Curious About Massively Multiplayer Online Games —

–and The Sims–in particular? Take a look at this in-depth review on the somethingawful.com website. You’ll find one of the best reviews around including attitude, explanations, history, and wonderful, wonderful screen shots.

What makes this review particularly interesting is that the author isn’t just a normal player — he’s a griefer. That is, a person who makes it their mission in life to play hard (and nasty) on the other players. Companies that are running these games try hard to keep griefers out of the action, but this one seems to have gotten through their defenses…

This guy knows how to cheat, exploiting bugs in the game for his own purposes. For example: “I knew that the meager resources allotted a starting family would be insufficient so I called upon the shadowy powers of the dark gods to give Marduk the venture capital to establish himself adequately. Then I plunged head-first into the house builder….“

Marduk’s world is taken from the pages of Shakespear’s Romeo and Julliet. But the way this fellow plays, it could just as easily be Sweeney Todd.

It’s truly frightening to think that some people are spending dozens of hours a week and thousands of dollars a year on this madness. Well, I guess it’s better than having them watch television … or is it?