The Sims Superstar

Written by Michael York on 6/10/2003 for PC  

You would have to be living underground to not realize that the past couple of years have been dominated by Maxis’ The Sims and its expansion packs. The most recent addition, Superstar, is a very enjoyable add-on to an already great game. Your Sim can become famous in three different genres: Acting, Modeling, or Music.

I was very impressed to see all of the new items that came with this expansion set, especially my favorite, the golden toilet. This all-new take on the Sims offers a new world to the Sims to explore, Studio Town! You leave your comfortable abode to go to Studio Town “to get noticed.” Starting out, your Sim is Joe or Jane Nobody. Your Sim needs to work on his/her “star power.” Basically, star power is how popular and powerful your Sim is in the glamorous world of popularity. Your Sim automatically subscribes to a local tabloid to see who is hot and who is not. Your goal: Get your Sim on that list.

In order to gain star power, it is essential to work on your Sim’s charisma, body, logic, and a few other attributes. I found one of the most important is the charisma. Working on that aspect allows your Sim to get up at karaoke bars and entertainment stages to sing or entertain the audiences to gain star power. Once your Sim has about two stars, they can do commercials, photo shoots, or get studio time for the musician.

To maintain this new star power, your Sim needs to visit Studio Town everyday. Your Sim will eventually get fans and he/she must keep those fans happy by signing autographs, giving hugs, or by simply conversing with them. Doing this is another great way to maintain and gain star power. However, if you fail to do these mandatory things, you will start to lose star power and your Sim will slip away and become a nobody again.

The Sims themselves are looking better, more models for you to choose from to create the ideal Sim. The Sims have new interaction commands that can be accessed the further up the scale the relationship goes. Once you get pretty “friendly” with another Sim, it is incredibly funny to see what happens when you command your Sim to passionately kiss the other. I would suggest trying it as much as possible for a good laugh, even when your Sim gets rejected. Maxis went all out on these new Sims commands!

One of the major pitfalls of Superstar is that after awhile, the game becomes monotonous and just isn’t much fun to play. Real people don’t like to live in poverty, so why should real people playing as poverty stricken Sims be any fun? On the other hand, I must say this game does have its own hypnotic trance-like spell, where you feel you have to keep playing until your Sim is happy and doing well in its career. I have missed many hours of sleep due to this hypnotic spell.

A change that should be implemented into future Sims expansion packs would be allowing the creator/player to purchase house items and placing them on angles. Symmetry gets extremely boring after awhile. Angles would allow the creator to build much more interesting houses and I think certain Sims would be happier too.

I suggest this game to all gamers who just have a couple afternoons to waste and want something to do. This game gets very addicting! But, if you are okay with this, then play on! Maxis went through a lot of effort to create this game and it has shown. The communications between Sims, the new items that can be purchased for the house, the new costumes that can be purchased, posters for sale, and become famous? Maxis has thought of it all. This game goes high up on my list of favorites for awhile.