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VIRTUAL PEOPLE GET THEIR OWN GAMES
Human players of The Sims, which gives them control over virtual people, can now have their creations run their own cities full of virtual people.
This has become possible thanks to a classic version of the SimCity game made for The Sims by keen player Steve Alvey. Sims that do a good job of looking after their tiny, virtual city can earn a living from it as mayor and will slowly see their city grow in size as more citizens flock to it.
Since The Sims first went on sale in 2000 it has become one of the most successful computer games of all time. The game lets players control the lives, loves and jobs of virtual people.
Interest has been maintained with a steady release of expansion packs for The Sims that lets players send their virtual people on holiday, date or become superstars.
The game also allows players to create their own in-game extras that can be used to decorate the homes of the Sims they control or give the virtual people something else to do. Now Steve Alvey, who maintains a Sims fan site call Sim Slice, has developed a version of the classic SimCity game that lets Sims play the city simulation game.
Just like the original Sim City game, Slice City gives players the job of creating a functional mini-metropolis populated by invisible virtual people that must be kept happy and be provided with all the social amenities they need while keeping pollution and crime under control.
Sims that do a good job of running the virtual-city-within-a-virtual-city will generate money that will help maintain their lifestyle in the world of the Sims. Bad Slice City controllers will see their creation crumble and their profits dwindle to nothing.
SIMS is an anagram of a big “MISS” if anybody out there can remember the sixties quiz programme “Juke Box Jury”.
It is the nearest thing to the death camps of the Third Reich I have come across apart from living in luxury and demanding everything you want by stamping on the ground with a ceaseless supply of magic cash. I know this is not familiar ground to most parents as they were not people who survived Auschwitz and have not the slightest idea of how any of this in comparison to what the real victims suffered, has any bearing on this article whatsoever, let alone some similarity to a child’s computer game.
But the same evil is there. You can’t see it. You can’t touch it or hear it.
It pervades our children through the monitor as a malevolent disease to rot our children’s brains through acts of subliminal coercion through the monitor. Like all interactive virtual games it means that the child can devote all their attention to such costly games (in more ways than one) and completely ignore their parents wishes 24-7.
My daughter has been playing on it all day today and I found myself trying to prise her off the machine amidst threats of violence, suicide, starvation, vandalism, hissy fits and vows of crashing the computer in a very unceremonious way. None of this worked so I resorted to pleading again and bribes of doubling her allowance.
These Simulated species are more popular than ‘Pop tarts’ for kids. So, Atomic Kitten are already history. Families, and neighbours on huge estates with a choice of attire, furniture and amenities. The Sims either thrive or die at the click of the mouse. The game has “ometers”. That is a bladder-ometer, hunger-ometer, social needs-ometer etc. These ‘gauges’ of their welfare is tuned and balanced down to the players skill at ‘juggling’ all the affairs during their ‘attention seeking’ lives. If they don’t get what they want right away, they face you from the monitor, jumping up and down, raging and screaming some unintelligible abuse. During the construction of these ‘mini- mansions’ with countless ‘state of the art’ facilities are groups of ‘pretend’ people fully dependent on you and with a thankless attitude.
Most children end up neglecting their own personal hygiene to make sure the Sims get to ‘party’ and socialise in plush surroundings.
Sims is an insidious way to program the player into thinking that you can get free money, spend all day talking shite, and have more costume changes than Brittany Spears.
They have all kinds of ‘scenarios’. “Superstar Sims”. “Bustin’ out Sims”. All games are designed to make your kids desire fame and fortune. Now they want to enforce total mind control on our sprogs by getting the Sims characters to mimic their behaviour and have Sims playing ‘Sims Slice’, or some such thing. That’s like putting Christmas decorations in your house and asking your daughter to do the same to her dolls-house and then get her to try again to decorate, the doll’s house, doll’s house,… house, isn’t it? Like, when you look in a mirror with another behind you. You end up inside lots of mirrors until you disappear up your own arse, into infinity. Do we want this for our children?
SIM-ple answer
Here are some suggestions to de-programme your child.
