I did not like The Sims. The micromanagement made me nuts, the job thing drove me nuts, the feeding, the peeing, ect. It also wasn't very graphically appealing - but I am a visual whore and I think the Doom 3 engine may well be my PC savior, so I digress. So it was with a great deal of trepidation that I purchased Sims 2 for my fiancee, and then booted it up to 'see how it handled.'
I made the mistake of not having a ton of other, important things done first.
First thing that will catch your view is the character / family creation tool. This thing has DEPTH. Some serious, serious DEPTH. I spent an hour on it when it first loaded, my fiancee spent 2 and a half. It's fun, really, really fun. The ammount of outfit choices are nice, the outfits themselves are really cool - and somewhat sexy, in my poor, repressed opinion.
There are couple annoying things. You can't create a teenager and set them to the house by themselves, nor can you wed multiple sims (damn). You can set up relationships, so that your sims are wed or grandparents or whatever right out of the box. And did somebody say.. twins?
Once you get done with that, it's back to the neighborhood selection pane. From there, pick your poison - find an empty lot or create your own. From this point on through the building section, most of it is standard Sims fare; there are a lot of item choices to make, which IS nice, but it has that familiar ring to it.
Ok, once your sim family is up to par, it's back to standard Simology. Get a job, eat food, woo a mate, ect. Now, once you have a mate, you can also create a child - something I'm going to try to do here in just a couple minutes. (That's also a feature of the character creation.. once you have two adult sims of opposite sexes, you can click the button 'make baby' which will take both of their traits and combine them into a a child that will grow up and somewhat resemble them.
It's a breeding sim!
The new sims are also a bit smarter than their predecsors. They do OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS of things automatically, but you can still command them at will. It also seems to be easier to get into a lasting relationship, as in, you can get married within a couple days if you play your cards right. They also handle getting to work somewhat well on their own, and the carpool waits a bit longer, so a good deal of the stress is off of your shoulders, oh divine one.
The game is also supposed to be highly modable. You can rewrite stories, et up your own neighboorhood, and make your own objects, and like the first game, you can trade them online. This is truly something cool for your creative side. And, if you like, you can even record movies of your sims and their interactions to show off.. why, I don't know.
Ok, now for the bad.
The graphics are good, but there are some nagging clip plane issues, and if you get a house net to a river, the river doesn't render.. it's like you're living next to a giant canyon of sorts. Very tacky.
I've yet to find out how to get a lasting relationship (love style) with more than one sim at a time without the risk of being caught so insane it's unfun.. and no threesomes that I can find yet, either.
For all of their improvements, the Sims still lack a little in the IQ department. Food will sit out and spoil even with a high cleaning skill, and counters, sinks, toilets and the like will continue to get dirty at an exponential rate if not kept clean at all times. This can be solved by hiring a maid, but hey - give me a break. The toilet doesn't have to flood every single time. The sims will try their best to eat and get to bed on time, but sometimes that just isn't soon enough. Make sure your fridge is stocked too, or you're going to have a dead sim - and pleading with the Reaper is a hit or miss thing, it looks.
And speaking of Reaper, much as I love him, the results of his wrath are terrible. And by terrible, I mean ghosts. These things tick me off more than listening to a canadian brat bitch about american politics. The ghosts in this game will pop out of nowhere on occasion, make some strange demands, be ticked off, and will scare the crap out of your sims - resulting in pissed floors, nervous breakdowns, and well, ultimately more ghosts. This is not fun.
By the way: No pets, no magic. No downtown. Sorry, Sims 1 expansion pack buyers, EA knows where your wallet is and they're going in by way of your ass.
Overall, I've got to give it a 7/10. I find myself both bored with it and unable to turn away, like a trainwreck where noone gets hurt but it's still fun to stare at.
