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On pins and needles

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 109 / 222
Date: November 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I remember how excited I was when the original Sims came out. I was in 9th grade and it was my dream come true. I played it for hours on end. It became an obsession.
My passion for playing the Sims has waxed and waned over the years, but I will never forget how genuinely excited I was to play this game.
My passion is resurging through reading reviews and seeing screenshots of the new Sims 2. I can't wait to get a copy and play for myself.
I would like to say, to all those who are begging for Maxis to hurry hurry hurry with production, may I remind you that the faster they throw this game out, the less time they have to perfect it, i.e. work out the crippling bugs that many of the Sims expansions packs were inflicted with, do last minute tweaks, etc. I, too, am very excited for this game to be out, but I can wait if it means a perfect game.

Just as I expected.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 21
Date: September 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought game yesterday after work, played for 8 hours. WOW!
excellent 3D grahics- this is a brillant successor to the Maxis Sim Line of games. be sure and read the review at www.gamespot.com/

Danger: don't start playing until your work is finished

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: September 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This version of the SIMS is the best they have come up with so far. It is less "automatic" and monotonous in terms of game play, because each environment and person you create is a little different. Every change is something that I've been wishing they would incorporate for a long time, so maybe they did some focus groups and listened to the game players. The graphics are rich and vibrant, and the possibilities are nearly endless. The only problem is that I can't seem to get any of my work done anymore! If you have an addictive personality... well, stay far away. :) Just kidding. This is the game of the future, and Maxis knows it. If you liked the first SIMS game, then be prepared to be blown away.

Another Sims hit, but room for improvement

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: August 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As was the case with the original Sims, Sims 2 proves to be a great hit, and a highly addictive game for many.

Over the original Sims-

PROS:
Building: houses can be more than 2 stories, and have decks.
Growth: children go through various stages of development and growth. How well you raise them, and how well their individual needs are met can affect how they grow up.
Aging: although many people turn this feature off, I enjoy playing with aging turned on. Sims needs and desires change over time. After they turn into an elder, they collect retirement money from their job.
For Hire: parents can now hire a nanny to "raise" the children while they are at work, which means social services won't come take the crying baby away if he/she is accidentally left at home. Nanny is especially helpful for when children are babies. Not a good idea to utilize them a lot when baby turns to a toddler, as the nanny will only, at best, take care of the child's most basic needs. Nanny will not teach the child to walk, talk or use the potty. And speaking of the potty- nanny will often not flush after she goes. eww!
Love bed: Sims can do 'woohoo' in any 2-person bed, or hot tub. They can also do woohoo in public places, such as a dressing room. If your sim is love-oriented, they will desire to do this often. Sims can also choose to woohoo or try to conceive a baby. This means that yuppy sims with nice jobs can get lots of action, without the responsibility of having a child.
Love is a social disease: Sims can meet social needs by chatting online or on the phone.
Party Hardy: Sims can now throw specialized parties, such as house party, birthday party, and wedding. Specific items for each occasion can be purchased, such as wedding or birthday cake, a wedding arbor to get married under. Sims can pop the bubbly and toast to other sims. When wedding or birthday cake is cut, the sims gather round' and celebrate. Note: if you have the plasma TV, get rid of it during parties, or all your guests will head right towards it, and will spend a large chunk of time watching it.
Hot for Teacher: Sims with a school-aged child can invite the headmaster over for dinner. If your house and food is high enough caliber, your child will be allowed to get in. If you have any furnishings in your yard that shouldn't be there (beds, etc) or the love tub, the headmaster will leave immediately, even if your home is otherwise expensively decorated and furnished. Getting into private school is important, and the better education will supposedly help your sims grow up better.

