The Sims 2 Scores Again!

PGNX.net and Gamers-Depot.com review The Sims 2 and give it a 9.4/10 and a 4 out of 5 respectivly. "The game is addictive. It allows you a chance to play out an enormous amount of "what ifs" that could apply to you own life. This is a marvelous hook."

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PGNx Media | The Sims 2 Review

by Jose Liz

EA Games releases the sequel to the most successful PC game. Ever. EA Games and Maxis’ The Sims and its seven or so expansions were all phenomenal success stories for EA since the first game’s release in 2000. How exactly do you follow up a game that popular? You add more “stuff” and give it better graphics. In a nutshell, that is The Sims 2, a game that allows fans to continue living virtual lives while improving the core game just enough to warrant the “2” in the title and still allow for future expansion packs.

In this sequel, the focus is still on leading the lives of your many sims. You begin by creating a customizable character. You can edit the character’s facial attributes, hair style (and color!), as well as clothing for different occasions. The game also lets you choose the skin color and eye color to further customize the character’s appearance. You’ll also have a hand at building their personality since you can specify the horoscope and characteristics like playfulness, outgoingness, neatness and niceness.

Once you’re comfortable with the one you made, you can choose to create another or move on to the neighborhood. The game allows you to enter a pre-made house or you can choose to build one on your own. That’s where the fun begins as you’re able to construct a massive, four-story house and populate it with much furniture and other decorations. The game also allows you to design the whole neighborhood to your liking; meaning that you can add parks, additional houses, etcetera to the neighborhood, should you wish to do so. Although there are many options, The Sims 2 allows you to choose how in-depth you want to be in creating your virtual world, which explains why it is so popular with hardcore and casual gamers alike.

While giving “birth” to characters and building neighborhoods is great fun, the main activity in the game is controlling your sims through their virtual lives. Much like the rest of the game, you can sit back and watch the sims go through their day. You’ll notice that the adults go to work, and the children go to school, and they’ll generally interact with each other. They also seem more adept at keeping themselves happy so you don’t need to be constantly telling them to do this or do that. Thanks to the game’s screenshot- and video-capturing utility, you can even choose to watch them live by themselves and relive these oft-humorous moments later on.

The Sims was great fun for many but was continually criticized for being too open-ended. After all, the game had no defined goals… what kind of game has no defined goals? The folks at Maxis have addressed this by making you feel like the game actually progresses. For starters, sims age in the game and can die, even without the strange activities players did in the first game (like telling the sims to swim and remove all the handles to get out of the pool). As your sim ages, it begins to remember fond memories like childbirth in the family or marriage. Hopefully, before the sim passes away it will have children and conceivably those children will have children. Another major addition to the formula is the addition of genetics. Your sims pass their genetic makeup to their offspring, effectively allowing for generations upon generations of your created family. The illusion of family is furthered by occasional visits from children and grandchildren.

Moreover, there are actual goals for your sims. You are now more involved in your sims’ careers and you’ll need to make periodic decisions regarding them which affect the outcome. More importantly, each sim has aspirations, which they’ll want to accomplish, and fears. You can choose to make your sim have a romantic aspiration, or a more financial-oriented one or perhaps just to be popular. Along the way, you’ll to accomplish a couple of defined goals which fill your aspiration meter. The sims also have fears which drain the aspiration meter and can even force your sim into a state of hysteria.

The addition of aging, the passing of genetics and the aspiration system allows players to be more involved in a sim’s life, which is certainly great news. It also keeps the game fresh since you’ll be less likely to get bored when you know that planning the perfect party is only a few more minutes of gameplay away.

The most apparent change can be found in the visuals. The Sims 2 looks pretty great all in all. The engine is completely different from the first game, and allows for many characters on-screen, much more detailed environments and a fully controllable camera system. The sims’ models are much improved and allow for all the customizing I mentioned above, and as always, the animation is spot-on and very impressive.

