More Awesome Than You!

So, there's a lot of negativity about Sims 3 so far in the community. So, I thought I'd make a post where we all share what we DO actually like about the game.

I like:
-The UI
-The Sims themselves
-How the neighborhood gives a really community-like feel
-Jobs and opportunities add a lot
-That virtual simulator thing
-The objects that are actually new

There's more, but gah, the list will extend to uranus( ;D) if I add much more.

So, what do you like?

-The sun and the stars revolving above the town.That  reminds me of spore, perhaps there will be an expansion where spore creatures can invade and attack sims?
-water effects,sunlight beams through windows.
-Pescado's Awesomemod

-The Sims, OK they do look puddingy but they're a vast improvement over Sims 2 Goopy-like creatures. The clothes are better too, no awful trousers with flames horrors that EA usually loves to do.
-CAST, so many possibilities without clogging the game!
- The more complex aspiration system, jobs and opportunities make the game more interesting.
-The fact that it's harder than Sims 2, money is not as easy to come by and skills are not so easily acquired, is a good thing. Kids not being able to read about cooking is more realistic IMO. 

I actually find it easier than Sims 2.

I like how there are a lot of good money sinks though. The spa is always a good way to blow a load of simoleans. And just when you think you are rich, you buy a share in some businesses and suddenly need to snap them all up under your complete control, yet you need a metric ton of monies to be able do that. Although I've been able to turn my sim into some kind of mafia don, going around town each week to collect the "protection" money from his businesses, which has been kind of fun.

I love the gameplay. I can play for hours. It can get pretty tedious during toddler time, though. I find it more challenging than Sims 2. It takes longer to generate enough wealth to upgrade into nicer houses.

I can't decide if I like the sims eyes moving when they read or not.

Pudding-looks (when they are less incredibly pudding), the fact that trees and bushes sway in the breeze, the somewhat improved lighting, the way better skybox, and the prettier water.  I guess opportunities are nice too, as are some of the skill challenges.

I do not like how effortless it is to get promoted in some professions, if you lack the raw skill in your current field as a surgeon you should not become an even more complicated surgeon.

I like the roof slider, the 45 degree object placement, and the half-space object placement.
It's nice not to need to enter codes to do that stuff now.
The Drowning moodlet was amusing.

I halfway agree with you there. Kids should be able to read about cooking, do gardening, athletics...I did all those things as a 6. I do like that skills aren't as easy and that you don't necessarily need them to get ahead. Money is definitely tight in the first generation. However, I'm on the fourth now and all of my houses in play have at least $100k in the bank, the founding house having almost $400k. If you have your sims make an effort, the money will come. Raises are a big exploit. My Leader of the Free World makes about $1200/hr, and usually gets a raise each day he comes into work.

Yeah, money sinks are awesome. I've taken to having all my pregnant sims get the most expensive spa package. It's a good money sink, plus a good buff.

* Revamped careers
* Seamless neighborhood
* Family members showing up in the relationships as Mother, Father, Cousin, etc. instead of just Family
* Bikes
* CAST
* Traits
* Prettier graphics (other than the Puddingface problem)

I like the way that it didn't take long for me to uninstall it.

I'm finally getting used to the different style of playing...I'm actually liking the aging of the whole town thing after all...at least now their peers age at roughly same rate as they do...

I like the 'puddingness' of the sims...could be cuz I'm pretty 'puddingy' myself...

I really am liking the personality trait thing - the sims are more indivualistic than in 2.

I like that it's okay to let the kids be kids and they don't have to spend their childhood learning all the time - and as teens they have plenty of time to learn, too...which is also to say that I like having the flexibility to age sims slower or a whole lot slower.

Cell phones are so much better and even kids have them!

I've had my sim collect gems and sent them off to cutting on the most expensive cut. Expensive paintings were donated to the museum. Right now I'm in the process of buying out all the town businesses, but I'm not sure what my sim is going to do once that is achieved.

Well.  I want to try to answer honestly, but I know that won't happen.  (*Whereas it may be harder to accumulate wealth in 3, it is easier than 2 because the consequences of motive failure are almost negligible in 3.  *The skybox blows, it looks like that one probably 1988(?) "3d" fantasy rpg that I can't remember the name off.  Where's the constellations?  Was everyone sleeping during Oblivion?  That was a decent skybox.  Just cuz 3's is better than 2 doesn't mean it's any good.  *I despise making fat sims without any negative consequences.  It's socially irresponsible.  For the children's sake! I mean, look at the smoking thread, we all seem to -insist- upon negative effects.)  Ahem.

