The Sims

Maxis, best known for their numerous different simulators all with a similar name of "Sims" (such as Sim City and The Sims, and many, many more) have created quite an empire of simulation games, and are still going at it, as they are releasing a new Sim City next year that is even online!

Anyway, The Sims challenges you in a unique way by making you control the daily lives of the Sims in your household. The activities you have to make them do include eating, sleeping, regulating their bowels [aka taking a poo]. It's a very challenging game to do without cheats, as I can only recall my own games where I gave myself tons of money and made the most lavish house possible. The newer games allow you to change even more with cheats and you can even change NPC's looks, appearances, and affiliations.

Enough with cheating though, I don't want to be a bad role model :D. So in recent games Maxis has added a system where you pick different traits for your character, like athlete, lazy, or kleptomaniac. Each trait provides a specific boost, which can help you a lot when trying to keep your Sim healthy. I prefer the Evil and Klepto traits, as that makes the game more entertaining, since I don't have to worry about keeping him alive.

What I find new and innovative is that they are now introducing things like astronomy, exploration, and collecting that don't neccessarily increase your skills, but they do provide incentive to play the game and find out more about your environment. In the past sims games, things got boring because you could only travel to small business lots and other Sim's houses, which easily made the game boring.