Should I get Sims 3?

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I play the Sims 2 but after watching different Sims videos on YouTube, I saw that the Sims 3 seems to have more things to do. At the moment I love having Sims families with toddlers, but in the Sims 2 toddlers can't do a lot. They can't watch TV and you can't take them to community lots, but apparently in the Sims 3 toddlers can do more.

I'm assuming you can't buy the Sims 3 PC games in stores any more, being so it's all Wiis and PS4s now , so I might ask my brother to find the Sims 3 and all of it's expansion packs online and order it for me. I'll give him the money of course, but I don't know how much it will cost, as the Sims 3 has quite a lot of expansion packs.

Do you think it's worth buying the Sims 3? The Sims 2 seems too limited, even though I have all the expansion packs, including Family Fun Stuff, there still doesn't seem to be much stuff for toddlers and children. I've given up using the Sims custom content, as I don't think the Sims 2 is supported by the internet any more.

You can buy Sims 3 online, with Origin. It's not just that game that isnt really in stores: It's all PC games, period. You'll find very, very few such games in the wild now. Hell, PCs are starting to be built without CD/DVD drives at all. I got a new gaming rig recently, and it totally lacks one... and that's fine, because what would I ever do with it? I dont have any discs to put in it. Fortunately most of the online vendors are easy enough to deal with. I wouldnt trust any other sort of site though... dont go for "hacks" or that sort of thing. Very bad idea.

Anyway, yes, you can do waaaaaaayyyyyyyyy more of everything in Sims 3, but there's one huge problem: Performance. It's notorious for having bad performance. In all the other Sims games, only one house/lot would ever be loaded at once. In Sims 3, it's all continuous... one big giant area that's not just divided into "lots". Heck, if you see a blank grassy area with nothing in it, you can still have your sims go there if you want... there's nothing stopping you. Impossible in all the other games. And there's no loading screens when you're moving around the world at all. But it means that it's one heck of a drain on your PC. You want a fairly beefy machine to play that. And expect occaisional choppy weirdness in terms of framerate. This gets even worse if you're running alot of expansions at once (Sims 4 has that same issue).

Be wary of the cost too though. While it's not as nasty as alot of AAA stuff, all those expansions are designed to suck as much money out of you as possible. It's EA, after all, a publisher that's outright legendary for it's greed. This also means that some "expansions" arent REALLY expansions, but just crappy cash grabs that add very little to the game.

On the plus side: Mods, and/or player created content. Want more objects? The launcher lets you look for community created stuff and download it into your game easily. For free. There are also "proper" mods, as in stuff that's found outside of the launcher, but you have to be careful with those... they arent always safe.

Sims 3 is an excellent game, just one with a few rather screwball problems. I do think it's quite worth the price... as long as you avoid buying the bits that are bad. Look up video reviews of each expansion online before buying, always. I strongly suggest a Youtube channel called LGR, or Lazy Game Reviews. The guy is a huge fan of the Sims, and does superb (and very detailed) reviews of every single thing that releases for Sims 3 or 4. Easily the best way to learn if a pack is worth your money or not.

How does the day/night cycle work? I like walking around at night in games

What about if I just got the original Sims 3 and just one or two expansion packs, ones with a lot of useful additions to the game, like Seasons.

Because EA are greedy, I can't see me being able to download a Sims 3 game for free on Origin or some other internet site, and I don't have an online bank account (I avoid online banking).

It sucks that computer games are no longer trendy. I once played a Sims 2 game on a PlayStation 3, but it wasn't the same as the PC version. Games like the Sims and Rollercoaster Tycoon are best on computers.
I still have a Windows 7 laptop, and I can still do everything on it.

I know it's all iPhones and tablets now, but everyone I know has a computer in their house, and whenever I try to look for solutions online when I have a problem on my phone, 8 out of 10 results I get seem to assume I'm having the problem on a computer, so I've got to keep adding the make of my phone in the search bar, which then limits the results because there's too much information in the search bar.

Eh? Who says PC games arent trendy? I dunno where you heard that one, but it's a lie.

Right now, PCs have a dramatically bigger selection of games available on them than the consoles do. The fact that ANYONE can make a game and sell it on PC is a huge part of that (the consoles are much harder to make anything on and have alot of strange restrictions). Hell, I pretty much only do PC gaming myself. I have a Switch, but it's mostly just used for Smash and soon Mario Maker. I have a PS4, but it's a glorified paperweight (seriously I dont know why I dont just sell the stupid thing, it's useless).

PC, on the other hand is what I use for almost everything. Same with most of the people I know. Most of the games I get are from Steam, but I do have Origin and some others too.

Now that all being said, you dont need some weird bank account to buy games online. Hell, I dont know the first thing about banks and even I can do it. The easy way to get at these games is to buy gift cards. Which are sold at all sorts of stores. You could buy a gift card that's related to the specific online vendor you intend on using (they all have their own cards), or you could buy something like one of those Visa gift cards. Which essentially act like a small debit card, except they're limited to how much the card starts with. Easiest way to buy anything online. I always just get this stuff from the Walmart that's near my house. And then, once you have the card (regardless of which specific type it is) all you have to do is type in it's code when you're at the buy screen for whatever game you're after. Easy! And no banks or credit/debit cards needed.

This all works on consoles too, actually, not just PC. All of the consoles have their own specific cards you can buy that work for their own unique online stores.

Again though, just make sure you're careful about what you're buying, and it'll work out well.

Perfer Sims 3. Becuase in the pet version you can have horses. I never played it for anything but breeding and showing horses.

It works purely based on time (as in, it's not a glorified loading screen or anything). If any of your Sims are actually awake during the night for whatever reason you can indeed have them go out. Though places like stores and such will be closed.

Both versions I had I could let my Sims go anywhere day or night. I had nightlife for Sims 2.