• What I like about The Sims 3 is that I own every expansion pack!  I never did that with The Sims 2.
• I like the bit more variety in the careers.  (And -almost- despise that science is all about the gardening.)
• I do like DnD patterns tyvm
• I like that it is current and I'm part of the hip crowd
• I like the simplification that led to moodlets, even if not a huge fan of moodlets
• I like jogging around town, while I hate the cost of FPS and the fact that running is faster
• I like having more (effective) LTWs
  
• The water is pretty... seems prettier than Oblivions
• I really liked the ceiling... until I moved the camera slightly and saw the skybox at the top of the stairs.  *shrug*
• Um, I like putting the bubblebath and rubber duckie on the tub
• Oh!  My favorite is that sims can usually move between objects when they would have been blocked in TS2.  Related to effectively doubling the resolution of the placement grid, I suppose. (Or, as I like to say: "doubling or quadrupling, depending upon your dimensional perspective.")

/looking at other replies/

• I like bikes alot, but the worse cars more than cancels that out
• 45 degree is hit & miss.  I like that I don't have to use the cheat code, but would rather keep it simple and remove any possibility of 45s (ya know, now I have to keep track of which things are flush at a 45 wall, or which leave a gap), especially since that just clarifies you can't do 1/360ths, which if you consider such free rotation, you might understand why I think I prefer only 4 directional choices.  Just simpler.

Probably most of all I like giving my opinion.  But I don't like to bore or irritate people, so sometimes I wish people wouldn't ask for my opinion.

So essentially, your "Things I Like" post is a backhanded "This Shit Annoys Me" post. I'm curious why you (general you here because it seems this applies to many people) insist on playing a game you dislike. 

I like that it is current and I'm part of the hip crowd.  (like, DUH, why do you thing 90% of us are playing it?)

I did honestly list as many or more things that I like as everyone else.  I did list more thing that I don't like as everyone else.  I did start my reply with effective "I'd like to cooperate but I know I won't."

Ok?

Edit:  I do think I did NOT mention any part of my "shit that annoys me" list.  (eh, maybe "fat" but that's all, I swear)

Gee, and here I thought most people are playing it because they actually enjoy the game. I'm also interested in why you think playing a game makes you "part of the hip crowd" and why you would want to be included, since it forces you to play a game you dislike.

Fine.  I didn't say I dislike it.  If we're going to have a personal discussion then fine, I'll ask you some questions.  What did I post that makes you think I dislike the game?  This doesn't resemble any of my hate posts.  (And I'm not going to turn this into one no matter how much you goad me.)  Probably the main reason I'm playing is that I don't have another game I'm interested in at the moment.  Any suggestions?  I don't want to get to far OT, so I'll just mention I don't care for FPS.

Reminds me of my mother.  I love my mother.  If you ask me about her, I'll probably mention at most 3 good things.  And then I'll spend the next few hours complaining about everything else she does.  I don't hate her.  Most guys do that regarding their wives too -- I don't happen to be married, probably because I forget to wait until after the ceremony to start complaining.  I'm demonstrating Pretty ordinary and boring behavior too me.  And you *act* surprised by this common behavior?

I'm still trying to figure out if TS3 is worse than TS2.  It's a big game / I'm still exploring.  Even if it is worse than TS2, do I have to dislike it?  I think I'd rather play 3 than 2 for close to the first reason I listed.  This is only one disc.  I don't have to load (/have space for) 16 discs.  And to repeat myself, I'm still discovering things in this game.

And I don't buy that you're that stupid.  Yes, people jump off of bridges because everyone else was doing it.  (Honestly now. if you keep entertaining me, I'll probably steal your thread.  I don't want to do that.)  And I'll repeat myself once more since I can see you writhing.  I didn't say I dislike the game.  I personally don't think I even implied it, but that of course is subjective and arguable.

I like that the sims can take care of themselves better. My 5 year old managed to keep a household of 5 (from the bin- 2 adults, 2 children, 1 toddler) alive all afternoon, buying them birthday cake after birthday cake and enjoying watching. It makes sense, but I really had no idea he was THAT into birthday parties.

