i were to download this will this crash your laptop?
sad mario 2022-05-17 0 point
Can't somebody isolate those sounds files easily enough and replace them in the rip file? Come on guys, its the sims, its important
STACKRAMONI 2022-05-17 0 point
(I forgot to thank Exsosus for my solution. I wouldn't have figured it out if it weren't for him. The only thing I did different was add the ISO Sound File folder into the RIP version in addition to just adding the Music folder).
STACKRAMONI 2022-05-17 11 points
HOW TO FIX THE SOUND PROBLEM ON THE RIP FILE
A. First of all realize, the ISO version of the file won't run on Windows 10. It's the RIP version you need. But running it as-is will result in most music and most talking files missing.
And so:
1. Create a New folder on your desktop called SIMS_RIP. Download the RIP file into that folder and unzip it in that folder.
-copy 'sims' folder to a free directory on your drive. The "Downloads" folder should work for this.
-Double-click the Sims executable. Should run like a charm. Minus some sound files.
(The opening montage will have sound, though. Don't let that get your hopes up). If the game works, then good. Quit the game, and....
2. Create a Folder on your Desktop called SIMS_ISO and download the ISO version into that folder.
3. Open FILE EXPLORER and browse to this ISO file. Doubleclick the ISO file to mount it. If it doesn't mount, look for the "Manage" tab and then press "Mount Image". This will mount it. (Don't worry, you WON'T need a CD). Do not install this file or run it. It won't work on Win10.
4. Move the MUSIC folder from the ISO version into the RIP version (which will replace the RIP version of that folder).
5. Move the SOUND DATA folder from the ISO version into the RIP version, as well.
Now run the RIP version of this game. At this point you can erase all the redundant and useless ISO files that remain.
Now the game should run like it did in the old days on Windows XP. Perfectly.
Hello 2022-05-12 -1 point
Hi, to the guy below me - you might have downloaded a RIP, or the original game didn't have voices. I know that years ago, I downloaded The Sims 1 base game and there were no voices as well.
Hi 2022-05-01 0 point
The game plays fine, but some sound fx don't come through, i.e. voices, music.
How can I fix this?
:D 2022-04-20 1 point
I already downloaded 2 versions of the game so this dosent really affect me, I also have a disk version which crashes after the intro but when I downloaded this everything was fine, but to launch its saying I need administrator privileges, but I'm running it as an admin lol, I'll just try the Delux version :)
Jack1991Jeffrey 2022-04-11 0 point
You've bought back my childhood. I've been trying to find somewhere that this game would work on windows 11 for ages. Thank you so much!
undydundy 2021-05-04 -18 points
i have no idea how to do these things guys. I've downloaded it, opened it, and its just a folder full of files! help!! XD
Tarrabyte 2021-04-09 0 point
If you need help with installing the sims, or want the sims complete collection, come to my channel on youtube and I can get you started. It's really easy. If you need any help, message me on a video or come to my discord.
Legit, I thought about this site when I was looking for another site and I thought that I could be useful.
youtube.com/tarrabyte
Anita000 2021-01-25 3 points
Why does my sims.exe not run all the time as most times does not run at all please help
Gerty 2020-12-27 2 points
When I click on 'save my house' it gives an error message? Anyone know how I can solve this?
Michael188977 2020-07-22 -2 points
it says "Please insert the correct CD-ROM, select OK and restart application."
Please someone help!
joe 2020-07-04 -4 points
"Could not find the sims data directory" despite there being a data directory, whats up?
pleaseHELP 2020-05-03 -10 points
Hi, I downloaded it and now I have a lot of files and folders.
What should I do step by step? Thank you in advance
helpme 2020-03-20 0 point
i cant open it, i have never tried to open anything like this please help.
i can open sims folder the open sims application but theirs nothing i can do it just opens and plays a cut scene please help
ramiai8 2020-03-09 2 points
I need the serial number that usually is on the back of the cd. what should I do?
Unknown User #1 2020-01-04 -6 points
I'm not sure if the RIP version will work. As I'm typing this, there is less than 5 minutes left. Should I check it out?
Exsosus 2019-12-05 3 points
Hi everyone, if you liked The Sims, get the Complete 8- in 1 pack with all addons found here on Abandonware, and it runs right in Windows 10! No issues here.
Posted: Dec 5, 2019
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-sims-complete-collection-bfa#download
Simply install the ISO to your hard drive (I chose my external USB game drive which is portable for my hotel room) but choose an internal hard drive for faster speed, and you're good to go. Just open the program. You're welcome!
Exsosus 2019-11-29 12 points
Hi Sims 11111 infinite and others with same issue.
1) Download the 'Rip' version of the game for Windows.
2) copy 'sims' folder to a free directory on your drive. I put it into the Downloads folder to test-run it. Tomorrow I'll create a permanent folder for it.
3) Double-click the Sims executable. Should run like a charm.
Windows 10
Too fast graphics card
32GB mem
8-processor CPU Ryzen
Runs fine on this modern system and does not crash. Stable.
Hope I've helped.
Uemplayer 2019-10-20 3 points
i can open t and play but i cant see a half of the screen i see my desktop, anyone can help me?
tomy 2019-10-01 -3 points
Yes sound for the main game, only for the intro. Could someone please help me with this problem?
Wada 2019-07-21 0 point
Honestly, amazing, thanks a lot. Do you hapén to have Sims 2?
thank u xx
Opal 2019-03-20 2 points
For people having problems with the sound, mount the iso and copy over the music files to your games directory. For some reason the install leaves the music folder empty.
Pol666 2019-02-19 1 point
No sound for the main game, only for the intro. Could someone please help me with this problem?
rogir 2019-01-01 0 point
the rip version works fine for me! Great memories, this game! still awesome!
larry 2018-12-25 0 point
is there a difference between rip and iso versions?
is rip version only demo?
UNKILLABLE MILK 2018-08-01 2 points
LOL had this on my windows 98 XD still was an awesome game though
rON a 2018-07-17 3 points
i already have.
-Patch11crack.info
-sims.exe
i need help. its not opening. i have an fatal error message when i tried to. saying COULD NOT FIND THE SIMS DATA DIRECTORY. :(
help 2018-07-07 -4 points
when i instal sims it dont want to start game :( someone help how to fix it?
help 2018-07-07 2 points
when i instal sims it dont want to start game :( someone help how to fix it?
Old lady 2018-06-30 2 points
Not gonna joke. This link actually worked! I've downloaded and run it in my win8 and so far no glitch or error happened.
simsa 2018-06-15 -1 point
correction
press shift ctrl c together to get text box then enter klapaucius for $1000 for more a space then type !;! for every ! you get $1000
Selkis 2018-06-08 3 points
The product key is in the repertory "Crack&Serial" in the file serial.txt
SIMMY 2018-04-29 2 points
Music isn't working for me on the RIP Version. SoundData works though. How to fix?
XD24 2018-03-09 0 point
I had played many sims games on nokia j2me. They were good for time passing.
julian 2018-03-03 1 point
very nice game i love sims 2 and 1 now i have the first and its bugy but i don't think thats your fall but cheats do not work or the cheats online are not right
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Windows Version
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Various files to help you run The Sims, apply patches, fixes, maps or miscellaneous utilities.
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