I’ll be the first to admit that I have no shame. I recently attended an event called “Showdown LAN” right in my neighborhood of the Bay Area. Jinx, Brookelyn and I strolled in, grabbed our assigned seats, and started setting up for a three-day LAN party. Now, you’re probably wondering what kind of PC games the Frag Dolls were playing. Battlefield 2? A little bit of Quake mixed in with some Counter Strike? I speak for myself (because I know Brookelyn didn’t want to be associated with me after this), but I spent the entire three-day LAN party playing none other than Sims Life Stories. Yes, I’ll say it again. I’m Seppuku of the Frag Dolls and I was at a LAN party playing Sims Life Stories.

But honestly, I don’t care. I’ve played the Sims series since day one of its release and it’s just like a bad habit. I thought I kicked it after Sims, but then there were the expansions. And then Sims 2. And now… this. As many people know, it’s an extremely addictive game - almost worse than an MMO in my opinion - although it’s like an MMO in that you never actually “win”.  At least in an MMO, you actually level up or feel somewhat complete when finishing a quest. That was the first Sims game, but when Sims 2 came out, things totally changed. Suddenly your sim grew old, passed on to the next generation and instead of just living your life day to day, you actually had the option to achieve certain “life goals” - sort of like a “leveling up” concept. But now, in Sims Life Stories, you actually follow a story line and are required to achieve certain life goals in order to move on to the next chapter. Once you complete all the chapters, you have technically “finished” that storyline - at least for that character. Brilliant!

So by the end of the LAN party, I had finished the entire story of the first character, Riley. I watched her go through a lot - love drama, fist fights, kidnappings, shady relationships, backstabbing friends, marriage, and even a baby! It was such an emotional rollercoaster that I can’t even tell you what happened at the LAN party. Sigh! I guess you’ll have to ask Jinx or Brookelyn.