I personally love the game. I can only think of a few cons, where as sims 2 was con city. Although I still enjoyed sims 2, sims 3 is going to make it impossible to even look at sims 2. Sims 2 is a big step down for me, for many reasons. I guess I'm just a loner and am different then most simmers. I didn't download much towards the end of my time with sims 2. Plus the graphics with sims 2 was just so unnatural and blocky, sims 3 is very natural and has more lifelike-ness to it. The faces aren't painted on anymore XD. I like it.

I like the new skill system.
    I like that the creativity skills are seperated now.  Being able to paint a masterpiece shouldn't make you able to play guitar like a pro as it did in TS2.
    I like that you can upgrade items with the handyness skill.  Upgrade everything in the bathroom to self-cleaning ftw!
    I like that the fishing and gardening skills were included in the base game and that you can supplement your income with or derive your entire income from those skills.

I like that the quality of the ingredients effects the quality of the food produced by cooking.

I like that they included driving and bike riding in the base game.

I like moodlets. Both good and bad moodlets make the game interesting.

I like the open town and being able to visit neighbors instead of hoping to run into them or trying to get them to come over on the phone to improve your relationship.

I like the new career and opportunities systems.

And, last but not least.  I like AWESOMEMOD!  If your game isn't AWESOME, it isn't worth playing.

Who the fuck are you again?  And why are you acting like you have the disc inserted in your ass, rather than your computer?

What do you like about the User Interface, Rockermonkey?

I recently went back to playing TS2, and the only things that I actually really missed was the ability to click and drag to resize rooms, and having sims that could use corner counters. :P

I do like the traits system, though, and, somewhat surprisingly, the seamless neighborhood.  The careers seemed interesting at first, but ultimately they just started to look like TS2 careers with a few more bells and whistles. 

I like how it has tabs and the whole layout of buy and build mode. Also the whole cluttered look is cool to me. Since I like clutter.

I am simply a random person who asked another random person a couple of questions on an internet forum. Did I somehow offend your sensibilities? Truly, it will keep me up at night.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself well. I agree that kids could learn about cooking, from a special kids book. What wasn't realistic in Sims 2 was how you could make your Sim kids and teens skilling machines, reading and learning everything from a book and having maxed everything before turning into an adult!

Now this isn't possible anymore, and I love it. They have added more skills (writing, fishing, creativity being divided between guitar and painting) and you actually have to practice the skills instead of spending hours reading about them, which I definitely see as more realistic, especially for cooking and mecanics. The fact that you can know only some skills, not all of them also helps individualize the Sims.

Sim kids should definitely be able to gain some music and athletic points though.

Of course, now kids are entirely useless, since it takes all of about 5 minutes to max out the few points they're allowed to earn, and that's it.

I don't follow your logic. You say that having to actually practice the skills instead of speindg hours reading about them is "more realistic", yet these are, in fact, two skills you can learn entirely from reading books about them.

Ha Pescado!

That's probably because I love cooking and know that reading about it and actually making a great meal are two entirely different things. Same with mecanics, I don't know anything about them and am sure reading a book about it wouldn't make me able to repair a TV!

I agree that kids are pretty useless, but toddlers are worse ;). Guess they will fix that in an upcoming EP with new toys and a piano  ::).

Yes, but my point is you use them as an example of it being more realistic, but your premise is faulty and you CAN, in fact, max out the skills entirely by reading from books. As for cooking, well, I don't understand cooking at all. I mean, I understand CHEMISTRY, but the idea that that chemically destroying your food is somehow supposed to make it "better" eludes me.

Okay, then I learnt something new today :).

I didn't know there were cooking books up to level 10, much less mechanics ones in the game!

But I've been playing only a bit, and have been turned off by some nasty bugs which is something I do NOT like in this game (that weird moustache guy that pops up in Sims portraits, having a mum and toddler indefinitely stuck at the end of "learn to talk" interaction, having a family disappear one day after moving them into a new, bigger house - guess my computer just sucks). 

Sims stuck in an action can be fixed using "resetsim Firstname Lastname".  AwesomeMod, being full of awesome, stops households from randomly vanishing (among a million other must-have fixes). 

