It's a good thing people don't play The Sims for the graphics. The Sims 3 is not a looker on 3DS -- no matter how you adjust the three-dimensional slider. In an unfinsihed build of this launch game, the visuals lacked detail (even compared to versions of the game running on mobile phones) and the framerate was inadequate. Perhaps its saving grace, then, is in how The Sims 3 takes advtage of the 3DS's other unique features, making this particular iteration somewhat novel (especially compared to EA's other 3DS port).

Using the 3DS camera, players can create Sims based on snapshots of their faces -- or anyone's face nearby. Oddly, the feature will only import a close approximation of the source's facial features, leaving aspects such as skin tone, hair and even gender to be manually selected. Though the process is a bit tedious, on the plus side, I now know what I'd look like if I were a rail-thin blond ... girl.