Customer Reviews

Maxis #1 All Time Sims 3D-Game Ever!
I believe this game will be the best Pc selling game ever!
Why?

This is all the options that we will enjoy and have for thesims 2.
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Building Options - Create mountains, build multiple story homes, with basements, put doors and windows on diagonal walls.

Calendar - The new sim calendar will work by the week instead of month. (ie your kids birthday is next Monday).

Cameras - Now you can place cameras all around the room to capture a party from all angles.

Careers - For adult sims, there wi.ll be 18 careers, with 10 levels each. For teen and old sims there will be 7 careers, with 3 levels each. Also elderly sims will receive a pension upon retiring.

Diaries - Now you will be able to create video as well as snap shot diaries of your sims life.

Family - The family limit will still be set at 8. But new to TS2 is the ability to create all ages, except infant, in the create-a-sim area. So you could start out with a Mom, teen, and toddler if you wanted.

Leaving the house - The only option to leave the home right now, is to send your sims to their second home, which you can also create. However a communal area is being considered.

Life Moments and Big Decisions - These will effect your life score, and also have an effect on your sim as they get older. Some of these included: Toilet training, first step, first kiss, first crush, getting a job, getting married.

Will Sims actually get pregnant? Will they still have to kiss to have a baby? - Yes! Sims will get pregnant but instead of kissing, a 'play' feature can be used in a bed or hot tub.

What is the Create-a-Sim tool? Is there going to be a demo of it? -The Create-a-Sim tool is a program that will allow you to completely customize every aspect of your Sims facial featurues. This will allow you to make any Sim you want! Even yourself! And yes, there is to be a demo release of it between August & September.

What about clothing customization? - Clothing articles will now be seperate from each other! Meaning that a pair of pants will be seperate from a shirt, creating alot more ways to mix & match!

Can you customize hair/make-up, too? - Yes! In the Create-a-Sim program you will be able to change hair color & style, & apply make-up to your sims. You are also able to do this during game play using special objects such as mirrors.

Will there be more than 2 floors? - Yes! I've seen as many as 3 floors, plus a basement, for a total of 4!

And More...

Makes the original Sims Look like Pong
WOW am I impressed with this new version of "The Sims". My gut feeling tells me that you're not going to be able to sell your old versions because everyone is going to want this one instead. I knew it too because when I saw the previews, I stopped buying the expansion packs, immediately, just to wait this one out.

How is it? Fantastic. The graphics are fluid and smooth, the characters have fingers, wedding rings, facial expressions, man, you name it they've worked on it and it's obvious. The clothing has fluidity (the hair too) and zooming in close up to a character's face really shows some detail. Nice, nice job. Playing the game *is* pretty similar to the first but you can tell Maxis did their homework and I can just see Will saying: "Okay, THIS is what the fans want" cause it sure looks like they worked on it.

For instance, its the little things that make a difference. When a sim walks in the room, the other sims react, say hello... I had a dad come home from work and the child he was close to dropped her toy and ran out to greet him by jumping in his arms. They are no longer stiff like the first Sims, they have reactions which are pretty cool. Also, there's an amazing amount of detail. The fridge has a variety of food (and can be emptied now, unfortunately, but you call the grocer) and the more a Sim knows how to cook, the different varieties of food they can make. A Sim can cook either Salmon or Mac and Cheese and they look exactly like they seem. That was pretty wild to pause and inspect.

What else? They age. Yup, they sure do. It's better than the first and more difficult as well. My Sims tried for a baby -- and first of all ended up with twins! Holy cow, that was work. Now, the infants cry for different things and just feeding and holding them doesn't work anymore. They're specific. Changing the diaper... bathing them... all the little things you'd expect with a baby, except they're babies for only a few days, then toddlers for a few days, then they turn into kids and teens and so on.

Think its easy? Nope. You gotta nurture the kid through your Sim. Early nurturing calls for good development. Teaching them to walk, talk and communicating makes a better child who is better in school eventually. Unfortunately, I've got some lazy sims who don't want to help their kids with homework and the social worker keeps coming to take them away. It goes pretty quick, too. This isn't your old Sims games, either... they don't just sob a bit when this happens -- the parents endup traumatized.