CONS:
Object rotation: this is far worse in Sims 2. Often, windows which are placed while viewing the home from the outside front, are placed backwards. Rotation is near impossible at times. Frustrating! Rotation was much easier in the original Sims.
Repairing: it seems like things in my home break every single day. Toilets clog daily, even though my sims are clean and always flush. I usually have the repair guy out every day.
Homework: Sim children have homework. The downside is that if they don't do their homework, their grades suffer. An even larger downside is that your sim children will drop their homework anywhere in the house, and finding it can sometimes be difficult. I've tried placing desks near the front door, but they always leave it on the floor.
The Dingo ate my baby: As is the case with homework, the baby is often misplaced. Members of the family will often set the baby down on the floor and walk away. They will do this a lot in the kitchen, after bottle feeding. The kitchen cabinets and table can make it difficult to see where the baby is. If you "lose" your baby, then simply click on the crib, and tell you sim to place the baby in the crib. They will go and get the baby from whatever location it is in.
Also, many of my sims "argue" over the baby, making carrying out tasks with baby to be frustrating. I can have my mom sim feeding the baby, after she's done, she will set baby down for a moment, before picking him up to go change his diaper. In that moment, 1-3 other sims will come over, all with the intent of taking the baby. I've had to fight over babies more times than I want to think about.
I'm with stupid: my sims are so incredibly stupid sometimes. Even with free will turned on, they will stand there crying and whimpering because their 'fun' meter is completely red. Instead of going and watching TV or playing computer....they pace the house crying, or talk to other sims. They also will often cook for only themselves, even though they're a parent to 5 children. A family-minded sim should cook and serve family meals most of the time, not just make themselves a bowl of mac and cheese.
Second verse, same as the first: Unfortunately, EA didn't change furnishings as much as most sims fanatics would have liked. Although most furnishings have multiple colors of the same items, we have very few choices. If you want a high-comfort couch, you only have 2-3 styles to choose from. Same with beds, chairs, etc. I like to play the game to build and furnish an interesting house. If I want my sims to be comfortable, I only have a few furniture choices.
Grow up already: Sims can bring a friend home from school (randomly game-generated) or meet other sims that don't live in their neighborhood. In one case, my sim teen fell deeply in love with another sim. She could call and invite him over, but eventually, she grew into an adult. Since the boy did not live in her neighborhood, I could not play as him and allow him to age, which meant their now adult/child relationship was immediately turned into a platonic one.
Teen Love: Teenagers can kiss, hug, and make out, but not have teen sex. Why not? Teen pregnancy could have been an interesting stir-up for this game. Also, why not throw in some STDs. Little Sally Sim may get straight A's in school, but we all know she'd love to bang the entire football team. She could pick up herpes, and lose some body or health points. Stir it up, EA!!

BUGS:
I have no add-ons, downloads or anything in this game other than what came on the EA CD. I never had any problems with this game, until I downloaded EA's latest update. Big mistake. Since then:

Bubble butt: my sims will occasionally get bubble coming out of their rear-ends after swimming. The only thing that seems to resolve this, is if they go swimming again.
Swing low: the headmaster will occasionally get sidetracked while at the house, and will spend hours on the swingset. It's near impossible to get him off of it, and get him to eat and tour the house.
The sound of music: I'll occasionally get repeating sound issues, and the game has to be shut down to fix this. Very annoying.
Eternal Sleep: A sleeping sim will often stay in bed for hours and hours after their sleep bar is full. Even if they're hungry and need a shower, they remain sleeping until I manually wake them up. (free will is on)

Overall, this is an excellent game. The graphics, 3-D rotating camera, and sim interactions are all excellent. The ability to shape and grow your own sim children is the most satisfying aspect of this game, in my opinion. Definitely worth buying.

Great concept but a buggy release.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 20 / 25
Date: October 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The Sims 2 does give promise of a remarkable evolution of the original game. The thought and detail that went into the development of this game certainly does merit all of the stellar reviews given by game publications and web sites. The graphics and animation... superb.

With all that said I cannot recommend this game for purchase at the present time, as this game is perhaps the buggiest game release that I have ever played. While it is common place for PC games to need further tweaking by developers once a game has been released - particularly since games are more complex than ever and it is nearly impossible (not to mention cost prohibitive) to fully and completely put a PC game through the ringer prior to going gold - however very rarely does a game get released that has a bug that is a complete and utter game ender. This game has one and this bug is what has been named the "jump bug" or "pop out bug". This bug causes Sims to not be able to interact with each other either in conversation or whilst using objects that social interactions occur, in a game that Sim social interaction is one of they key game elements certainly renders this game unplayable once it occurs.

The game is currently having a patch made for it but I would recommend anyone thinking of purchasing this game to not only wait for the patch but to find out if the patch actually works.

If the game wasn't so buggy it has 5 stars written all over it but since it is so buggy it is only a 2 star game.

Check before you buy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 20
Date: October 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Check that your system meets the requirements before you buy the game. I replaced my video card to get this game to work, I planned to upgrade anyway. A tip for those who say they have the requirements but it doesn't work, make sure your graphics cards has the latest drivers installed, they can usually be downloaded free from the manufacturer of your graphics card. Also make sure your AGP has the latest GART drivers if it's not an Intel motherboard. As well as making the game work they'll improve the performance of your system too! I have a P4, 1.8GHz, Windows XP, Radeon 9200 128 Mb, 768 Mb RAM system and it works fine for me. The only problem is getting to my computer because my wife is always playing The Sims 2 on it :)

It was a blast until it became unplayable!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 22
Date: October 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game was everything everyone says it is. A great sequal, just as addicting as the original, and so on. Until I ran into what is being called the "Jumping Bug" on the official Sims 2 BBS. If you play with a family too long and they accumulate too many memories (over 200) they get a bug that makes the game virtually unplayable. They can't chat in any way with another Sim and can't do any activities with another Sim where they would normally chat (eating at a table, watching TV, sitting in a hot tub, talking on the phone, the list goes on and on). Maxis knows about the problem but will give no indication on when a soluation can be expected. Instead, they imply it was something the user caused by using the cheat to turn aging off. However, that is not what causes it. Simply playing the game normally will eventually cause this problem and render it unplayable.

