Call The Sims Online a sprawling chat room, a virtual world, a place to meet people, an escapist's dream. Call it anything, really, except a computer game.
If you buy this title, by Maxis, don't expect to sit back in your ergonomic chair and be blown away by stunning graphics, a twisted, otherworldly story line, or much of a plot at all.
You'll not find that.
The Sims Online is the successor to the most popular computer game of all time, The Sims, whose purpose was just as obscure.
But while The Sims parlayed into sales of 20 million copies its Seinfeldesque fascination with not much of a plot, The Sims Online can be about as fun as a sitcom whose jokes keep falling flat.
The Sims came as close as any computer game to nouveau-hip chic, mysteriously appealing to people who don't think of themselves as gamers by giving them control over their digitized marionettes' everyday lives and relationships.
Just like in The Sims, The Sims Online lets players create their own dollhouses and live inside them - except this time, every character in the game is controlled by someone sitting at a computer, and there thousands more dollhouses to play with.
Something, however, is lost in the transition. The new online version simply didn't seem worth the $9.99 per month - after an initial outlay of $39.99 (the first month's free).
The original Sims was a lot like having a tank of fish - when left alone, your sims wandered around, took care of some basic needs, even developed relationships. In The Sims Online, your character has no intelligence of its own. This fish needs to be wound up and plopped in the water to swim around.
The biggest change is the game's laser-beam focus on socialization. You succeed by making money or improving skills including charisma and logic, done by having your sim interact with an object like a chalkboard (sell a mathematical formula) or a weight set (tone your body). Skills and money accrue faster when other people do the same tasks alongside you.
The game also ranks the popularity of people and homes in several categories, with your goal being to become as popular as possible.
That was the fundamental problem.
I wanted to have fun exploring, but soon found myself with the same feelings I had at high school dances - uneasy, pressured, wondering why all the girls were cheering on the other guy air-guitaring to Guns N' Roses, and not me.
If it's a popularity contest you want, The Sims Online should be great fun. Many players, indeed, appear to be hooked and are treating the game about as seriously as any hobby, any social club.
Some enterprising players have created a newspaper on the Web, the TSO Herald, whose reporters seek out creative houses and interesting businesses. There's even an artists collective that gives grants of the game's money (simoleans) to people who do creative work inside the game.
But for the casual gamer, The Sims Online has little allure. There's not much to do besides make money and chat.
Some of that's the designers' fault: There are several buttons, that when pressed, trigger a dialogue box that tells you that various features are "Coming soon!"
So, don't ask what "Activities log," or "Bills," or "Lot Size Management" do. They're not in the game yet. Nor are the teeming masses. The game has only been out for a few weeks and it's still sparsely populated - kinda like Sundays at 7 a.m. in a lot of places.
The Sims Online could still have lots of potential. Updating is occurring. Problem is, the update downloads can be big. With my cable modem, it was a mild annoyance, but I can't fathom how people with far slower phone connections can bear it.
The Sims Online ran reasonably well on my Athlon XP 2000+. There was a lag, despite my broadband connection, which was surprising because the graphics date all the way back to 2000.
Maxis also paced the game just a fraction too slow.
It took too long to get from place to place, to communicate with other players, to even load the game.
It's a pity because The Sims Online achieves one thing that's so obvious you miss it at first:
There are just as many women as there are men. In an industry where the average player is a 28-year-old male, that's a rare achievement.
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