Hello guys. How are you doing? Well, I've come this time to make a review about "The Sims 3". An great game to enjoy alone or with the family and friends.

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PC Specs:

- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual-Core) 5200+ @ 2.60GHz (Rated @ 7.80GHz)
- GPU: XFX GeForce 8600 1GB DDR2 (Driver: 185 WHQL)
- RAM: Corsair 2x1GB
- O.S.: Windows Vista Home Premium (Build 6000; 32-bit)

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Gameplay: The freedom in the game is excellent. You can go anywhere without waiting for the game to load a section of the map. Once you select your character and establish him/her in the neighbor, you can go anywhere you want anytime. You can select your job from the PC or newspaper, but if any of those doesn't like you, you can explore the city and look for a place you would like to work and ready!

You have a lot of options (Which ones you'll be discovering through all the game) to make your character just like you. You have an inventory, a cellphone, among other things to make "The Sims 3" an enjoyable game.

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Graphics: About the graphics. The graphic engine is simple but very powerful. I play with the following specs:

Screen Settings:

- Enable Fullscren Mod: Yes
- Screen Size: 1152 x 864 (4:3)
- Screen Refresh Rate: 60Hz

Detail Settings:

- Edge Smoothing: High
- Visual Effects: High
- Lightning and Shadows: High
- Tree Detail: High
- Draw Distance: High
- High Detail Lots: 16
- Texture Detail: High
- Sim Detail: High
- Enable Object Hiding: Yes
- Enable Reflections: Yes
- Enable Animation Smoothing: Yes
- Enable Advanced Rendering: Yes

All this was tested with a XFX GeForce 8600GT 1GB DDR2 with the resulting FPS:

- Lowest FPS: 30FPS
- Average FPS: 60FPS - 80FPS
- Highest FPS: Almost 90FPS

So, you can notice the lightweight graphic engine "The Sims 3" haves but it gives a nice view to the game.

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Create-a-Sim: I need to admit but the "Create-a-Sim" option is very reduced compared to the available @ "The Sims 2", also, it doesn't owns a "Create-a-Sim" tool available off-the-game as "The Sims 2". It's very hard to get a character that looks like one, but it could improve through the coming expansions of the game.

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NOTE: 2 friends of mine reported me that when playing "The Sims 3", their PCs restarted by their own. After checking their CPU, I noticed that the problem came from there. One of they have a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ @ 2.20GHz and the other one have a Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.80GHz.

It looks like since "The Sims 3" it's a high-demanding PC since the liberty it gives. So, the CPU can't deal with so many information and processes that "The Sims 3" needs to work, that the PC, in response, restart itself to prevent damage.

I'm noting this to prevent PC damage to all the Sims Fans out there, and they would reconsider upgrading their PCs before playing "The Sims 3"

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Overall: The Sims 3 is a nice experience for all the one who enjoys "The Sims" franchise and it's very innovator for all the options it haves. I would recommend "The Sims 3" to everybody and test it by yourself.

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Images from "Can You Run It?" for "The Sims 3" Performance Test:

- Final Test: http://tinyurl.com/qdn879
- Components & Analysis (Pt. 1): http://tinyurl.com/pxzgut
- Components & Analysis (Pt. 2): http://tinyurl.com/otx22t

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Enjoy!