Yeah, you see the thing about playing a simulation of anything is realistically you'd want to play something that it was highly unlikely you could achieve in real life. Like “Space Exploration Simulation”, “What's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench Simulator?” or “Getting the Girls if you're a Geek Simulator”. So when it comes to playing Sims 3, where you get to work, sleep, eat, piss and pay bills... I'm thinking “Hey I already do that moderately well [debatable - Matt]... I want to blow stuff up in my time off”. Which, okay, I've had a good dose of recently, but that's besides the point.

Sims 3 may well be the 3rd in the series, but that's only due to the numbering after the word “Sims” considering the vast quantities of expansion packs released for the previous 2, we really have had quite a lot of options when it comes down to it. Anyway, here I am, bunging a bunch of the lads into a house to see how they all get on. Putting people in that I knew was probably my first mistake...

Unless you've been Bin Laden's close personal guard for the last 10 years or so, you should already be familiar with the Sims line of titles. The 3rd of which hopes to bring more gameplay features, characteristics and ease of use. Why any developer has bothered when 75% of gamers are looking for better graphics to make their “Remove Censorship Patch” look that much better or locking a bunch of Sims in a room to see how long until they starve to death. The mob is simple as well as fickle you know.

So, you can customise pretty much everything now: clothes, facial structure, personality traits and their little hopes and dreams. In short, creating a family's a doddle but then you can always use a pre-built family if you get bored easily. Selecting that family means you can now either move into a house or make a new one. As you can probably guess, picking one that's already there makes your life a little easier, but building one is that much cooler and hell you bought the game so you might as well get the most out of it.

Building the house can all be part of the craziness that is The Sims. You get to choose how you build it, decorate it and furnish it – as well as choosing a suitable location (although this usually suffers from budget constraints). The bigger the family, the bigger your starting budget will be, which is only fair seeing as the difficulty of controlling multiple Sims increases the more you add to any one household. Once you pick a plot of land, allowing for all of the other things you have to spend of course, you can set about building your dream home... well, if not “dream” home then “pad” will have to do.

While generally speaking there is no “wrong” way to build your house it is always wise to at least allow space for your Sims to move around. The AI only tends to fall down when your Sims can't get where they want to. I once watched 4 Sims stand for 2 hours (yes I fast-forwarded) as they'd all been called to dinner and had tried to grab the plate off the side at the same time – frustration set in as neither could negotiate around the other. So as amusing as that is - be warned.

The interface for actually building your house allows you to swap between building and furnishing with the click of a button. I decided to build a few houses to get to grips with the budget, and you can really go to town on what's possible. Speaking of going to town, seeing as you can do that, you can always check out the neighbours for inspiration if you lack it. Regardless, so long as you create enough space for all the major necessities (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom etc...) and put some windows in (Sims like the Sun, strangely!) then you should be well on your way to furnishing.

The main downfall of getting to this stage is that you've probably had quite a bit of fun making the property only to realise that you're running thin on budget and need to actually put stuff in the freakin' house for the Sims to interact with. They need to eat, sleep and be entertained like the rest of us – the more you spend on each item, the better it'll make them feel about their environment. From lights and pictures to TV's and computers – your purchases matter. Of course unless you hunt around for some cheats you'll be starting at the bottom end of the scale, trying to scrimp together enough to keep your Sims borderline suicidal... but getting by. This is all part of the game of course. You'll start in a slum and build up to becoming multi-millionaire tycoons! If only you can hold down a job.

There are quite a few jobs to dive into, but it's advancing through those given careers which is the challenge. You'll come to appreciate that some days it simply doesn't feel like there have been enough hours to get your Sim up, fed, showered and entertained in order to get him to work to lead a productive day, only to come home and have to repeat the process so he doesn't turn into some social recluse. So as you can appreciate, this is where job advancement becomes a challenge. To begin with you'll start flying up the ranks just for having a positive attitude as you leave for work – but then it could be about sucking up to the boss, socialising with workmates or making sure you have perfect abs.

Socialising is a key part of a Sims life. Sure, they can spend their time chatting to room-mates if that's all you can be bothered to do – but like me you might learn a scary lesson about 4 blokes living together with no female influence in their life – you'll be on the phone to the maid quicker than you can say “Holy cow I only popped out for some groceries, what the hell are you doing on my sofa”...so popping over to a friends house, meeting people at work or clubs or inviting people around is a great way to get the Sims to meet new people. I'd add that you can do this when calling over a plumber, but seeing as one of the guys starting chatting her up, she never fixed the shower and bloody charged us anyway. Bitch.

So, the long and short of it is that if you want to live your life doing all the day-to-day things but in a game then Sims 3 is certainly a strong choice. I did find myself wondering why I was playing the game when I had so much else to get on with, but then I realised on my salary that I'll never be driving around town in a sports car or getting the maid to clean my... house.