Jill Reviews: Sims Medieval (For Real)

I went out and purchased Sims Medieval today and I have good news: I absolutely love it. I'm still at the stage where I'm so overwhelmed with everything that I haven't gotten a chance to get a handle on meeting people, getting married, you know, the normal Sim stuff. The quests and all of the new professions are completely eating my game time up in the best ways. I suggest to everyone to play the tutorial because it is helpful for the most part, although I didn't really need help knowing how to use Buy Mode or anything.

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I have played so far the Monarch, the Jacoban Priest, the Knight, the Bloodletter, and the Blacksmith. The Bloodletter and the Blacksmith really seem like the most complicated with the least down-time not related to quests or "daily responsibilities" of the profession.

The "fatal flaw" of each person can actually be quite fun to spice up the game until you quest yourself out of it. My monarch is a chivalrous and eloquent libertine and my bloodletter is a family-loving, chivalrous misanthrope (that one was computer-generated). The monarch gets two servants and an advisor, the priest gets an assistant, and the bloodletter gets a helper but altogether the most useful assigned sims are the monarch's servants who not only clean but also cook you food so you never have to waste your time again.

The most irritating part of the game was definitely how limiting the viewpoints are. You only look on areas/buildings from the front and have no way to turn the screen at all to any other angle. After being used to 360 view in Sims 3, this gets pretty frustrating and especially limits you with how you can place furniture if you want to observe your sims at work. Many things your sims do you also can't follow them, you have to wait at the entrance for them to finish while you are updated on their progress through blurbs, much like Sims 3 exploring the catacombs or time travel.

For cheats, I haven't figured out how or if we have access to testing cheats, but I'm sure we do. The normal ones still work for money (kaching for 1,000; motherlode for 50,000) and when you bring up the help bar (shift-command-c on a Mac) and type "help" it shows a list of available cheats. The ever-present "enablellamas" is still available so don't worry there.

Thus ends my review, to be supplemented with screen shots in the near future. One last note though: I would watch the intro to the game the first time as it explains your role in the game. You are no longer ignored as an invisible controlling agent but are now acknowledged by your Sims as the "Watcher," sort of like a god controlling their world.

Good game, fun, some flaws and irritating issues that stem from being spoilt by updates throughout the evolution of the Sims, but overall Sims Medieval receives a thumbs-up from me.


P.S.: If you have specific questions about the Sims Medieval that aren't answered elsewhere, leave it in a comment and I will get back to you!!!