Description
The Sims 2 is the official sequel to the "best-selling PC game of all-time",
The Sims.
In this sequel, Maxis has created an entirely new, 3D engine, similar to the console Sim games. You can rotate the camera in a 360° view, or shuffle the camera to the left and right.
Your Sims are also fully animated, articulated characters. They have a wide range of movements, most of which are humorous. Eating, drinking, going to the bathroom, getting kissed, proposing marriage... everything has a specific animation to it.
The Sims 2 has an expanded Build mode. You can now create large houses, going up to four floors, with new types of wallpapers, carpets, stairs, fireplaces, and more. You can connect parts of your house via a deck or patio, or a balcony-type catwalk.
When first playing the game, you can choose to move your family into a pre-made neighborhood with different themes, or you can create one from scratch. If you have
SimCity 4 and/or
Rush Hour installed, you can import cities into
The Sims 2 to use custom neighborhoods.
The biggest change to the game is aging and fears/aspirations. Your Sims will now age, from a newborn to a toddler to a child to an adult and finally, to a senior. Your Sims will also eventually die of old age (or other means, for evil players), but there is a way to prolong your Sims youth.
Fears and aspirations are just that. Each Sim has different fears and aspirations that must be avoided and met, respectively. If your Sim has a fear of a loved one dying, your Sim will experience difficulty for a time after the person dies. If your Sim has aspirations to get to the top of the corporate ladder, he'll earn aspiration points, which eventually turn into a Platinum meter. When enough points have been reached, you can buy special items, like a Money Tree which releases bags of money every so often. Meeting your Sims fear results in his aspiration points being lowered.
Your Sims also have memories, which they will use to remember things throughout the course of their lives. This can deeply impact gameplay depending on how you play.
The last major addition is the ability to create movies using your Sims. You can capture actions, and edit the video to make a movie of sorts. You have the option of adding special effects, like slow motion or blur.
Alternate Titles
- "模拟人生2" -- Chinese Title (Simplified)
- "TS 2" -- Common Abbreviation
- "Os Sims 2" -- Portuguese Title
- "Los Sims 2" -- Spanish Title
- "Les Sims 2" -- French Title
- "Die Sims 2" -- German Title
- "De Sims 2" -- Dutch Title
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
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Trivia
Copy protection
Electronic Arts released
The Sims 2 with a hard-coded protection that can actually detect if you are using a no-CD crack, CD drive emulator, or other similar tools for bypassing a CD copy protection check, and disables the game to something like a "shareware" version, in which you can play the game, create families etc, but Build Mode (for constructing your houses) and saving your game are disabled.
ESBR
The description of a memory of "doing WooHoo" with a a service person such as a maid includes the sentence "Hey, what am I really paying for here???" This was originally removed due to ESRB issues, but apparently made it into the game.
Machinima
The Sims 2 is used to make
The Strangerhood, a machinima sitcom from the creators of the
Halo-based sci-fi comedy
Red vs. Blue.
Mods
Modifications to tweak a game to your needs are common practice, but some of the hacks in The Sims 2 have been spreading like viruses. Popular hacks allow you to keep multiple lovers without the issue of jealousy or let you be pregnant as a teenager. These need to be downloaded and installed, but others are spread unwillingly.
EA provides a feature to export your house to an online "Lot Exchange" to let other gamers admire your work. Unfortunately, hacked items and routines are included as well and some of them replace the default settings for the entire game. People reported their sims to be abducted by aliens every time they looked through a telescope, a single shot of espresso would fill every need and all sims were graced with eternal youth.
Therefore, similar to the virus scene, hack scanners and anti-hack cleaners have been developed, but often a complete uninstall is the only solution.
References
- Characters from other Sim games make cameos in The Sims 2 through job "chance cards". For example, Malcolm Landgraab, a wealthy developer from SimCity 3000, is mentioned in one of these.
- In the University expansion go to the create a student mode. See that guy in the portrait? That's the games creator Will Wright!.
- If you are wondering about the pigs that are often floating in the sky when you are browsing through a neighbourhood (eg Pleasantview). The pigs are a reference to a very famous Pink Floyd cover for their album Animals which depicts a flying pig.
- The town Veronaville is a parody of Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet and contains two equivalent families.
References to the game
- The game is featured in the first episode of the fourth season of the US HBO drama series Six Feet Under. Arthur, an intern, is shown playing the game for about twenty seconds.
- The Sims 2 was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 05/2008.
Sales
Having sold one million copies in a week,
The Sims 2 was Electronic Arts' strongest launch up to date.
Weather
Weather was originally planned on being included, but was scrapped due to a bug that had it rain inside houses. It was re-introduced in the expansion
The Sims 2: Seasons.
Awards
- Apple Design Award
- Computer Games Magazine
- March 2005 - #6 Game of the Year
- Computer Gaming World
- March 2005 (Issue #249) – Strategy Game of the Year (General)
- March 2005 (Issue #249) – Best Weapon of the Year Runner-Up (for the vacuum)
- Golden Joystick Awards
- 2005 - Girl's Choice for 2005
Information also contributed by
Agent5,
Nelson340,
Paul Graves,
PCGamer77,
piltdown_man,
Rambutaan,
Sciere and
Vaelor
