So I bought The Sims 3. So I like The Sims, and have done since the first one. So I usually buy most, if not all of the expansion packs. What of it? Huh?

If I sound defensive, it is of course because The Sims is seen by many as one of the banes of the hardcore gamer. I’ve found it fascinating over the years, though. Ever since first playing Sim City, then being able to fly around a Sim City 2000 save game in Sim Copter, I wondered for the longest time how cool it would be to get right down to the “personal” level… and the original iteration of The Sims delivered bigtime. It became a social event, too – I was living in halls at university at the time, so inevitably I made all of the people in our flat as best I could. Everyone came by regularly to see what was going on and laugh at who had pissed themselves or passed out from exhaustion that day (hey, managing six people is tricky!) and it is a source of many fond memories.

Fast forward to today, and we have The Sims 3. Some things haven’t changed much (the basic gameplay still involves bossing your Sims around and making sure they don’t shit themselves, though this has been played down a little in favour of “Moodlets” – mood “buffs” and “debuffs” – this time around), and others have changed a great deal. The biggest change is the much-vaunted “open world” design of the game. In practice, this means that Sims can walk out of their front door, walk down the street and go and visit someone else. The difference this makes is enormous – no longer are you confined to your own house or specific “community lots” – now you can actually explore the world, and there’s a bunch of gameplay elements to reflect that. You can go fishing, collect things, find “treasure” – in many ways, the design of the game is getting closer and closer to something along the lines of an MMORPG.

Anyway, this time around, as usual, I made myself and my wife and am playing them “straight” – that is, attempting to be as successful as possible and maintain the family bloodline. As such, as Sim Pete and Sim Jane enter their twilight years, their two kids are growing up nicely and developing into fine young men. I just hope they don’t die before the kids reach adulthood, which is, of course, a possibility!

Having read some articles online, the Prima official guide (which is a good, fun read if you’re interested in the game and its mechanics) and, most notably, this touching and heartbreaking blog about two homeless Sims, I was intrigued to try out a completely different kind of Sim, using some of the more… shall we say “unpleasant” Traits on offer at character creation. Here were the results:

This is Lars. As you can probably see, he’s a miserable git. Maybe people laugh at his Sephiroth hair and overuse of man-makeup. Whatever the reasons, he’s become a bitter and twisted individual. He’s Grumpy pretty much all the time, which makes it difficult to keep him happy. He’s also Evil, which means he delights in the misfortune of others.

Naturally, he has an evil-looking house surrounding by a grungy-looking moat/swamp combo. He deliberately designed it to annoy his neighbours, who have a very pleasant-looking house.

Lars wanders over to pay his new neighbours a visit and is confronted with Roxy, a young woman whom he takes an immediate dislike to due to her looking “a bit hippie”.

The conversation turns sour quickly. Roxy recoils in horror as Lars starts yelling at her for no other reason than he felt like it. He insults her appearance and her house. (Most of this was without any intervention from me.)

Lars decides enough is enough and spontaneously decides to attempt to punch out Roxy. He fails once. Humiliated, he tries again and is victorious. Both sims are left feeling faintly ashamed, but Lars is pleased that he’s caused some misery.

Dusting himself off, Lars turns to Roxy’s roommate, who has been watching in horror at the sideshow unfolding in front of her. Lars is sweetness and politeness, though, and uneasily (and some may say foolishly) she allows him into her house. Roxy is not happy.

“What a nice house,” thinks Lars, his Kleptomaniac Trait itching. He restrains himself for the moment, as people are watching and he’s already made a… memorable first impression.

In an attempt to ingratiate himself with his hostess (and perhaps build up some misplaced trust which could come in handy later…) Lars decides to tell the one about the broccoli, the tomato, the carrot and the pepper. Roxy’s housemate isn’t sure what to make of Lars’ aimless ramblings. But then there’s a clattering thump behind them.

Roxy has passed out on the floor. Evidently the exertions of meeting Lars for the first time were too much for her. Lars, Roxy’s housemate and Madame Dungarees all have their own thoughts on Roxy at this point.

At this point, the household gets another visitor. Lars doesn’t even bother to find out her name before he starts spreading gossip about how unlucky Roxy is. “She sure was unlucky to meet me today,” he cackles.

The visitor is unimpressed. Lars sneers, knowing that the poison has been dripped. Roxy blushes as she listens to him carry on.

Lars starts on Roxy again, who looks close to tears. Roxy’s housemate, getting rather fed up of this, starts thinking about going to bed and just leaving them to it.

Roxy decides to stand up to Lars and squares up to him. Her housemate stares into space behind the quarreling pair.

Finally, as Lars goes to give Roxy a good slap around the kisser, Roxy’s housemate finally decides enough is enough and politely asks Lars to leave on account of his “misbehaviour”.

He graciously leaves, bidding his hostess farewell. Then he tips their trashcan over…

…and steals one of their porch lights, not because he needs one, but because he can.

Tired and hungry, Lars heads home to contemplate the evil he has committed that day. Preparing himself a piece of toast, he suddenly realises that his house doesn’t have any chairs in it, so, unprompted by me, he decides to settle down on the toilet to enjoy his toast.

I was laughing hard by this point. This was such a different experience to anything else I’d done in The Sims before. Sure, you could play an evil God and kill them off by rebuilding their houses in ways that, shall we say, weren’t to their advantage, but the “negative” social interactions were always seemingly discouraged. By playing an Evil Sim, you’re actively encouraged to be mean and nasty to as many people as you can. The Sim’s Wishes reflect that, showing their heartfelt desires to go out and steal candy from a baby, or slap a special someone.

The expressiveness on the faces of the Sims has developed a lot over the years. Check out the faces that Roxy pulls as Lars is mean to her. I also found it pretty funny that Lars did a lot of the unpleasant things to Roxy completely of his own volition thanks to the “free will” option. He obviously felt an uncontrollable urge to make his presence known to his new neighbours, so I just kind of went along with it. It was fun, in an ever-so-slightly wrong way.

Give it a try. Playing an unconventional, flawed character presents some interesting challenges that you’d never come across if you were playing relatively “straight-laced”.