Don't waste your money on this game until Maxis has fixed this problem! It's only a waste of money and your time playing the game when you develop a family to a certain point only to no longer be able to play with them.

This + Some Expansion Packs = INSANELY GOOD TIME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: March 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the best and most successful computer games of all time for a reason. And it's way, way, way better than The Sims 1. If you are a person that likes games with stragety and a way to better yourself (or, in this case, the characters under your command) you'll find this very fufilling. I love making my sims excell in their careers, satasify tons of aspirations, find a mate, and get pregnant and start the next generation. I like the idea of having little successful bloodlines going.

Words of advice though: keep your sim's needs satasfied. Sims get cranky and hard to control when one or more of their needs are in the red. Never, EVER, let your sim get really hungry and really tired at the same time because that is dangerous. Sims die if their hunger level hits 0. When sims are very tired you can't really get them to do anything without falling asleep. So oise keep an eye on those two needs and never let them both get really low at the same time. Also, never, ever, let a sim use (or even have!) a stove if their cooking skill level is not at least 4. Have all your adult sims study cooking (you have to have a book shelf and click on it and pick study cooking) before you even have a stove in their house or, as soon as your back is turned, some idiot sim will try to cook something on the stove and probably light it on fire. When there is fire the sims FREAK OUT and are hard to control. You have to give them the same command over and over to get them to obey. They would much rather freak out right in front of the fire (which could ingulf them and kill them!) than go get the phone and call the fire department. Likewise, I don't reccomend letting them have a fire place until all the adults have a mechanical skill level of 4 or higher. You raise the mechanical skill by having them read books too. If you like to use chance cards (they pop up when a sim is at work) then ALWAYS save the game before a sim goes to work. Unless you click ignore then there is about a 50/50 chance your sim will get fired or severly penalized if you pick the wrong answer (and it's pretty random which one is wrong...the chances are only slightly better if you pick the one that is the best moral choice) but if you pick the right answer oh my gosh the rewards are SWEET!

your Sims are born, grow up, reach adulthood, and die

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: November 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

"The Sims 2" is a great sequel to "The Sims". It added a lot of features that I wanted to see in the original. Sadly, it removed a lot of the additional features that the various add-on packs for "The Sims" gave us.

I'm very pleased that my Sims can mix genes. I now know what Bob and Betty Newbie's child looks like, since she is one of the Sims that comes with the game. Now I can find out what happens 10 generations down the line.

I haven't found a good way to say this, so I'll just say it like this: I like that my Sims die. Yes, I've gotten attached to them. But I prefer having the whole life cycle laid out in front of me: pregnancy (yes, your Sims actually get pregnant, complete with morning sickness and having to pee all the time), birth, childhood, adulthood, and finally being an elder. You get plenty of time to meet your goals and aspirations. Dying is part of the cycle, and it makes way for all of the new Sims that will come along.

I think that the biggest gameplay change is the addition of aspiration. These are big-picture goals, and are broken into different categories: fortune, family, knowledge, popularity, etc. You still have the standard needs (hunger, bladder, energy, etc); these add another dimension to your Sim's personality. At any given time, each Sim has four wants that are related to their aspiration, from small ones with a small award (say, talk to another Sim, for 500 aspiration points) to large ones with a big award (get married, 5000 aspiration points). Each Sim also has three fears, such as being rejected for a kiss or a family member dying. If a fear is realised, your Sim loses aspiration points. If you earn enough aspiration points, you can use them to buy an aspiration reward: a money tree, a thinking cap, or even a fountain of youth.

In the original "The Sims", you could take snapshots of your Sims. In the sequel, you can make movies with your Sims! It's an interesting addition, although not one that I can see myself using that much.

There are a few things that I miss from the add-on packs. Some of the items aren't there yet. You don't get pets, as added in "The Sims Unleashed". Overall, that's not enough to detract from the new game.

The "Special Edition DVD" doesn't add very much. The additional content is a CD that contains a couple of desktop images and some AIM icons. If you find the special edition, go ahead and get it since it's usually the same price. But if you only see the standard edition, don't steer clear because you think you're missing out on something ultra-cool. You're not. It's a waste of the extra disc.

Anti-piracy gone too far + warning

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 26 / 37
Date: September 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I couldn't wait to get this game. I loved The original Sims and knew this would be even better.

However - I, like a lot of other people who have purchased the game, can't play it. The anti-piracy software is so restrictive that unless you strip down your system's software (ie Nero CD Burning software among others) and possibly hardware (CD/DVD burner) the program will not run. It will install but you cannot start the game. If Maxis wants to alienate their fans, they've done a great job. I'm already in the process of returning the software until Maxis can do better than this.

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