The interaction of stealing candy from a baby.

I like being able to take a baby or toddler with you to town.  I like that you no longer need a baby sitter for kids (only toddlers and babies).

I do not understand why a child cannot learn to cook and actually cook, though.  When I was a 6, I had my own cookbook and used my Mom's stove and oven.  So did my brothers.  To me, my Sims should be able to do the same things that I did as a 6.

One of my sims started playing the guitar.  Her husband picked up their granddaughter and carried her outside to listen to the music.  I thought it was so incredibly cute.  I also like the parties.  My only complaint is that if you have multiple people sharing a party, everyone takes off after the second cake.  It would be nice if they would stick around for an hour afterwards so that my birthday sims could actually say hi.  I love the aging of the other households.  It's been fun to invite the grandkids over and see what their lives have been like.

I also like all the things everyone listed but wanted to add some other things. 

I do like... the entire landscaping items (trees, shrubs).  I think they are very well done.  I love how they move in the wind.

I love how my sim can go over her boyfriend's house and hang out and sleep over.

I like how elders look, I just think they are so damn adorable.

I like how my sims jump into the water from the side of the pool.

I love the beaches and the oceans.  If they make a BV type expansion it will be awesome to swim in the ocean.  (They should have shark attacks!!)

I like the quests.

I like the paintings my sims do.

I like the whole cooking/gardening.

I guess I could go on and on...

I love the landscaping, the traits are fun, and the ability to chose when to age a sim is pretty good too.

I think its is far less realistic that a sim child can max out writing and painting, but not learn any real cooking.  When I was 106 I was actually a damn good cook already - not only did I learn from reading [I was reading adult books by then, btw] but I was actually cooking dinner without an adult supervising me, at least after the first few times when it was obvious I had it under control.  Yes, sometimes meals were a little odd, as I experimented with spices, but it was better than some adults manage.

But overall, I think once it is possible to import new objects and fix the few things I think are backwards, that as a game, sims 3 will be an improvement after all.

Shark attacks would be fantastic; more ways to die ftw.

I really like the sunrises and sunsets and the way the water reflects the light. I love the wider variety of skills and ways to make money. The variety of LTWs is a big improvement, too.

I was never a power-skiller. However, children having only four skills they can learn seems to contribute to the prevalence of the Perfect Aquarium, Illustrious Author, and the general Author/Artist LTWs. I want my sims to pop up their own LTW naturally, and I feel like the game predisposes them to the same of four wants. Not always, but often.

Seriously, though? Separate books for kids? Could you not read adult books as a 6? I was reading L.M. Montgomery at 6 (technical age, not Rule of Six). Betty Crocker is hardly James Joyce.

I am with you there Zazazu.  I hated school with a passion as a kid.  I was forced to endure reading "See Dick run.  Dick can run fast.  Jane ran after Dick." in shool when I was reading Edgar Allen Poe and Dan Ross (Dark Shadows books written under the pen name Marilyn Ross) at home afterwards.  I once took a Dark Shadows book with me to school and got in trouble for it, till the teacher checked his desk and found his copy was still in his desk.   He was reading the same book and thought I had taken his book from his desk.   

Point taken. But the game does have separate children books. And while I wouldn't blink at seeing a kid bake cookies, I wouldn't envision them making lobster thermidor. So I think it's ok that they have marked differences in the ability to gain skills between kids and teens, though I agree they have probably limited them too much and made that age less interesting, except perhaps for the school opportunities.

I found a new thing that annoys me...You can't see toddlers skills until they're children. How does this add to gameplay in any way? I like to be able to know everything at a glance. And this just is annoying. But atleast toddlers aren't butt ugly anymore XD.

I like that teenage relationships stay intact even when one person becomes an adult.

I like that the other families (and other branches of the same family) age without me playing them.

On a related note, I like that in one branch of my family that I moved out, they had a kid (probably a clone, but whatever) and named it "Einstein," which is actually in line with the way I've been naming the sims in my family.

Awesomemod.

That kids can go places by themselves or get left home alone.  It's like growing up in the '70s all over again.

The "creeped out" moodlet when someone tries to get flirty in the bathroom.

The ease of going to multiple other lots.

Load times, or the lack thereof.

Work and school "tones."

