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Looking Good
Looking Good

The Looks Tab opens up a panel with six other tabs on it.

HEAD & EARS - There are only 10 basic models of head. However, although that might sound like a limitation, the advanced options, reached by clicking on the magnifying glass icon opens up the means to add some variety.

A new image comes up with the Global sliders currently highlighted. This is just the start. The other ones are Chin, Jaw, Cheek & Ear, all of which allowing you to add specific tweaks to different parts in a way superior to what we have seen before.

EYES - There are 13 basic models of eye. We will get to the colours in a minute. These give quite a good selection but for those who want more, that Advanced tool is there again.

Choices ranging from Eye Scale, Height and Rotation to Distance, Socket Height & Depth are covered in the Global sliders. Other sliders come up from clicking on the Upper Eyelid, Lower Eyelid and the Eyebrow. Yes, you can even tweak around with one of those 17 choices you picked earlier under Hair.

Getting to the eye colour, there are 8 choices. Not enough for you? No problem. Clicking on the Change Colour icon in the bottom right corner brings up another 42 choices. Still not enough? I thought not. Clicking on the Colour Wheel brings up the means to choose one of 16,777,216 colours.

There is not an option to have one eye in one colour and one in another, nor is there having what look like specifically alien eyes, but these are minor complaints. I am sure I will have a lot of enjoyment finding weird enough colours for my sims.

NOSE - There are 22 basic models and the now all familiar Advanced Tab. Global sliders cover height, length, scale and definition and others cover Nostrils, Nose Tip and Nose Bridge. Every sim can now have that perfect nose.

MOUTH - There are 15 basic models and the advanced options to help. Global sliders cover the curve, the rotation, the definition, width and height. Others cover the width, shape and thickness of either lip.

TOPICAL - Wot, no advanced tab? This section covers those minor details that add a bit of texture to a face.
Freckles - There are two types of these, which I think are very good. You can have one or even both of them at the same time.
Beauty Marks - There are two types of these, one above the lip and one below the sim's right eye. I am not too impressed with these as I would have liked a bit more variety.
Age Detail - Adult Sims only. This adds more wrinkles for creating a sim of more mature years. My only complaint is that there is no way to add these from changing appearance ingame once the sim has already been created.

MAKEUP - This is an area that I am very impressed with although there are a few areas that I would have liked to see more choice. There are many categories. All of them include the category not to have this style of makeup so I will not include them in the amount of choices.

Eye Shadow - There are four choices of placement for eyeshadow and with each type, there are five basic colours. Yes, you've guessed it, you are not confined to those five. Clicking on change colour gives 42 choices of eyeshadow or there is the colour wheel if you would rather have more.
Eyeliner - There are eight different choices of placement for eyeliner, four basic colours and of course the option to go advanced and get the same amount of choices as for Eye Shadow.

On the left, we see how purple eyeshadow has been applied from the larger palette to this sim. Don't forget to click on the thumbnail picture in order to see the bigger picture.

Blusher - There are two basic choices of placement and five different basic colour sets. By sets, there are three colours and each of these can be customised individually. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a few more basic choices of placement.
Lipstick - Three basic choices of placement. Two of them have only individual colours to choose from and one has a and colour sets as I have described previously for blusher. Yes, every colour can be customised individually.

Costume Makeup - This was a separate category altogether in The Sims 2 and it is from my experiences here that I have my only criticisms. All of the different colours in costume makeup can be customised, which I am in favour of. However, there are only five different choices. My criticism is that I would have liked to see a lot more as there were at least twice as many in the The Sims 2 before any EPs came out. On a positive note, costume makeup can again be customised, although with the limited choices, there are not that many designs to be able to customise.

The Simperor's New Clothes

There are five basic types of clothing, which is a drop of one type from The Sims 2 as you can no longer choose what underwear your sims are going to wear independently of sleepwear. Personally, I can't say that I have missed it as the only time we really saw underwear was when a sim slept in it instead of in their sleepwear. With the amount of options in sleepwear, sims can effectively sleep in their underwear.

EVERYDAY - There are five categories of clothes to choose from within this class. Tops, Bottoms, Outfits, Shoes and Accessories.

It might not appear as though there are that many choices of clothes but we have to remember that once there is a basic design, the choice of colour is down to the player by using the Create-A-Style Tool (CAST).

Even more powerful than using swatches and colour wheels, you could have a sim wearing a top that looks like it is made from the same material used to cover an old sofa, or even something made out of sheet metal. I will be covering CAST in greater detail in a later part of this review. All I can say is that it adds almost limitless choice to the colours of the existing outfits that our sims can wear.

Tops & Bottoms are self explanatory and Outfits include dresses, suits and other one-piece outfits. Effectively, there is not much difference at this stage from The Sims 2 although there is more choice in clothing types as to whether tops and bottoms can be worn.

Shoes is a new addition to Create-A-Sim. Previously, we had no say about what our sims put in their feet. They went either with Bottoms or Outfits. Now, we can choose from a wide variety of footwear and again can customise until those proverbial cows come home to get that perfect colour to match that dress, blouse, shirt, skirt, shorts or trousers.

Accessories covers a few categories that we had before with TS2 and its expansions. It covers glasses, sunglasses, gloves, earrings, bracelets, wristwatches, socks and stockings. Once again, the colours can be customised using CAST.

FORMAL, SLEEPWEAR & SWIMWEAR include the same five categories and include choices more appropriate to the type.

ATHLETIC does not include Outfits, which is a welcome and radical change from The Sims 2 where all our sims had to exercise in was just a handful of tracksuits. In my opinion, this is a major improvement.

All in all, CASim for The Sims 3 has improved on the existing formula to a great extent, so well in fact that the previous system for The Sims 2 is obsolescent.

However, there is one tab remaining and in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet".

Written at 03:14 on Tuesday 23 June 2009 by Andy.

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