Beware! This game is monstrously addictive and may cause a desire for endless gameplay hampered only by sleep and the need for food. Be sure to say goodbye to your friends and family and tell them you're going on vacation for awhile before you begin.

If you've never played the sims, here's a quick intro to what "The Sims" & "The Sims 2" is all about. This is an open-ended game, meaning that there are no set missions you must fulfill, no levels you must achieve, no time limits you have to adhere to. It's a people-simulator, with a very wide variety of people types to choose from. It's art imitating life in the most extreme form - your characters must eat, or they die. They must sleep, or they'll pass out. You can build their houses and fill them with just the essentials or pick from luxuries galore. Then you live their daily lives with them. The problem with the first game, is that there was too little guidance as to what your sim wanted to do. Your sim's needs were all you saw. This got boring after awhile. Not a problem in the new game; until the day they die, your sims tell you what they want as well as need, and even what they fear. Also for newbies to "The Sims" franchise, the original was the best-selling computer game of all time. I'm certain this will one will uproot it for that title, which is quite an accomplishment for any sequel. Ok, let's get going on this game description, because I'm like a gossip queen itching to tell all.

The Beginning:

This game comes in 4 disks, all required to install it. While it's installing, though, there is a cute little miniature game you can play, a cute little number that's basically the old game "Memory", but with the many symbols of "The Sims 2". Also thrown into it are trivia questions about the original game and Will Wright, the game's inventor. The final score determines how "grown up" your sim became this time around. If you don't feel like playing the game, there's also a series of pictures and captions you can watch. If, like me, you do not have the latest gaming technology and a high amount of ram, you can expect the thing you'll like the least about "The Sims 2" will be the load times. Once you start the game up, you can watch the opening sequence, which is captivating, or just click your mouse and get to the good stuff.

The Tutorial:

It's very highly recommended that you go through at least the basic tutorials before beginning gameplay. If you played the original game you may think you don't need to, but there's just so much new content, it really helps to introduce you and get your feet wet. If you didn't play the original, you most definitely should take all the tutorials you can get your hands on. You'll meet Tutorial Joe and guide him through a few things. I enjoyed a new option that comes with couches now - Jump on. Your sims can bounce around on couches, and kids can do so on their beds as well. That kept me and my 2 year old busy watching for a few minutes. For newbies: To interact with objects in "The Sims 2", you just click on it and select what you want to do. Returning Players, you'll notice that everything has a new look, from the sims themselves, to the navigational system, to the menus and objects and buildings.

New & Improved Options:

The game now allows you to zoom in to the extreme, and to look straight down on your sims, or face to face, and everywhere in between. You can also rotate your view a smidgen at a time to the right or left, making your ability to take screenshots and video clips so much easier. Yes, you heard right. Now you can videotape your sim's wedding night, first day of work, first steps, etc. Warning: the video clips have a time limit. Try to capture just the core of what you want video of. A word on screenshots: Now you can interlink all pics taken within a neighborhood to make a huge, involving story, instead of being limited to one family's screenshots at a time. Exporting is easier too; you can package and send houses and families in a few quick steps. For newbies: You can share your homes, sims and stories you write about them with the world! The game makes it easy and fun to do.
"The Sims 2" has a whole new look to its sim management menu at the bottom of the screen as well, with brand new options. One of the first things you'll notice is that there's a nice little snapshot of your sim's upper torso & head at the top of your menu, helping you keep track of which of your sims is the "active" one. You can choose to expand the menu to see your sim's aspirations & fears (more on those soon), or ignore them and watch your sims go into deep depressions. At the top of the right hand side of your sim's menu is their needs (motives). For newbies: Your sims must have the certain needs fulfilled to keep them happy. In the game, each need has a meter which, when full, is bright green, and, when empty, is bright red. These needs are Hunger, Hygiene, Bladder, Comfort, Energy, Fun, Social and Environment (formerly "Room"). Your selected, or active, sim will have a thin, 3-d diamond shape over its head which will be different shades of Platinum (bright white), green, or red depending on their mood.
Other selections in the menu are "Simology", which lets you see your sim's fitness level (yes, your sim can gain or lose weight depending on their diet & lifestyle), skills, memories (an awesome new feature); "Relationships", which you can sort by family & friends, housemates, etc.; "Rewards", which lets you see how many aspiration points you have and lets you spend them, and allows you to receive and place any career rewards your sim has earned. Please forgive me if I leave anything out - there's so much stuff to tell about.
Another thing you can see in the bottom menu is your sim's life meter. Sims now have 6 stages of life: Baby, Toddler, Child, Teen, Adult, and Senior. I think this is one of the best improvements the good people at Maxis have made on the original Sims. Let me warn you though: starting out with a baby or toddler in the house will make your life very difficult. Only do it if you are ready for an extremely tough challenge right off the bat. I can tell you this because I was the crazy thrill seeker who tried it (and succeeded, but only by the skin of my teeth). Anyway, the life meter lets you know how many days your sim has until the next stage of life comes. This applies to every stage except Seniors, whose meters show how many days old they are. Now, let me tell you that your sim can die of old age, but that if you don't want them to, and you fulfill their aspirations, they never have to. This is due to an awesome invention, the Elixir of Life. This magical potion is the most expensive Aspiration Reward available, and can only be safely consumed by a sim with a Gold or Platinum aspiration level. Each drink gives your adult or senior sim 3 more days of life. This also means that your adult sims never have to become seniors. The Elixir of Life, however, like most Aspiration Rewards, does run out and needs replaced from time to time.