Traits, and Create-A-Sim in general.

Create-A-Style, especially the relative ease of dragging and dropping to create matching themes.

Being able to have birthdays at any time, so that once everything that can be learned as a toddler or child has been learned, you can just jump ahead.

I even like the puddings, generally, although every once in a while I find one that looks like a catcher's mitt with eyes, and I have to CAS it.  Still, it's an improvement over the horrific genetic accidents that were EAxis-spawned sims in TS2.

In addition to what others have listed already, I like

- That you need specific items to prepare specific kinds of meals (even if it's a bit weird you need only apples to make pancakes, but it's getting there)
- Skill journals, all the details they keep track of
- That your sim can go to a hospital to give birth
- Being able to harvest wild plants
- That kids work on their homework autonomously
- That work places are actual buildings in the town your sim lives in

I like the:
...randomize button in buy mode. 
...floating staircase effect (even if you can't walk under them).
...bikes.
...green trailing armpit fumes.
...the integration of fishing, gardening, and cooking.
...combining the unlucky, loser and clumsy traits.

I made my first thanksgiving dinner when I was 8. It consisted of maple-glazed yams, basil carrots, homemade cranberry sauce and homemade gravy, and of course, a turkey with stuffing that I made myself - despite that the turkey was a little dry due to it being my first attempt, the meal turned out great.

Of course, it wasn't lobster thermidor, but needless to say, just because I was a kid, it didn't mean that I was incapable of understanding simple instructions from a recipe book, and I still make that dish to this day for my "turkey holidays".

Oh, and as for the cookies, I still can't bake a cookie to save my life.

One more thing, my daughter wanted to make a ham dinner when she was 9, and I let her, seeing as I was able to tackle such tasks at that age, and she's a dang good cook now too. Yet, my son is a terrible cook no matter how hard he tries, and he's well over a dependent age.

This small experiment on my own offspring has led me to believe that just because you wouldn't blink, or would, doesn't necessarily mean that you're entirely correct, or that EA has added more realism to the game.

@Rufio:

I don't know if you know this, but there is a hack at MTS2 that enables the use of corner counters for all EAxis counters.

FYI: Children can learn cooking skill from baking muffins on the toy oven.

Things I like:

* Traits and trait-based LTWs. Yes, we sort of had them in TS2, but in TS3 they actually make sense.
* Branching careers. Genius, though I do wish there was a violin for sims in the Symphony branch of the music career. Violins are just as portable as guitars.
* Graphics. The water and landscaping are amazing. Even the puddings look good close-up, but zoomed out and in their thumbnails they look like TS1 sims, yet I still prefer them to the TS2 sims pre default replacements. I'm sure we can all remember those flat painted-on eyes. *shudders*
* Terrain paints that aren't made of suck, and variable fuzziness of brush edges = awesome.
* Sliders for things like stair width and roof slope.
* Half-square placement and 45-degree rotation that actually works. I love that even my multi-tile objects are usable at a 45-degree angle.
* Moodlets. I thought I'd hate them, but they've turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the game.
* Create-a-Style. This *almost* makes up for lack of content.
* My sims take care of their needs in a fairly intelligent way. No more playing computer games until they die of hunger.
*Goal-oriented play. I actually like this, but unlike your typical RPG, you never quite "beat" everything, and can continue playing until your eyes bleed, if you're so inclined. This means that elderhood and top-of-career isn't nearly as dull as it was in TS2.
* No permaplat. See above.
* Work/School options. I like that my sims can work hard, slack off, socialize, or just put in a normal effort.
* I like the open neighborhood and neighborhood aging a lot more than I thought I would. It seems realistic that sims move in and out of houses, produce spawn, etc, without your control. I mean, can you control everything your RL neighbors do?
* I like the concept of sims riding bicycles, but considering that sims don't earn fitness from them, my sims may as well drive cars. Also, the weird teleportation to the street kind of ruins the effect of all vehicles for me.

Nobody is going to like any game 100%. There will always be gripes and complaints. This doesn't mean that people don't enjoy playing said game, just that certain things could be improved upon.

That was very well said chaos.

