A first-rate, highly entertaining follow-up to The Sims.
The Sims is, as any sane individual should know (or at least, any reasonably informed sane individual), the definitively best-selling PC game of all-time thus far. It’s managed to ship over 16 million copies since release in February 2000. Following something which achieved such sky high success was obviously going to be extremely difficult. Luckily, the drive and determination of the guys over at Maxis has paid off well. The Sims 2 is truly better than The Sims; in fact it’s probably in a whole different league.
As before, the premise of the game is that you are given a virtual neighbourhood (actually you can have an infinite amount of neighbourhoods this time; the size of your hard drive will be the only limit), in which you can create families, build their houses and local shopping facilities, and then set about running their lives as you see fit. There is no way to ‘win’ The Sims 2, all of the gameplay is entirely open ended. After all, there’s no way to ‘win’ in life! Just like its predecessor, The Sims 2 is almost the definitive life simulation game, and no contenders have appeared to compete with its sky high success. Build your families into towering tycoons of industry, have them lead a simple life working from home, or wreck their lives by burning the house down and having them drown in the swimming pool, the choice is completely yours.
Many game elements have made substantial changes and improvements since the original. Now, you Sims will be born, grow up and eventually, sad though it may be, die. A proper “circle of life” can be established, where new generations of the same family all can live under one roof. The age system makes a big boost to the realism factor of the game. Furthermore, now no longer just requiring the short-term needs of food, hygiene et cetera, the Sims have gained true aspirations, and thoughts alongside. Some are very simple, like eating a certain food for breakfast, or doing homework. However, there are far more challenging and life-altering decisions, like getting a job in a certain career or getting married. The level of aspiration points you can attain from these changes according to the difficultly of achieving it. Achieving aspirations can also unlock special rewards, both points-based and careers; a very handy incentive for working towards long-term targets.
Movement has improved leaps and bounds since The Sims. Instead of the four locked positions and several locked zooms, you can now freely pan, zoom and rotate around the lots in whatever fashion you desire. There is also a handy “free camera” so can fly though the house as though a ghost. Graphically also, the game is great. Houses, objects and the Sims themselves are highly detailed, and now featuring a wide variety of highly expressive facial and bodily movements. Many of these can be quite amusing (such as a wide-eyed grin or jealous anger), and give characters far more depth and emotion than was previously available. They do look almost entirely human, but still retail that strangely mystic, cartoon-Sims style to them, such as slightly more rounded faces, and far better skin quality (although the teenagers sometimes have problems with the latter).
Family creation is one of the biggest developments. Sims are now almost entirely customable. The extremely easy creator allows you to choose and alter a huge selection of settings, so that every Sim can appear different. Further, with the start of Sim genetics, children born from parents now gain their individual genetic make-up, and will pass on appearances and personality traits. There is a good range of clothing for all ages, and if you can’t find something you want, you can always download it online from The Sims Exchange. All in all, it’s almost impossible not to feel affection to the families you create. It would have been nice if you could full customise the Sims height and physique, but I can live perfectly well without it for the time being.
The music is uniformly good, still retaining that suburban, ideal tranquillity air to it which reminds me strangely of “The Stepford Wives” novel. There is also music in game on stereos, which is interesting to say the least (the lyrics are all in Simlish), and the televisions in-game now actually broadcast moving images, which is a giant leap forward for Sims television. The prolific use of Comic Sans font still pervades the nicely designed text boxes and popup windows. It all makes it feel extremely homely, cosy and family-friendly, which truth be told it is.
There is a strange philosophy to playing The Sims 2. Sims have free will, (as can be demonstrated by them going to the fridge to cook a meal only for themselves when the whole family needs feeding; an infuriating event) but won’t perform any of the important interactions without your express direction. It is a kind of semi-determinism. It makes you hope it isn’t like that in real life, or someone very important might have some questions to answer. Overall, The Sims 2 is exceedingly good, hearty, family-friendly fun. Though not perfect, because of a lack of furniture and wallpapers, building and interaction restrictions, it’s still a game which caters for all ages and all genders. No doubt it will spawn a multitude of sequels of varying quality (as can already be seen from University, Nightlife, Pets, Seasons etc.) before the inevitable release of The Sims 3. I doubt I will ever grow fully tired of it.
