Introduction
In 2000, Will Wright's Company Maxis released a game called The Sims. After more than a half-dozen expansion packs for the original game and two console versions of The Sims, the sequel to the original PC game has finally been released.

What's New
Those who have played the original game will not be disappointed with this upgrade. One of the first things you will notice is the games stellar 3D graphics. Everything in The Sims 2 is in 3D and Maxis/EA has done an incredible job of putting an amazing amount of detail into the game.

A welcome addition for many fans of The Sims is the ability to build more floors on houses. In the original game you could only build 2 stories. With The Sims 2, you can build up to 6 stories.

Graphics
If you have a Geforce 3/Radeon 8500 or higher, you'll notice that the mirrors and water are reflective. Look into a mirror and you can actually see what's behind it. With a high enough detail setting, Sims have stencil shadows ala Doom 3 (Stencil shadows are shadows that act like real life shadows, are an outline of the object, and with a powerful enough graphics card, can interact with other shadows and the environment. Older 3D games just darkened the area under objects for shadows.).

Sims have at least a couple hundred expressions that add a lot of realism to the game.

Gameplay
With the exception of the new DNA system, gameplay remains mostly unchanged from The Sims. If you've never played the original game, The Sims is a people simulator. You create virtual humans called Sims and run their everyday life, from jobs to social life to bills. It may not sound fun on the outside but it is surprisingly addictive because the possibilities are limitless.

Micromanagement in the original game was a big issue. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the original game wasn't the brightest. You were constantly having to do things like make your Sims manually flush the toilets and manually clean up after themselves. In addition, they would get stuck on things left on the floor such as trash. In The Sims 2, the AI has been much improved. There is still some micromanagement, but the AI learns. After making your Sims flush the toilet a few times they will do it by themselves. They also will step over any trash left on the ground.

DNA and Genetics
One of the biggest additions to The Sims 2 is the genetics system. In a nutshell, your Sims age. In the original game, you made your original Sims, adult and children. Depending on how you created them, you could make older sims and younger sims. However, they never aged. Kids were always kids, and adults were always adults. Adults could have children but they grew up into eternal kids.

This is no more with The Sims 2. After creating an initial family, it is possible for them to have children. New children start out as infants/babies. After a certain amount of Sim Days they grow up into children then teenagers then adults and finally elders. When two sims have a child, the child inherits traits from both parents, as opposed to being random like the first game.

This adds an entire new element to the game. After your teen grows up, he can elect to read the newspaper and move out of his parents house, eventually starting a new life. Sims eventually will get old and die, meaning that you now can create entire family trees.

For those who liked the old system, it is possible to turn off aging through a cheat code.

System Requirements
By todays standards, the system requirements on The Sims 2 are pretty modest. If you have a T&L video card (T&L refers to hardware transform and lighting, a feature that has been on video cards since 1999) which includes all Geforces and all Radeons (Except the VE), then you need an 800MHz processor and 256MB of RAM. If you have a non-T&L video card, you need a 2GHz processor and 256mbs of RAM, though if you have a 2 GHz processor, chances are you have a video card that has transform and lighting.

SafeDisc
As has been the trend with most games in the last 5 years, The Sims 2 comes with a copy protection system called SafeDisc. SafeDisc works by embedding data in between tracks on a CD (called sublayer data) that is generally not read by CD Copying programmers, preventing duplication of the disc. When you start the game up, you see a splash screen as it checks for this sublayer data.

There is a downside to this however. SafeDisc and other similar copy protection schemes have been proven to reduce performance, sometimes by as much as 25-50%. On top of that, it is not always reliable. I could not get the game to play in one of my CD-ROM drives, it just crashed with an illegal operation (as it had done on other computers I had 5 years ago). I had to use my regular CD drive to get it to play.

These days however, SafeDisc does nothing to prevent copying of the disc and causes a lot of headaches for those who bought the actual game. (There are programs which I will not name here that can read the sublayers now and duplicate them) and only stops people like your average kid from sharing the game with his friends.

Security
Usually, I don't mention security when it comes to games. However this game does follow a somewhat disturbing trend in that if you run it on a Windows NT based system such as Windows 2000 or XP, you must run it under an administrator account. As a programmer that frequently deals with networking code, this is a huge no-no. Administrator accounts should only be used for system maintenance. Remember that if you get a virus or worm, it can preform any function that the account you are currently logged into can.

Alternative Operating System Support
This isn't being counted as part of the final score, but it might be nice to include information about how The Sims 2 runs on operating systems other than Windows.

Linux
There is currently not a native version of this game for Linux, however using Transgamings Cedega (www.transgaming.com), people have been reporting mixed success, meaning that you will probably have to do some tweaking to get it working. Undoubtedly, Transgaming will be making changes to their code to get it working better.
Outlook : Good But Better To Wait A Few Months

BSD
As BSD currently has no Cedega Support, nor does it have a native port, The Sims 2 will not run under BSD.
Outlook : Non-Existent

Mac OS X
Right now, there is no Mac version of the Sims, however I have heard from multiple sources that a port is in the works.
Outlook : Non-Existent Right Now But Give It Some Time

Max OS 9
Even when the Mac port of The Sims 2 comes out, it is doubtful it will run under Mac OS 9. If you want to play The Sims 2 on a Mac, you will probably have to upgrade to OS X.
Outlook : Too Old Of An Operating System For The Sims 2

Conclusion
The Sims 2 is an excellent game and was well worth the wait. Despite some of the flaws with having SafeDisc and the required administrator account, it is an excellent game. If you liked the original Sims, you will defiantly like this game and if you haven't played the original Sims, this game is defiantly worth picking up.

Similar Games
The Sims Deluxe
The Sims Online
The Sims: Bustin' Out

Recommended: Yes