10 Notorious Video Games That Ask You To Sacrifice Your Social Life

2. The Sims

What we say for 'The Sims' could be said for any other life or world simulator game. Though simple in premise and execution these games can be devilishly involving and can see a half hour play session quickly turn into an afternoon written-off as a "gaming day". There really is very little that's complicated about a game like The Sims. You create a character, put him or her into their own house in an initially small town and then try to keep them from dying a horrible, lonely death. There's nothing to it, right? Wrong; the power of The Sims is in its abundance of things to consider. Each character you create has a certain set of 'needs' that you have to try to keep at a satisfactory level lest they devolve into some scarcely-functioning catastrophe. Each of these needs is wonderfully simple to satisfy, too; keeping you character from starving requires you simply to move them to the fridge and instruct them to eat. What The Sims does to complicate this though, is lull you into biting off more than you can chew. Keeping one Sim happy is achievable with regular surveillance, but once you add a spouse and a family it becomes dramatically difficult to keep all of the right plates spinning to prevent them from perishing or pooping themselves to death. And if you think of adding a pet to that family then you are just asking for a nervous breakdown.