I like that you aren't forced to play a certain way.  You aren't tied to a lot and have to live there or nowhere, even if you own it.
In my Legacy Challenge game my founder doesn't have anything on their property other than the trashcan and mailbox.  I use various facilities around town for appropriate purposes.  For example my sim showers at the local pool, buys fruits and veggies from the store that she can eat from inventory and naps on park benches (if you force 4 or 5 naps in a row it is almost as effective as a full nights sleep).  While there are things we will find that we don't like the game is an improvement over previous incarnations, and with J.M.Pescado's AWESOMEMOD it keeps getting better.

 

The one thing that stands out most for me in TS3 is the smoothness when it comes to the seamless neighborhood, with none of those boring loading screens. TS3 also loads a lot faster for me than TS2, which is also nice.

Heh, that'll change once people figure out how to do CC meshes. TS2 used to load super-fast when people could only do recolors, and that's all I had in my game. 2 GB of CC later, and it takes a few minutes (was longer on my old computer).

We all play the game differently right?

I like the wider neighborhood. I hate load screens , and there was no reason to go downtown when it was a limited lot that I could do easier at home.
I like parties at the beach/park. This goes back to my refusal to leave the sim's home lot, but now it isn't an issue.
I like blatant mooching off the public services. This is a fact in cities, though there should be some sort of vagrant moodlet.
I like not having my sim children run through the same routines to make sure they are productive adults.
  This one really bugged me in sims2. In order to have a functional household in the future you could not allow the rugrats out of sight. (unless macrotastic'd) The meat of the game became how efficently you could move youngsters through rotation to maximize time. Then you could play them more free form in mid to late adult hood. Sort of ruined the whole flavor for me.
I have kids now that tend to gravitate to various objects randomly (minus the obvious over fun adverted). I had no qualms about picking bookworm for one child as he moved to teen. I couldn't get him away from books as a kid. His brother became a snob, that child only ever made fun of everyone. (He is evil too but that is just adding to it). They seem to have a bit more random personality vs skilling monster blank slates.

I adore the traits system. I thank the Awesome that we have a way to add more.


I think the only thing that is bugging me is the plants dying after so many harvests. Yeah realisticish..but a hassle.
I uninstalled Sims2. There is nothing back there that I am not willing to wait for, or find ways to live without.

If your sims have a combination of the Green Thumb trait, the Super Green Thumb perk, and Level 10 gardening skill, plus ferilize their plants as needed. plants take a loooooooong time to die. I had my sim stop fertilizing her non-perfect plants, because it was taking too long to fulfill her Perfect Garden LTW.

I must be missing something here.  I'm assuming you had limited gardening space and wanted to replace the existing plants with better quality plants.  How did your sim's gardening skills prevent you from ripping the plants up once they'd fruited (i.e. deleting them in buy mode), so that you could replace them with better quality plants?

I'm not doing the Legacy challenge, because I don't want to follow all the rules, but my Legacy-esque sim spent a lot of time mooching off public services and using her property only to grow vegetables.  Now, she's built a crude one-room log cabin next to her garden, with a bed, a toilet, a tub (with duck scrounged from neighbor's trash) and a TV (stolen from the theater).  Her property is lit by a streetlight she stole from the warehouse in Riverview.  I have no idea how she walked away with a streetlight.

She's made most of her money by feeding expensive books to a wild omniplant and selling the harvest.

Really, the game just needs a way to get high and sell love beads at Phish concerts and it'll be the best sim-hippie game ever.

CAST, the more realistic conversation options (such as "worry about money" and "ask to take out trash"), and the pretty scenery. I also love the fact that you can walk right off your lot and go to the grocery store/beach/what have you.

It didn't. I still wanted the produce, even if it wasn't perfect quality.

I love that Sims 3 runs smoothly on my non-awesome piece of sh*t laptop.

Today I had a play session on TS2, a la litmus test. Dammit, I still like TS2 more; I feel more "at home".  :-\

I realize the reasons why I still play TS3 more than TS2 are:
1) The challenge for modders (new stuff, new code, new tools, etc.)
2) TS3 allows me to comfy stay in Mac OS: I don't have to deal with Windows just for play.

I like Sims 3 because it's the first game that, straight out of the box, will actually run on my computer for more than 15 minutes straight without suffering some fatal error that necessitates the restarting of my entire computer.  I torrented Sims 2 for giggles, and Sims 3 actually runs better than 2 on my computer.  Craziness.