The Neighborhoods:

You can start out in an already made neighborhood (highly recommended), or create a custom one yourself. The game comes with three ready-made ones: Pleasantview, Veronaville & Strangetown. Pleasantview includes the Goth family, a well-known sim family from the original game. There are several others though, including the "Broke" family, "Caliente", and "Dreamer". As mentioned above, I went for the extreme challenge, and dove right into the "Broke" family, consisting of a single (and pregnant) mother, whose husband has died and left her with two boys, Dustin & Beau. All families already created and placed within the game are on the verge of a major event occurring in their lives. This can present an opportunity for you to experience a ton of what the game has to offer, without having to start from scratch and play to that point. The downside is that many of these events are hard to extremely hard for a beginning player to manage, while still learning the facets of the game. But if you're stubborn and love a challenge, you can most certainly try. If you start with the Broke family, as the name suggests, you won't have much moolah to work with. A word of caution: hire a nanny and get the mom a job (something I didn't do right away and later regretted). You can hire a nanny by using the phone. Other options the phone now gives are: "Services", with which you can also hire a maid, gardener, repairman, bartender, exterminator (for those nasty little roaches), or call an adoption agency; "Throw Party", which can include Birthdays, Anniversaries, or House Parties; "Sneak Out" (teens only), the phone call must be made between 10 pm & 1 am, and they'll leave at 1 & return at 4 (be sure the adults in the house are sleeping or kept busy in other rooms); "Sim", which will give you a list (sortable alphabetically or by relationship) of all the sims your active character knows, and allow you to talk to or invite them over. Parties have a 5 minute timer window that pops up, telling you how the party is going. If you serve food, socialize alot and have fun with your guests, your party will at least go from "Snoozer" to "Not Bad" (the score is based on relationship points gained during the party, and you must meet guests' needs so they stay), and your sim will have a permanent memory of a good party. If it remains a snoozer (or even drops to a total disaster), your sim will have a bad party memory. Birthday parties wouldn't be complete without cakes, which can be bought in Buy Mode. Your sim will blow out the candles, then change to whichever life stage comes next. Ok, back to Pleasantview. If you want to start with a ton of money, but not cheat, try the Goth family. You'll get around 500,000 simoleans and a nicely furnished home. The Goth family is getting ready for Cassandra's wedding, and you can click on the wedding arch to get them started. That is...if you want Cassandra to marry her man. Don has a romance aspiration and will turn out to be a real dog. If you want to start smaller and easier, you can try Darren Dreamer (he rooms with Dirk Dreamer), who's a bachelor/painter that's trying to win over a girl. If you want to venture to Veronaville instead, be ready for a sim version of the Romeo and Juliet story, two feuding families whose kids are in love. Or you can try Strangetown, where things get REALLY interesting. Check out the three men in the "Curious" family, that are preparing for parenthood. Send the blond one up to look through the telescope, and watch your first alien invasion. One of the male sims in this family is already PREGNANT - with an alien baby. If you send your blondie out into the universe, he'll come back pregnant too.
Of course, if you really want to get to building and buying and creating, you can start your own custom-made home and family. An additional property type is the community lot, which is like the ones in "The Sims: Unleashed" expansion pack. On them you can build parks, stores, markets (your sims have to order groceries by phone or computer, or shop for them at community lots from time to time), etc., and take your sims there on dates, family outings, or just to shop and meet new sims.

