The Sims: Livin' Large

Pros • Mess with your Sims • Comic relief • More textures, items, jobs, etc. • Outrageous themes	Cons • Still a bit buggy, memory leaks included
Bottom Line "The Sims™ on Acid." "Sims, The Sitcom." Either of these properly describes The Sims Livin' Large Expansion Pack. Where other games get extra missions and artwork, Maxis' premiere software toy takes a left turn into another neighborhood. Bored of your Sims yet? Have you tired of raising perfect little work-capable computer-people, perhaps to the point that you've exhausted yourself on methods to bring about their early demise. C'mon, admit it, you've made guests starve in your little Sims’ houses by creating moats around the property to keep them from escaping. Or maybe you can't bring yourself to be so cruel, because it seems just a bit too much like a child pulling wings off of a fly. Whichever type of person you are, whether you're bored of your Sims or not… if you like The Sims on any level, you'll probably get a kick out of the Livin' Large expansion pack. This isn't just an expansion pack for the truly obsessed, this is an expansion pack designed to twist and morph the original product, purely for your entertainment.

I was a big fan of Little Computer People. LCP was David Crane's answer to virtual fish tanks and fireplace videos. Interfering in the life of a little person "living inside" of your computer made you feel somewhat omnipotent, or maybe that's not the correct word for it? Large. Yes, playing with artificial people inside your computer makes you feel Large. Now that Maxis has dug into the same concept with The Sims, it only makes sense to me that the expansion pack is actually called Livin' Large.

Of course, what they meant with the naming of Livin' Large was not exactly what I had in mind. If The Sims was a simulation of people's lives, then the expansion pack is larger than life. At least that appears to be the intent. But did they achieve the ends of their means? I had to ask my wife.

If you've met my wife, then you know that she's the most obsessive player of Railroad Tycoon, Dungeon Keeper, Settlers and any other micro-management game worthy of holding her attention. Most RTS games bore her with their simplicity, it's the electronic toys that she really latches onto. The Sims has just the right blend of complexity, micro-management, arranging/re-arranging and bizarre logistics to keep my wife from getting any sleep. So of course, before jumping too deep into Livin' Large, I had to ask my wife's opinion, since she was first in line the day of the expansion pack's release:

"It's a test of character," She tells me.

That baffled me a bit, I was wondering if she meant that it tested the
characters in the game. I didn't remember seeing anything like that.

"A test of character for the person playing I mean. You could always go
psycho on your Sims before, but now they've given you more tools for doing exactly that."

When I asked her to elaborate, she went directly into a rant of all of the things you could do with just the chemistry set, a new interactive item that I hadn't purchased for my Sims yet. Apparently I should stay clear away from any test-tubes filled with green liquids. Of course, she added that I could also get my Sims into trouble with the Magic Lantern or any of the other new items. I started wondering if Livin' Large was just a big sabotage kit for my Sims neighborhood.

"Oh no", she said. "Not really. Most of the disastrous stuff isn't really disastrous at all in the long run. Things tend to go POOF back into place after awhile. That's part of why it's a test of character, because as long as you don't panic and do anything rash, everything will sort itself out in the end."

I breathed a sigh of relief just then, but I must have had a worried look still lingering on my face, because she was quick to add one more reassurance: Livin' Large adds the ability to run multiple neighborhoods, in which you can sprout your current neighborhood into different directions, almost like parallel universes for experimenting with the new toys safely.

Aside from the new challenges which force you to develop your characters (this time I'm talking about the Sims themselves) and/or your own playing skills, Livin' Large adds some new functionality to the game, in the form of new career paths, more items for advancing skills, a robot to replace the maid (although not nearly as fascinating to watch, ~ahem~) and hidden features built into objects to enhance your level of curiosity and just overall fidgetiness for gadgets. A lot of players will be particularly pleased with the new themes for decorating and furnishing your Sims homes. Nothing like a good medieval home to put you in the mood for micro-managing, eh?

The Sims has been quite notorious for capitalizing on the assumptions of the player. Many people have claimed that their Sims have done things that were never built into the game, they are quite adamant that their Sims have developed quite humanlike qualities, much the same way that folks insist that pets take on the traits of their owners. Livin' Large continues this aspect.

After one of my Sims was captured by Aliens, I was certain that my couple would be producing a baby alien child. I'd gotten it into my head that this was possible, so both my wife and myself tried to set up the exactly right scenario for alien children to occur. This continued until my Sims' households began to look a bit like the scientific research bound family in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. I finally gave up and now I'm not sure if the alien babies are a myth I've cooked up in my own head, or whether they may in fact exist within the game.

Speaking of sperm, Livin' Large does have slightly more adult themes than the original Sims game has. There still isn't any outright nudity or sexual activity, but some portions of the game are more suggestive than before, especially the frolicking that occurs in the vibrating heart-themed bed. The ESRB descriptor says "Comic Mischief. Mature Sexual Themes. Mild Animated Violence".

All in all, Livin' Large is not only a worthy expansion for The Sims, it surprises and entertains in directions that I didn't expect Maxis to take. Not only does it add to the original product, but it seems to morph it into something slightly different and new, something definitely a bit more comedic and a bit larger than life. “Sims, The Sitcom” is what I would have named it. I almost expect to hear a canned laugh track when I play.

With help from Sarah Earl,

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