I like AwesomeMod.
I like the one newspaper article that's about an airplane full of sims being detained because of suspected cases of Strangetown Syndrome on board. 
During marriage proposals, I like the expression the proposing sim gets on his (or her) face. It's one of the few times in the game that the facial expression fits the occasion, and it's hilariouis. 
I like the beaches.
Shoes. Shoes are good.
CAST.  When the stupidity of the game itself starts to annoy me I can entertain myself for quite a while just by building a house: I generate a random sofa and then base the decor of the entire house around that one starting point.  The more horrendous the original sofa is, the more challenging--and fun--the rest of the house is.
I like it when sims pass out because of someone using the "bore to death" interaction on them. 
I like the sound effects from the thief hideout.  They don't compare to the TS2 sports television channel (Howard Cosell!) but they do amuse me.
I like the theory of story progression, I just wish the reality weren't so stupid and soulless.
For the first time ever, I really like quite a few of the pre-made houses. 
I like the Wainwright family.  Their kids either look like Susan and are pretty, or they look like Boyd and have the unmistakable Wainwright hair.
I like marrying a technophobe to a couch potato, just to watch them annoy one another.

It's not negativity.
I like CAST and aging on (they actually die if I forget about them :>)
But I absolutely hate not being able to build my own neighbourhoods and not being able to customize stairs and fences. Specially the neighbourhoods. I'm a SimCity person, that was what made me play the Sims in the first place… if you can't build your own worlds, what's the point?

I like walking over to my neighbors' houses and hanging out there and drinking their juice boxes.   

I forgot to add to my first post that I like the voice sliders. It helps give the illusion that sims are actually unique.

ETA: I just discovered that you can attach a ground level garage to a house on a foundation by using stairs. This, alone, makes TS3 superior to TS2, IMO.

I also like:
the tiltable camera
the way chairs turn to face the table when you place them
the way chairs come along when you move a table
the ability to drag walls
Awesomemod

I love the infinitely customizable CAST system but knew I would before I even started playing. What surprised me was how much I enjoy the collecting. I thought the concept was lame until I tried it. Now I hate getting my Sims jobs because it interferes with their scavenging. I've got one Sim who hasn't been home for a couple of weeks. She sleeps on park benches or on lounge chairs at the pool, showers and goes to the bathroom at the gym, and eats fruits she picks off wild-growing plants or filches from neighbors or the science center garden. She's amassed a small fortune from all the rocks, gems and metals she's acquired, not to mention all the goodies she's swiped (she's a klepper). When she gets enough to buy a mansion I'm going to move her in, but I'll bet she (and I) will miss the scavenging life.

The water effects are flat-out awesome. It's unbelievable how realistic they look. Ditto the lighting and changing sky effects. Even on my crappy graphics card, dusk and dawn are incredible. I also like zooming in on my Sim while riding her bike home and right-clicking on her icon to track her. It's just like I'm riding the bike myself through the neighborhood. It's especially awesome at twilight.

I love the mausoleum! The spooky sounds and creepy laughter are hilarious. It bugs me that Sims who are cowardly will still get a fun moodlet from going in, even as they get a horror moodlet from the same experience. They'll also calmly chat with ghosts. They should be scared into peeing themselves.

I like the way elders move in TS3, more realistic. Just like in TS2, though, they get severely shortchanged when it comes to clothing styles. And why no sensible slippers for Grandpa? It's either bare feet or those stupid bunny slippers. Granny gets to wear realistic slippers, why not her mate?

I miss TS2 toddlers and kids, though. They had personality and they were adorable. TS3 kiddies are cardboard. The swaddled slugs that pass for infants are particularly horrid. Too lazy to code for legs and arms, EA?

I like that Sims can jump in the pool from poolside, and climb out without using the ladder. I miss the diving board, though, and the pool slide was fun. I'll bet they'll come in a later EP, though, like pianos, half walls and the other goodies that the community's been bitching about. EA knows how to turn a buck.

I wish elders didn't lose all of their muscle upon aging.  I'd made Don Lothario into a swarthy Hulk, and when he aged up, he was suddenly a stick-armed little old man.  (Also, I wish the facial meshes for oldies were less puffy.  Don L is barely recognizable now.)

           I will prepare for Sims because i trace it so far no problem i incurred.



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