In The Sims 3, the game form is defined by different aspects and sections of the game, that is used to pin point the story and status of the character or “Sim” that the player is playing as. Compared to its predecessors, The Sims 3 focused on an overall experience of the town/city, rather than the norm of being confined to the character’s house. This gives the player several new options in terms of interaction, however, to allow the open ended game to run as smoothly as possible; some buildings were left as empty shells or “rabbit holes”. These rabbit holes would cause a Sim character to disappear in a building while the player will be given a set of options in the form of menus to choose from as the next step.

While the game may be open ended and without a clear cut goal, just like real life, Sims have wants, aspirations and needs. The Sims 2 showcased an aspiration system while its sequel, The Sims 3 improved that system by giving players the option to choose which aspiration or “wish” to fulfill. Fulfilling a Sim’s wishes grants them “Lifetime Happiness” which can be used to purchase rewards and perks to make the game easier than it already is. A further addition to The Sims 3, was Moodlets. Moodlets are a series of reactions that a Sim has to its actions and surroundings. Moodlets can be gained by something as minor as being in a well decorated room or something as major as a break-up. These moodlets, in turn, affect the mood and productivity of the Sim during the day, just like in real life, where if a person is in a bad mood, productivity is decreased. One feature that mirrors real life, which was not present in previous games, is Story Progression. In previous games, regardless of whether the player character had aged or accomplished day to day jobs over a long period of time, NPCs would never age and move on with their lives, however in The Sims 3, everyone present in the world autonomously continues advancing through the stages in life, just like the player character. This makes the game more realistic.

Create-a-sim is an option in the game that gives the player full freedom to create any kind, gender or race of sims. Different menus can be used to customize different aspects of the sim, including name, gender, build, height, clothing, hairstyle, likes and dislikes and even zodiac signs. With over 100+ different combinations of these options, each sim has their own personality and traits, thus making every sim in the game unique and different; not only looks wise but also behaviorally, which once again imitates real life. Aside from controlling an equivalent of a human being, the game offers an architectural approach as well. Players interested in architecture from scratch can use the Build/Buy modes to provide a humble accommodation for their sims. These modes can also be used to furnish pre-existing houses in the sims world. 

As stated before, the game has no definite goals and so the game does not offer any guidelines on how to approach it as a newcomer to the franchise. However, the player can create their own story by giving the sim character certain rules and commands to follow. The player however, unlike conventional games, does not take the role of the sim they are playing as. Infact, the player character’s actions are similar to that of a puppet master, manipulating the puppet using strings, where the strings signify the interface the player uses to communicate orders to the sim.

The panel at the bottom left corner of the screen is used to control sims and manipulate in-game settings. Starting from the top bottom left of the panel are the portraits of each member in the household of that particular family. Clicking on one of the portraits would select the sim and show their current condition. Double clicking on the portrait will allow the player to instantly go to the place where the sim is. Below the portraits are several ways the orientation and view of the sim world can be controlled; rotation, changing levels etc. Next to the orientation panel are the 3 main categories of the game that the player switches back and forth from.

The live mode is where the player is controlling the sim. Each sim has their own wish panel, where from time to time a wish will appear and if the player fulfills it, the sims gain “Lifetime Hapiness” as a reward. On the right of the Wish panel is the Lifetime Wish panel. This is a wish that is a particular sim’s life goal, for example, becoming an astronaut or a world renowned surgeon. Below the Lifetime Wish are the time controls. They display the time and the day of the week and can be sped up according to the player’s liking. The meter to the right of the time controls is what determines the mood of the sim, which is dependent upon the moodlets, with red being extremely foul mood and green at the top being the best mood. The buy mode is used for buying furniture and objects for a sim’s house. Buy mode cannot be accessed outside the home lot. Similarly build mode allows the player to build residential or commercial buildings from scratch.

In terms of game trees; since the game is open ended game, it offers infinite possibilities of story and interactions. No each game or save file or even a sim is similar to the other. This will give the player an opportunity to mold a new story every time they create a new save file.

The first instance of The Sims 3, before any advertisements and marketing strategies, was an easter egg in the seventh expansion pack of The Sims 2: Free Time, where a sim named Rod Humble would provide the player character with a gift that would contain a PC games called “The Sims 3”. If the player chooses to play the game, a beta gameplay video of The Sims 3 would play in a loop. Severa marketing strategies were undertaken in order to improves sales from The Sims 3, including advertisement on skyscrapers, namely in Times Square in New York City, and the game being used to create the characters of the CW show, One Tree Hill, in an episode that involves going back and forth between the real life counter parts of the sims. Digital media was also a large factor for promoting The Sims 3 before the release date, including trailers and gameplay footage and the inclusion of sim versions of celebrities like Hilary Duff and Katy Perry.

Electronic Arts has reportedly stated, that within the first week of release The Sims 3 managed to sell 1.4 million copies, thus making it EA’s most successful PC game launch. It remained the best-selling game throughout 2009 beating several other AAA titles in the process. Response from critics and gamers were generally positive, with Gamespot awarding the game the title of editor’s choice and giving the game 9.0/10 stating that "The latest Sims game is also the greatest, striking a terrific balance between the fresh and the familiar." (Gamespot). IGN also gave the game a positive review of 8.9/10 stating, “This is simply a better playing Sims experience, and once you experience the freedom to hit the town without hitting a load screen you’ll be hard-pressed to go back to any of the earlier games. Blowing up the size of the game was certainly a risk, but it was a sensible and overdue one, and kudos to EA for recognizing that the decade-old formula needed some growth. And while there's still plenty of room for more innovation, we’ll settle for The Sims 3 for now. It delivers a solid foundation for what should be many more years of Sims sales dominance.” (IGN). 

The original game of The Sims 3, if installed as a stand-alone game can offer a lot in terms of diversity. I have been playing this game ever since it was released and 5 years later I still very much enjoy it. Playing The Sims 3 can either be a very pleasant or a very frustrating experience depending on how much custom content or how many expansion packs have been installed. While it does offer a lot of variety with in game items in Create-a-Sim, ranging from being able to customize hair color and even clothing color which was not a possibility in The Sims 2, certain glitches in the game make it frustrating enough not to want to play all together.

Sometimes the Sims 3 can be a repetitive game, wherein after installing all the expansion packs and custom content that would give you more content to explore, you will eventually run out of things to do no matter the variety. Certain gamers stick to certain strategies while playing Sims. For example, I prefer choosing Bridgeport as my sim’s homeworld as it is a city setting as opposed to the rest of the worlds offered in The Sims 3, which are a countryside setting. On top of the lack of variety after a point, the game, no matter how high end a laptop is, does not run smoothly if over 1 GB of custom content has been installed. It takes 10+ minutes for the loading screen to load and another 5 minutes for the game to load all the lots of th world.

Overall, the game is a great experience if installed separately and played over a short period of time. Expansion packs, no matter how amazing the extra content is, are not worth the trouble of glitches and a slow computing speed.