Build Mode:

Great news! Unlike the original sims, now you can build without needing to have the money. You can enter lots (provided they're not occupied) and build a home without spending a dime. You can even furnish it with every object in buy mode! You can choose between a wide variety of lot sizes and place them on any empty space in your neighborhood. What's the bad news? Well, once you exit back to the neighborhood screen after building your dream house, your sim has to be able to afford the home you just made, in order to move in. Each family you create has just 20,000 simoleans (sim money) to start out with. Building a house has definitely taken on a whole new meaning in this incredible sequel. Now you can not only make diagonal walls, but you can place windows on them, and certain items are created with them in mind (the triangle table, for instance). No longer are you limited to 2 floors to build on! Now you can build basements (even a series of basements of different depths) with custom stairs (they adjust to the height you need), 4 stories of regular floors, and choose from a handful of dormers (small, medium & large attic rooms) to place on top, or a variety of roof types. Another new thing in the game is a tool I love, called "Collections". It sorts many walls, floors & objects into a collection category that helps you choose a theme for the home or room you're building. With this tool, for instance, if you want to make a modern-style home, the collections folder named "Modern" will show you windows, doors, staircases, flooring & wall coverings, as well as couches, chairs, tables, etc. that match the theme. If you were to select the staircase that goes with the "Modern" theme, you'd discover another awesome feature, the wide variety of color and texture varieties you can choose from on most individual items. The combinations & choices are nearly endless. Now you can put gates on your fences, choose from tiny to tall fence types, put in a slender, sleek fireplace or an enormous one with a huge base, put lights in your swimming pools, choose from different colored dirt & grass for terrain, use multi-story windows...you get the idea - it's a whole new world. As far as plants go, now there are flowerbeds that fill half a square and can point 4 different directions. Gigantic palm trees can spice up your Miami-style mansion, or Joshua trees can give your sandy beach house a desert look. There's even a toggle night/day button to let you test your lamps or see how a paint color looks in daylight. Have I mentioned yet that everything looks 200% more realistic than in "The Sims"?

Buy Mode:

Welcome to choices, choices and more choices! But do keep in mind that there will likely be many expansion packs to come. So some things leave little room for choosiness. Take, for instance, the single piano type with no choice of color or style. Despite this minor setback, believe me, you'll love shopping the Buy Mode. With 3 ways to sort the items, a design tool, and categories within the categories, the hardest part of making your dream home will be making up your mind. A few of my favorite items are the kitchen islands with barstools, the flatscreen wall-mounted huge tv, the video game system (comes with a game, and you can buy more on community lots), and the easel, on which you can not only paint pictures (even lets your sims with high creativity paint screenshots YOU take) & learn creativity, but also choose between selling your pics or putting them on your walls.

Sims: I'll give you a run-through from the beginning of a sim's life to the end. Of course, a sim can begin one of two ways. You can create it, or another sim can give birth to it. We'll start with the former. When you go to the create a sim screen, you can push the randomize button until you find a sim you like (keep in mind every sim that pops up can be changed in sex, age, hair & skin type, so all you need is a good foundation to build on). Once you find the right one, choose a head type and name it. Then you'll choose from so many options it'll make your head spin. You can customize every facet of their face, choose from a ton of hairstyles, pick a hair color, add accessories like glasses and makeup, and then dress them. You get to pick out everyday clothes, formal, swimwear, nightclothes & undies. Then you get to make a very, extremely important choice in the life of your sim. Teens, Adults, and Seniors have an Aspiration type. It can be Fortune, Popularity, Family, Romance or Knowledge. Fortune-minded sims are constantly wanting more material things, promotions, more money and the skills needed to advance in their careers. Popular sims can't get enough friends and social. Family-minded sims want to get married, have kids, and interact with other family members often. Romantic sims are not the marrying kind. They want "woo-hoo" (the game's term for sex) and even "public wooh-hoo" (in a clothing booth on a community lot - you have to have your sim try on clothes and then click on the person they want to woohoo with while your sim is in the booth to get the option), all the time. As soon as they've done it with one sim, they want to meet someone new. A few more notes on woo-hoo: No longer does your sim need to live with another sim to have it with them. They can "woo-hoo" in any hot tub or double bed (they can try for babies in them too). Service people (such as the maid, gardener, and pizza delivery guy) are not off-limits. Your sim can befriend and even woo them, the same as any other sim. Options are limited while they're on their work shift though. Knowledge aspiration sims want more skill points, and jobs dealing with medicine or science are their favorites.
Once you've decided on the aspiration, choose their personality and you're all set to make your sim. Once you have completed a family, you can choose their relationships to each other by clicking the family tree symbol. You can make them siblings, parents, spouses, etc. When you're done, the game will take a family snapshot of them, which will show every time the game loads that family, unless changes are made such as aging or new relationship developments, in which case the Sims 2 will make a new picture to reflect the changes. When you move your sims into their first house, it will be a Monday morning (days of the week actually mean something now - every working sim has 2 days off a week, and can also earn paid vacation days, and children/teens have Sat & Sun off of school), and neighbors will soon come around to meet them. Besides calling them on the phone, your sims can communicate with friends by chatting or emailing on a computer, or they can gain social by relaxing on a bed and daydreaming (2 adult or senior sims must relax on a bed together to have the "woo-hoo" option).

