Changing Worlds
You’ll find that IMVU is devoid of any true ‘action’ in the classical sense, with the gameplay focuses almost exclusively on customisation and chatting. The whole experience involves customising, crafting, refining, swapping, and generally trying lots of things on your virtual character and then bragging about it to other players. It’s kind of like an elaborate online changing room where you can try on new faces, clothes, skin, accessories, and general surroundings, with almost everything you can think of being fully customisable. Exploring the world is essentially just the act of entering a load of different chat rooms that have been designed by other people, sometimes poorly, and sometimes very competently indeed. This is essentially the beauty of it, because you can customise your own little world and also get inspiration from those of other players as well, discovering new designs and ideas along the way, and perhaps meeting a few friends while you’re at it. They probably won’t be your BFFs or best friends foreverest, but it’s a game that at least gives you the option of cultivating relationships, however shallow their foundations may be.
Almost MMO
Choose IMVU if you are looking for an accessible online world that allows you to customise heavily and chat to your heart’s content; it isn’t action packed or suspenseful, but it does the job. Unfortunately, the game has no actual ‘movement’ and instead dictates the exact locations that you will inhabit in your rooms and the rooms of others, so it’s not really an MMO in the first place. That said, IMVU isn’t attempting to be something that it is not, and you can even float your designs in the virtual world and make actual money from them. It’s a shame that the full experience requires a paying subscription and that free players are merely ‘guests’ that are exploring the world with very limited scope, but IMVU is rich in socialising and the pimping out of yourself and your surroundings, which is exactly the kind of get-away that many people need. While this kind of swap-and-show may not appeal to everyone, the player base of the game is staggeringly huge, so it may be worth seeing what all the fuss is about.
75/100
Note* Under 18's and Over 18's are separated into different chat rooms and worlds to ensure the safety of kids who wish to play.
