I found it only my duty to check out the most eagerly anticipated online game of the year as a sequel to "The Sims" series which is the best selling computer game in history. (I also must mention I really like Sim games like SimGolf, Zoo Tycon, SimCity, etc.)

In "The Sims Online" you pay for theh game then pay $9.99 a month to play the game, much like other MMORGs. You create a character with pages and pages of "looks" to choose from, then take on this character's personality, which you also develop and decide.

Almost immediately however I found out how limited this game was. It is very under-developed and you are able to do the following:

• Work on skills (creativety, cooking, charisma, body, logic, mechanical). You work on skills by doing repetitive tasks, for example, read about cooking. This raises your skill level ever so slowly and is extremely boring as you must just sit there and watch your Sim read. These skills reward you with additional interactions (kiss, hug) with other people (big deal) and the higher the skill, the more money you will make with money making objects (see next bullet).
  
• Make Money by doing various single or multi-player tasks such as bash a pinata which will drop money, make lawn gnomes and sell them. In the past month that I have played the game, I have made an army of Lawn Gnomes and bashed a heck of a lot of pinatas. Now what to do with all that money.
  
• Last but not least you can open a house/business or partner with up to 7 others (roomates) to do this. Then people come to your house/business to work on their skills or make money. You get a nominal reward the more people that come to your house/business, and you constanstly have to upkeep the house by repairing items and cleaning up after all your guests.
  

There is the whole social aspect of the game, as EVERYONE in the game is another real life person to interact with. But you can only dance, hug, pile drive and berate so many people before it get's old. Way old.

I experiences the house/business aspect well enough joining as a roomate to a gym that quickly rose to the rank of the number 1 skill house on the server. But that just means we stayed open 24X7 for a while and attracted a lot of visitors (which it is easy to do when you are listed first on the list).

The Sims Online is a totally boring game after the first week or so. It does have the potential to add much more since it, like other online games, can be patched daily, weekly or whatever. I believe that they rushed the launch of the game, leaving out key features. Especially if you compare it to the stand-alone version which offers much more variety.

Don't waste your time or your money.

Overall rating 1 out of 5 stars.

EverQuest
EverQuest is a 3-D, massively multiplayer, fantasy role-playing game. An enormous virtual environment, it offers an entire world with its own diverse species, economic systems, alliances, and politics. Choose from a variety of races and classes, and begin your quest in any number of cities or villages throughout several continents. From there, equip yourself for adventure, seek allies and knowledge, and head out into a rich world of dungeons, towers, crypts, and evil abbeys. Learn skills, earn experience, acquire treasure and equipment, meet friends, and encounter enemies. A multitude of quests and adventures await; where you choose your role, you define your destiny. The trilogy gives players five enormous continents, 13 races, and more than 400 supporting characters, allowing for unlimited hours of gameplay.

I couldn't start a review site without putting up a review of EverQuest. After all no other activity has dominated my leisure time more then EverQuest. EverQuest is currently the best game that has ever been created. Players enter a virtual world that exists 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The goal of the game is to accumulate wealth and items, while fighting monsters, animals, aliens, evil characters (unless you are evil then you can fight good characters) and just about anything else that moves.

The game is made up of a breath-taking world of computer graphics that are just incredible. It is easy to get lost in the immense world. In real time if you were to run from one side of the world to the other, pausing only to ride the various boats to take you to the next continent, it would take you approximately 4-5 hours to do so.

Speaking of time, it is a big time sink. One can easily play for 8-10 hours and not even realize it. One the other end of the stick if you can't play for more then an hour sometimes it isn't even worth logging on.

Another interesting phenomenon that has come from EverQuest, and other Massive Multiplayer Online games, is the buying and selling of accounts, characters and items within the game. Online website like playerauctions cater to these people where they will sell their characters for thousands of dollars. This of course came after Ebay wouldn't allow the selling of EQ items on their site.

On the downside, EverQuest costs an initial fee of ~$30 to buy the game, then an additional monthly fee of $12.95 a month (discounts for multiple month purchases are available). It can also cost much more as it has been identified as being very addictive. Some refer to it as EverCrack and players that don't have good self control have been known to lose schooling, jobs and even family because of the addiction.

The popularity, the entertainment value and the controversy with this game are overwhelming. I will end with a link to the Norathian Scrolls which is a research project that an individual did while studying for his MBA that offers some very interesting insight into the inner mind and lives of those who love this game.