The last MMORPG released in 2002 was The Sims Online, a merging of two incredibly popular game types. How well did they do?

First, they did a very good job of translating the sim environment into on line gameplay. Each account has three sims it can manage, each in a different city. You choose your sim face and dress from hundreds of options, and head into the world.

Once there, you can choose to set up your own home, roommate with someone else, or just wander around the world. There are literally hundreds of houses on line at any given point in time. You can roam around the map, choose from the 'top 10' in a variety of areas, or search for someone in particular. You can look for a place to learn cooking, or work on your body skills, or just to hang out and chat.

Everything is done on line and in real time. You don't go "off" to work - instead, you go to an easel and work on a painting, or a typewriter to do some typing. Want to make more money? Grab some friends and work together on a great cooperative system like pizza-making or treasure-hunting. It's fun and lucrative! Just watch a group trying one of the group activities and watch the laughter!

The real money, though, comes from house visitors. Design a nice house that people want to hang out in, and you'll get income from the visits. You also get income from roommates, who help you keep the house on line and take care of decorating and caring for the home. The more your house is on line, the more visitors can come into it, and the more you earn - therefore the more you can buy for your home.

Where other MMORPGs are about slaying creatures and getting power, the Sims is all about people. You build friendship webs and can see who connects to who. You can throw parties at your house, complete with dance floors and buffet tables. You can get together for a poetry reading, have a pizza party, you name it.

It's a natural hit for kids and adults to play together, since everyone can have fun. The cousins can log on from Utah, the grandparents from Florida, and everyone can share in building and improving a sim-house together - chatting all the while! The built in parental controls make it easy for a parent to control exactly who can talk to any account.

Highly recommended for any sim fan! As beta-tester Ixia commented, "Be careful, it's very addictive"!

Buy Sims Online from Amazon.com

Walkthrough, Tips and Techniques for The Sims Online