The excitement over the release of Will Wright's Spore has died down somewhat but his most famous and popular game creation, The Sims, is only a few months away from launching an all new version that is almost a sure bet for success. The Sims 3 is due out on February 20, 2009 and today Electronic Arts released new screenshots from the highly anticipated title.

While Wright himself has had little to do with The Sims franchise since the release of the original version several years ago, The Sims 3 looks like it will open up the world of those strange sounding sims folks. Instead of just living in a home, The Sims 3 will allow people to explore an entire neighborhood. Players will be able to custom design their own Sims like never before in the new game and even give them different personality traits. As you can see the new screenshots show off the more detailed visuals that The Sims 3 will have. Again we expect this title to stay atop of the best selling PC games list for a while after its release.