Birth to Senior:

When your sim is born, you get to name it, and it will share its parents genetics. Twins are also a possibility. The baby will have a family tree. Pregnancies last 3 days, and so does babyhood. While your sim's a baby, you won't be able to select their sim to control in any way, and you can only find out what they need by having another sim select them. You can change baby's diapers (you'll have to or they'll scream and green odor will waft off of them) by hand and then put baby down & clean up the diaper, or do it the fast way by getting a changing table. You also need to bathe them in the sink, play with them, and feed them bottles. The game will let you know when the baby will be turning into a toddler, so you can plan a party (the number of guests allowed depends on your computer's speed) if you want to.

Toddlers are fascinating little sims. They sleep in the same crib as babies, and need their diapers changed, but many new options abound with them. They have aspirations, which will show under Wants & Fears. Toddlers to Seniors have 4 wants (one of which you can lock by right clicking it), and 3 fears. These can change once a day, or many times throughout the day, depending on how often your sim sleeps and fulfills their wants. Toddlers want interactions with their parents and caregivers (such as snuggle or toss in air), they want to be potty-trained (using a little potty chair), taught to talk, and taught to walk. They also aspire to "grow up well", by becoming a child. They can be fed bottles, Smartmilk, or baby food if placed in a high chair. They can also gain creativity, logic and charisma points by playing with special toddler toys. Smartmilk is a reward that can be bought with Aspiration Points. Every time you fulfill one of a sim's wants, they get points for it and their aspiration meter goes up. It starts out green, and can turn to Gold or even Platinum (the highest and best), by continuing to fulfill their wants. The more points rewarded for fulfilling a particular want, the faster the meter goes up. With these points, you can buy rewards, which can be used to make learning faster, fill your sim's needs quickly, make friends easier, and even buy simolean plants, which can be frequently harvested and become a job in and of itself. A word of caution, though: if a sim fulfills its fears, it loses aspiration points. You cannot redeem a sim's aspiration points until he/she becomes a Teen. Toddlers, if left to themselves, can wander outdoors or play in the toilet, getting water everywhere, so keep a close eye on them.

Children go to school from 8 am to 3 pm (the bus arrives at 7 - kids can attend private school instead if you can please the headmaster). They must do their homework daily and attend school in a good mood to get A grades. Every day, they'll bring home their homework and lay it on the floor. They can ask for help with it or do it alone. Children usually have aspirations to grow up well, do their homework, get A report cards, interact with family members, and make friends. They can play games like "Cops and Robbers" with other kids. Children eat regular food and can get themselves snacks and drinks. Be sure to drink juice instead of eating chips or cookies, if you want a fit and healthy kid.

When a child turns into a teen, things get much more complex. You get to choose their aspiration, and from that moment on their wants change. For example, if you choose romance, your teen will want to meet a lot of new sims, have their first kiss (a special, one-time interaction option), and do a lot of flirting. Teens cannot have "woo-hoo", but they can flirt, kiss, make out and go steady with another teen. Relationships, such as "Going Steady", "Crush", "Love", "Married/Joined", "Friend", "Best Friend", and "Enemy", are shown in the relationships window with the corresponding sim's picture. Sims can be in love with, have crushes on, and be friends, best friends, or enemies with an infinite number of sims. Teens can also get acne (most do), and will need to apply acne cream at a mirror a few times to make it go away. Children - Seniors can change their appearance in the mirror, too. Their hair color & style, facial hair, makeup and accessories can be changed with this option. Teens can also get part-time jobs, and advance to the top of their teen career track. These jobs can help family finances, and give the teen an edge when becoming an adult, if they choose to follow the corresponding adult career track.