The game’s background music is solid and certainty fitting with the zany world of the Sims. The numerous sound effects are equally suitable. The audio’s highlight, though, is definitely The Sims 2’s spoken language – Simlish – which while not real is able to showcase a variety of emotions and carry on many conversations.

All in all, while The Sims 2 is no longer a game about “nothing,” its “something” is deep enough, varied enough, interesting enough and most importantly fun enough to justify its purchase for just about everyone from soccer moms to first person shooter addicts. There is so much to do, and the game offers nearly infinite replay value especially when you add in the sure-to-be-strong community into the mix.

GamersDepot | The Sims 2 Review

Sims 2 is the kind of game that makes is its own genre. There really isn’t anything else much like it. Sims 2 provides you a chance to create people with an incredible amount of detail and run their lives as you see fit.

I never played Sims before. I never quite understood the appeal of a game where you micromanage virtual people’s lives. It was an idea that didn’t compute with my ideas of a fun game. There was no bullets, bombs, swords or steering wheels to make this game appeal to me. I have a hard enough time navigating life for myself, let alone trying to herd a virtual person on to a life of happiness and success by reaching goals. It seemed tantamount to playing with dolls.

But steering a man with a gun through a secret military research base, haunted space station or through jungles on tropical islands could also be seen as playing with dolls. These versions are more G.I. Joe than Barbie, but the concept of directing a virtual person into and out of trouble is pretty much the same basic idea.

Sims 2 is more Barbie and Ken. In this game you decide on what the person looks like, their desires and how they reach their goals, aspirations and dreams. Instead of choosing which large caliber firearm to destroy the enemy with, in Sims 2 you are building a home they way you want with the furnishings that will make your virtual person happy. Instead of improving skills in stealth, knife throwing and garrote use, you are working towards cooking, cleaning and maybe creative skills. The amount of decisions in Sims 2 is far beyond any first-person shooter game. There is a lot more to running a person’s life when they want to get married, have children and settle into a larger home than when they want to survive the horde of demons on the space station. Blowing holes in mutants takes very few decisions that are more along the line of pick weapon, loading said weapon and pulling the trigger on said weapon until the enemy resembles Swiss cheese dipped in ketchup and shaken off vigorously. There in lies the fun of Sims 2.

Sims 2’s appeal can be summed up best by brownie Franjean in the 1988 movie “Willow” when he said, “You are mine to toy with.”

It is unbelievable how open the story line is in Sims 2. You can create a child and run him or her through to the end of their life. You make the decisions on who they date, where they work, when they clean the house, eat, use the computer, read the newspaper, watch television, take a shower, sit in the hot tub, propose engagement, marry and have children. There are more options in Sims 2 than first appears. It is a game that could be played forever with generations stemming from your first character’s DNA.

Starting the game is perhaps the most frustrating part of it. The program is a resources pig and wallows on its way to running. Once it is loaded, there are the carefully obscured menus to create your own Sims characters. If I took time to read the manual this would probably have been a better experience, but I was too excited to jump in and play rather than read. The tutorial is wonderful in getting a person used to the controls and options in playing, but it falls short on character creation, saving games and reloading them. There is a trick to loading saved characters. You can start a game with one of the pre-made characters, such as the Goth family, by selecting a house with a name or description over it in one of three communities offered at the start menu. Or you create your own. When you are done with a game session and wish to quit for a shower, sleep or that pesky job, you can easily save the game. Loading it is another trick altogether. Instead of a “load” option, you start the game again and go back to the community you were playing in and select the same character at the same house. At first I thought maybe this would have me starting over but I lucked out. Another bone of contention with the save and loading options is that it is too easy for another player to start running your characters. This game is very appealing to wives and girlfriends and I am sure the last thing you want to find is that your male character is now dating another man after you spent weeks courting one of the hot ladies sprinkled liberally throughout the game.