Neglect the Sims and there's consequences. Let's say... the sim's social meter is really, really low. They can actually snap and start babbling. Next thing I know, a therapist drops in and starts helping the sim out. Funny part of that -- the therapist is only visible when you click on the sim that is nuts. How funny is that?

Oh... remember the ghosts? They're actually pretty creepy in this one. They move things and will animate other things as well. Apparently, they have a certain colored glow for how they died. Haven't figured that one out yet.

Building the homes is pretty cool, too. Yup, you can actually put in a basement, but you have to dig a hole first and that kind of thing. Windows can be put in for multiple floors and staircases are customized. I miss the circular staircase, though. What else is new? Lots of furniture, customizing the roofs yourself, which is definitely a bit tricky if you're not creatively adept and spraying the grass different shades... i.e., brown, green, light green... like that. Learning how to build the houses takes as much time as learning the new Sims habits.

Good stuff? You want the "fun" stuff? Oh, the Sims are a LOT more flirty, little more R-rated but never oversteps the line. "Playing in bed" is no longer -- it's called Woo Hoo! You can "goose" a sim and flirt different ways.. you can have Woo Hoo in the hot tub and apparently in public as well (by the way, you can travel to little park areas like in the expansion packs of the first Sims.) I may point out that there is a difference between Woo Hoo and Try for a Baby. Woo Hoo I believe is w/contraceptives (LOL) otherwise, try for a baby seems to be no problem as my Sims get knocked up pretty quick.

Oh! The neighborhoods... you have three different neighborhoods (and you can customize how they look... there are quite a few similarities between these neighborhoods and SimCity... hmmm.... I wonder why?):) Well, you can add all kinds of things... rocks, wildflowers, ocean surf, rainbows, clouds...etc. The only thing I wish is that you can see this stuff when in the homes. Example? You place 20 giant rocks in the lot next to a Sim home -- inside the sim home you see nothing but a plain. Maybe they'll fix it later, who knows?

But each neighborhood has a "story." I got the guidebook and apparently, you should visit certain houses first before others. They have a chain reaction. But that's if you want to actually work on the storyline. You dont' have to. The funny one would be the Strangeville neighborhood which Bella Goth has been sighted in (LOL) and there's a crashed space ship nearby. People do get abducted by aliens, yup, but it's the MEN that get impregnanted. That's pretty hysterical.

Anything bad? Just a few. It does play like the first, but technologically-wise, we're not up to artificial intelligence, yet, so I'm pretty happy with what they've got. There are a few glitches in the game I've come across already (i.e., a fire starts, fireman comes... but the fire just keep burning for eternity.) As for loading it, I had some pretty big problems and couldn't do it for four hours -- massively ticked me off. Ended up returning the discs to get new ones and they worked fine. Got problems running it? I'd recommend checking their site for tech issues. It helped me. but I have no doubt a patch will be coming out soon.

Oh, and there's no rain. I checked and waited. Apparently, they've had problems getting the rain to work so they took it out.

Great game. Lots of fun -- can't wait what to find out next.

Upgrade your computer and get ready for FUN!!
Other miscellaneous new features for Sims 2:

1. Sims now have five fingers.
2. Pregnant Sims have morning sickness, show a bulging belly, leave for the hospital when it's time to give birth, and come back a few days later with a baby. Additonally, there's a possibility (though rare) for female sims to give birth to twins and triplets.
3. Alien abductions in certain neighborhoods are common.
4. Ghost sighting tend to be more perilous (another perk of a more advanced artificial intelligence). If a ghost sim died in a fire, he might come back with a red glow and tendency to start fires himself.
5. As the sims cooking skills increase they can different types of foods, as opposed to the generic meals that could only be cooked in Sims 1 no matter how high your sims cooking score was.
6. Sims can decide which schools to sent their sims children to in order to give them a better start in life.
7. The game will have neighborhoods that have fifty lots on them.
8. Sims can divorce, have affairs, move out and keep the items that they purchased. Additonally, sims can marry NPC's, such as the maid, the butler, the mailman.
9. Sims can own two homes. Births, deaths, and marriages are much more important in Sims 2.
10. Sims can now die in several different ways.