When setting up your character, you'll be able to select up to five personality traits for your character. Some are mutually exclusive, but others can create a very strange character indeed. Ever wonder what an outgoing clumsy jerk might live like? Well now you can. One of my favorite personality traits available is "never nude," to the cancelled sitcom Arrested Development.
While you'll only be controlling one character at a time, around you the entire town will be making choices. The developers are especially proud of the seamless world they've created. With a couple clicks, we were able to see the full scope of the town and zoom anywhere on the map. It's easy to click on other characters and see what they are up to. It's also easy to move throughout town with your character. Again improving upon the previous two editions of the Sims, you can now fully explore the town and it's always available rather than needing to be specifically loaded. You'll be able to build and explore buildings all over town as well.
As you play, your character will unlock lifetime rewards that will net you things useful to your character's growth. You can unlock a "mid-life crisis" (which resets your character), a steel bladder (which reduces the number of times they have to go to the bathroom), a body sculptor (which can reshape the character's body), and more.
Ben purchased the body sculptor for Eddy and reshaped Eddy's heavy-set frame into something skinnier in seconds. Fans of the series will appreciate that there are more diverse body types in the Sims 3, and the mount of customization that is available to players is impressive while the controls are easy to understand and fun to play with.
A hallmark of Maxis, the customization also extends to other aspects of the world as well. For the Sims 3, the developers overhauled the player's ability to modify content. You can spend hours customizing the perfect pattern for your house and save it for use on your car or on your character's T-shirt. We quickly applied the cow pattern that decorated Eddy's bedspread to his house, car, and t-shirt. At Sims 3.com, all surfaces and objects can be loaded to the site and shared with fellow users. Characters can be shared as well.