Unfortunately, most of my allotted Sims-playing time today was eaten up by floundering around the game’s various menus. Long story short: you only get one playable family per neighborhood. The Splines already occupied the one neighborhood that ships with the game. Luckily EA has made a second neighborhood available as a free download from the Store.
So here we are in Riverview! I was getting impatient, after having to re-create Helvetica three times. So instead of building a custom house, I bought her one of the pre-built houses, and opted to have it pre-furnished by the game.
These pictures are for Franz. Check it out! No more ominous blue mist drawing down the curtains at the edge of your property!
I find it rather disturbing, the way the fancy houses loom over Helvetica’s humble neighborhood.
The first thing Helvetica did was set fire to the kitchen while trying to make waffles.
But enough of these antics – time to find A Man for my little heir! I sent her across the street, just in time to catch her neighbors on their way home from work.
She hit it off with the neighbor guy, whose name is Odin.
Sadly, Odin hates children. So that’s not going to work.
I gave up telling her to chat with him in a friendly manner, and sat back to see what happened. They continued to chat for a little while longer. Then they sat down, whipped out some reading material, and proceeded to ignore each other.
I thought I’d send her out to a restaurant to scope out the Riverview dudes. Unfortunately, the restaurant is one of those “no looky” zones. As with their work locations, the camera doesn’t follow them inside. I could only park the camera outside and wait for her to finish, like a dog tied to a lamp post.
On her way home, she had a little more energy left, so I sent her to the trailer park behind her new house. This turned out to be – drumroll, please! – the Broke family! I haven’t yet figured out their relationship to celebrated Sims 2 NPC Brandi Broke. I figure they’re all cousins or something.
I had Helvetica introduce herself to the patriarch of the clan, Flat Broke. Yes, they named him Flat. Sigh.
Flat Broke? Does he have a brother named Almost?
I hope Helvetica’s luck changes.
Ooo, someone got the Sims 3 (sorry, I’m a little behind). How do you like it?
Not too many trees around, are there? Looks a bit like a small river town on the great plains. And just like in real life, people build their mcmansions on the high points. Can you move up there if you get rich?
And more important, it looks like you can’t just copy all the Alphabettis from your old game. No more family portraits? No more cow plant? Is this finally the end of Makoto?
P.S. I love the “dog tied to a lamp post” metaphor.
The animation is much prettier, but the game also seems less random, which is kind of disappointing.
TS3 is a prequel to TS2. Brandi Broke is the widow of Skip Broke, who I believe is Flat’s grandson? Or possibly nephew.
Also, you -can- have more than one save file in a neighborhood. Your Sims from one save file just won’t be able to interact with the Sims from the other (giving you a new neighborhood as a canvas).
My daughter tells me that you *can* have multiple families in your neighborhood. She said go to ‘options’, then ‘edit neighborhood’, then you get a window where you can click on the little houses to the far left to “change active household”. I hope it works! I like your Sims stories
Ive creating Helvetica in sims 2 to make a prequel to sims 3 but i need to now her last name and what was odins last name?