Creep into their little bedrooms. Gentle wait until they open their little eyes and as soon as they do, slap them three times about the head screaming, “Don’t you dare go on that computer today, do you hear me?”
Put chilli pepper in their underwear, making sitting for any length of time unbearable.
Scratch with a six inch nail across the playing side of the Sims disc the words, “I’m an instrument of torture”.
Threaten to hide their cigarettes.
Burn the disc with a Sims label but copy ‘My Little Pony’ and see if they notice.
While they are not looking put gravel in their trainers….Then…..
Print off bogus party invites to teenage rave and sleepovers promising free drugs at fictitious addresses out ‘in the sticks’. Post them to your son or daughter using your own address. Offer to take them and simply drop them off with no money for a bus fare home. Freeing up your computer for several hours.
Order pizza for your kids. Drizzle olive oil mixed with a liberal amount of Calpol over theirs. This will encourage them to get off the machine by at least midnight.
Get a second or third job too afford your children to live like their Sim’s role models.
Help them adopt a mutated gibberish dialect. Walk around expressionless. Have their arms and legs move like they belong to somebody else. Get them to fall asleep when you ask them to do something. Allow them to eat and drink endlessly expecting to be served by a maid or butler or wear clothes that are fresh and laundered as if by magic. Encourage them to be prompted to use the toilet or they will piss themselves where they stand. Turn your back for five minutes and they set the kitchen alight. Invite them to stomp and stamp and curse at will. Use the bathroom sporting a little fuzz around their privates.
Ok, no need to buy the game then?
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A rare Sims picture of Carol Vorderman and John Cleese
as Basil Fawlty, together exploring various bondage rituals.
The old, black headed crow is stood there just watching.
 
 
The present Sims range.
The creators have more versions next year for our children. Here is a list:
Psycho Sims. “When Care in the Community goes tits up.”
Travellers Sims: “How to create your own eyesore.”
Social Worker Sims: “Dress like a Russian Dissident and see you once every three years.”
Boy Scout Sims: “ Have gay vicars mess with your toggle.”
Disabled Benefit Sims: “Get a free 4x4 of your choice, four holidays a year and Sky telly.
Neighbourhood Watch Sims: “Twitch your own curtains and buy a dummy home security alarm hoping to fool burglars.”
Starbucks Sims: “Wait endlessly for cold expresso coffee and have to drink it standing up.”
Daycare Sims: “Grow old and grab your carers arse without arrest.”
Undertaker Sims: “Have your own client base and people directly underneath you.”
Tourettes Syndrome Sims: “Swear at inappropriate moments with abusive terms that you have never heard of and can hardly pronounce.”
Dementia Sims: “Swear at inappropriate moments with abusive terms that you have never heard of and can hardly pronounce.”
Alzeimers Sims: “Who, dear?”
Line Dance with Alzeimers Sims: “Dress up as a cowpoke and forget all the moves as you shit in a wastebin.”
Munchausen Sims: “Get to look like Dr Shipman and systematically eradicate thousands of healthy people by popping across the road to the pharmacy and using the delete key.”
Compulsive Disorder Sims: “No different to any of our other games.”
Binge Drinking Sims: “The toiletshh moved again. Whossh put the DVD in it’s placeshh?”
Indiscreet Till Operator Sims: “With double the volume for the checkout hailer: How much for the pilecream?”
General Practitioner Sims: “Seven minutes to convince him the chemotherapy is not working.”
More of these games another time.
Get down and Dirty Sims: Below are some shocking previews of this pornographic game. The identities of the models are withheld but you can easily see who they are. If you are offended by such images I would advise you only look at them in disguise or through holes in a newspaper.
Page three Sims: “She doesn’t say much at the audition except “of course their real” when quite obviously she’s lying.
Disclaimer: At no time did our anonymous models have penetrative sex because they are clearly sold in shops without reproductive organs. Other evidence to prove this includes the fact that while our dolls can get just about everything else in the boxes, miniature condoms are not included.
We would like to thank ‘Weetabix’ cereals for this opportunity to promote healthy whole-grain foods.
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