Salty's OG Sims Shrine

Welcome to my shrine dedicated to the revolutionary PC game, "The Sims." Originally released February 4th, 2000, Maxis' virtual life simulator took the world (pre- AND post- 9/11) by storm at a time when Quake-era FPS and console exclusives reigned supreme. It seems far-fetched from today's perspective, but this game single-handedly brought PC gaming to the masses. The game's silly humor, endlessly-repeatable gameplay loop, and barebones system requirements made the game widely accessible at a time when most households only had low-spec office computers running Windows 98, ME (God Forbid), or XP.

Keep in mind: this was a period of time during which the idea of "playing computer games" was still associated with anti-social D&D nerds who lived in their parents' basements. Simulation games were rarely published to consoles in the pre-9/11 world. But by 2003, the PC version sold so many copies that EA had ported it the PlayStation 2, Xbox, AND the GameCube. I've played the port on PS2, and I've gotta say it's not terrible; the local multiplayer is fun, albeit in a sadistic way.

Still think I'm exaggerating? The Sims (not the series; THIS SPECIFIC GAME) remains the 13th best-selling PC game of ALL TIME. I think it's hilarious that a game containing a UI depicted entirely in Comic Sans still outsold games like Diablo 2, StarCraft, and Counter Strike. That's as American as apple pie, if you ask me. Even though The Sims 2 remains my favorite Sims game in terms of gameplay, I honestly prefer the art style of this game over any of the other entries in the series.

If you're interested in playing The Sims on a modern computer, I recommend checking out The Sims 1 Starter Pack. It'll get you up and running in a few minutes with very limited tech skills required. The game had a crazy modding scene back in the day, largely because Maxis made the modding tools available 6 months before the game even released, so there's lots of tools and custom content out there on the Internet Archive you can use to mod your game.

Anyhow, let's get to the shrine. I painstakingly recreated the in-game character creation screen using pure HTML and CSS. Click the buttons next to the image of my Sim to access different menus!