When a teen changes to an adult, all their teen friends must change to adults before they can have romantic relationships with them. Adults can get jobs, have babies, move out of the house (which will put them on the neighborhood screen as a separate family until you give them their own place), get engaged, get married, move in roommates, etc. If your sim is employed, from time to time an option screen might pop up with a work scenario, and give you a chance to choose which choice they should make. Your sim could get a promotion, a huge simolean bonus, skill points, etc. for a good choice. They could, however, lose their job, get demoted, and/or lose skill points if you make a bad choice. But you can choose to ignore it entirely, rather than take a chance on being wrong. Adults can do a huge number of interactions (some of which teens and children can do), including "Admire", "Backrub", "Dirty Joke", "Caress", "Leap Into Arms", "Apologize" (if someone has a negative relationship with them), "Gossip", and "Hit On". Adults, Teens & Seniors can also prepare a whole ton of different food, depending on their skill, and cooking will help increase their cooking skill. Some of the foods are pancakes, omelettes, turkey, layer cake, spaghetti, pork chops, gelatin, baked Alaska, salmon, hamburgers and grilled hotdogs. Depending on what they eat, sims may suddenly start burping or passing gas, and gaining weight. But there is great news! Now radios, televisions (also can teach cooking on the "Yummy Channel), swimming, and workout benches can all be used to increase body skill and fitness level. The obstacle course, a reward for moving up in the military career track, can also increase body skill. There is also an additional skill in the Sims 2 - Cleaning. It can be studied by doing housework, or by reading a book on cleaning from a bookcase.

Seniors are grayed, and somewhat bent, slower versions of the adult sims. Your senior sim can retire from their job and receive a pension check every day they would have worked. Most of their aspirations are similar to an adult sim's. Male senior sims can get female adult sims pregnant, and senior sims can marry adult sims. If your Senior sim dies of old age, be sure their aspiration level is in the Platinum range at the time of death - it'll mean a huge death benefit for their family and friends. If you choose to keep their gravestone on the property, expect to see them again - as ghosts.

If you'd like more advanced information on "The Sims 2", I recommend buying the thick guide book usually available wherever the game is sold. Some additional info: If you have "Sim City 4", you can import small cities you've built in "God Mode" to "The Sims 2". Once again, you can put in your own custom content, including putting your mp3's into the sound files, but with "The Sims 2", you can select and deselect which songs you want to hear while in game. The game comes with a "BodyShop", where you can design custom sims to export to the game. From the game, you can also export stories and videos you've made, as well as houses and families, to the web.

An extra nice thing is that if you have more than one computer and someone else who wants to play, once you've started the game up, you can hand the cd off to the other person, and continue to play (my hubby and I do that all the time). If you have any hesitation by now about buying this game, perhaps it's because of the price. I'll tell you now, it's worth every penny.

Now, stop taking my word for it and see for yourself! Maybe I'll be downloading your house or family soon.

Update: April 8, 2006

Although it's been awhile since I last played the game, I stand by my original review - it is an awesome way to waste your time. I do have a couple of things to add now, though. "The Sims PE" is a hack software my hubby downloaded a year and a half ago or so to alter certain elements of the game. Using it, you can change the relationships, skills, personality traits, age, and pretty much any other aspect of your sims you want to alter, with minimal effort. The software has been recently updated and has its own website, which you can find easily with a simple search.
We also used a hack code (I personally don't like them, but my hubby installed it and I used it because it was there) that made the mailbox become a smorgasboard of cheating choices. Using it, we were able to instantly fill all the needs of the sims on the lot (especially useful during a party or for parents of baby sims), force newspaper delivery, force visitors, bring disaster down upon the lot, and a load of other things. The biggest problem with this cheat didn't show up for awhile, so we really enjoyed using it for some time. But when we bought the "University" expansion (which someday I might get around to reviewing), suddenly even the update of the cheat made everything go out of whack. Memories and actions have miniature logos that represent them, and the mailbox cheat caused these logos to disappear. It also made other random bugs appear, but the most frustrating side-effect was one that cost me hours of game-play. It takes a ton of effort to achieve many sims' lifetime aspirations, an accomplishment that allows your sim to be in a platinum aspiration mode for the rest of their lives. Anyway, I achieved this goal on several of my sims (and many sims have different ones, like marry off 6 children, make it to the top of a certain career path, or earn a ton of simoleans), but the game didn't reward my sim for it. Although I've said that the cheat caused all this, that's only an assumption. It could have happened in coincidence with using the mailbox cheat, and might have been a result of some "University" game bug that wasn't found before its release. Just those few words of warning, and I wish you many more happy hours of gameplay.

Recommended: Yes