Once you get a character the game starts to seep into your system as you now have choices to make. First you could decide to buy a new house and fill it with possessions or remodel the one you start with, then again you could leave it alone and start focusing on the character. You can start building skills to get a better job, keeping the house clean, feeding your pet character, interacting with family, friends or try to get some serous whoopee in the hot tub. The choices are pretty much endless. There are a serious of gauges to tell you what the character needs and if you do nothing, they will go about satisfying their needs and very slowly working towards their dreams. It is when you intervene that it becomes interesting and the fun starts to take over. The game is a fascinating time management puzzle. Ever decision you make takes time. You can stack decisions but if you take to long to answer the door, your date leaves. Maybe you ignore the plate on the table to watch television or hot tub with a neighbor. You will find it later to have a nice green mist rising off of it with complimentary flies. Sure, it’s funny and resembles any dorm room but it causes other problems for the character that might not be so funny. A lady left a character’s home because it was too filthy. Cleaning a home can also keep a character happy if they are more of a neat freak than slob. Every decision will have an impact so choose carefully to reach your goals.

Characters have dreams and fears to contend with. This can be pretty interesting as dreams change daily or when you have completed a dream. Maybe the dream was to kiss another character, get married, find a new job, gain skills or as Lothario likes, maybe you need to sleep with someone. The dreams are based on the aspirations set about for characters. When making a character you can choose what they ultimately want in life, money, popularity, family, knowledge, etc. This helps guide what your character dreams. It is up to you to direct this character through their life to reach their dreams and aspirations. Then, if they had children you can play the children through their life and then on to the grand children. Fears come into play when you need to confront one to accomplish a goal. It can be a real problem and offers a nice challenge. Some fears are played out during random disasters, such as when the kitchen appliance catches fire or a burglar rips you off. Disasters happen in Sims 2 and it is up to you to navigate your character around them.

These are some of the new features for the Sims game line. Characters growing old, sharing DNA to have children, dreams, aspirations and fears are all part of the game. Some additional features added were the expanded character creation abilities and a new method for taking in game pictures and video to make a movie of your character’s life. The limit of creativity is expanded far beyond what was available in the previous version, even if you bought the eight million expansions. The graphics and sound have improved since the original was released in 2000. It is pretty. The moving camera and zoom features provides plenty of detail regardless of which character is doing what where ever it might be in the house.

Graphics have improved but it still leaves a very “Twilight Zone” feel to it. You need to keep up on the garden, pick up the paper and meet people outside of your character’s house. The odd part is you have no neighbors. At least there are no neighbors that you can see from your front yard. They will walk by and stop to talk to you when you are out there, but their house is like Wonder Woman’s jet. Invisible. This is a bit of a disappointment. It would have been nice to see how your character’s home fits in with the neighborhood. You are also restricted from leaving your yard. Your characters will go to school or work by car pool, bus, limo and even a helicopter if you work it right. But, you cannot take your character for a walk down the street or to the nearby 7-11 for some tasty nachos. Even with this “life in a fishbowl” feeling, there is still plenty to do in the game.

The game is definitely not for the avid Doom 3 freak nor is it for children. The concepts in Sims 2 are pretty encompassing thoughts about life and how we cope with the issues facing everyone at one point or another. The game is rated “T” for teens due to the ability of characters to have sex. Nothing graphic, but the morals are completely up to the person playing. The sexy parts are covered up by digitized boxes when using the toilet or in the shower or hidden under the water in the hot tub. We are not talking Internet porn.

Without the hook of pulse pounding action, Sims 2 relies on the complexity of running another person’s life to provide the play within the game. At first the slow pace can be trying for action junkies, but after a short bit of time you find yourself playing just a little bit longer to finish that last task or to reach another goal. Pretty soon the sun has come up, your alarm clock is ringing and you need to shower before catching a ride to work. And I am not talking about your character this time. The game is addictive. It allows you a chance to play out an enormous amount of “what ifs” that could apply to you own life. This is a marvelous hook. It is sort of a Star Trek holodeck on your PC. Now there is an idea. Next time I will make a character bent on writing the perfect sci-fi television series or maybe writing the ultimate video game or I could become a doctor. No! This time I will become all knowing and discover the secrets of the aliens living in the desert. Oh wait, I could become a ghost hunter…the possibilities seem endless.