The Sims 2
Overview
The Sims 2 is the primary full-fledged sequel to the favored “life simulation” franchise wherein gamers furnish the properties and supervise the lives of digital inhabitants referred to as sims. Every sim has a definite persona and set of objectives, and typical gameplay revolves round buying a job, growing relationships with different characters, and managing a spectrum of non-public wants and needs to assist them fulfill their goals.
The sport was first launched for the PC in September of 2004, with ports to a number of consoles arriving in late 2005. Even though each model bore the identical title, these console variations had been closely modified to go well with the restrictions of their respective platforms.
PC
The PC model of The Sims 2 is just not solely the primary model launched, but additionally the one one which enjoys entry to free downloadable content material, fan-made mods, and the record-setting seventeen enlargement packs which have adopted. It retains the identical idea of open sandbox-style gameplay and emergent storytelling present in its predecessor, albeit with a serious overhaul of nearly each facet of the underlying mechanics.
Gameplay
The fundamental premise of The Sims 2 has the participant taking omniscient management over a family and directing the semi-autonomous inhabitants in dealing with their day by day routines. In a broad sense, this implies guiding them in conserving the home clear, assembly and befriending the neighbors, discovering work, and addressing their eight primary Wants similar to Starvation and Enjoyable to stay wholesome and joyful.
Each character has his or her personal persona sliders that point out how good, bodily lively, playful, neat, and outgoing they are typically, they usually may also research up on elementary abilities like cooking and mechanical restore to achieve talent factors and enhance the standard of their very own lives.
Jobs, which historically merely eliminated sims from play for quite a lot of hours, have been spiced up with the addition of “probability playing cards” which describe a work-related dilemma and permit the participant to decide on how the character ought to react. Selecting accurately results in bonus pay, prompt talent factors, and sudden promotions, whereas poor decisions can result in demotions and even unemployment.
The properties within the sport are absolutely customizable because of a sturdy design system that lets gamers modify each facet of the architectural format and furnishings on the property. Actually a whole bunch of family objects like couches, beds, fridges, telephones, and decorations can be found to specialize the looks and performance of each room, and the residents work together with them in extremely intuitive methods to fulfill their numerous wants.
Getting old
Characters in The Sims 2 naturally age by six distinct life levels which whole roughly 100 in-game days from beginning to loss of life from previous age. This shifts the main focus of the sport from the administration of routine day-to-day affairs for the eternally younger youngsters and adults of the unique, and encourages gamers to think about the course of every sim’s finite lifespan. Getting married, securing promotions, constructing friendships, and parenting kids carries much more significance to characters who do not have all eternity to rectify their errors.
The six life levels embrace:
Infants
(3 Days) – tiny newborns who cry once they’re hungry, cry once they’re moist, cry once they’re bored, and sometimes spit up once they’re not bored sufficient. Similar to with actual infants, sims typically have to interact in just a little trial and error to find out what an toddler needs, however significantly neglectful dad and mom might have their youngsters completely eliminated by a social employee.
Toddlers
(4 Days) – precocious tykes who start to exhibit their very own personalities and may even begin choosing up abilities from toys that may assist them later in life. With just a little persistence, grownup sims can train their toddlers to stroll, speak, and use a coaching potty all by themselves.
Children
(8 Days) – youngster sims start attending faculty each weekday morning and returning with homework within the afternoons. Mother and father may have to make ample use of the “Assist with Homework” socials as a result of youngsters will be simply distracted by their new discovered potential to make pals.
Teenagers
(15 Days) – teenage sims retain an analogous load of college work all through the week, whereas increasing their social circle to incorporate highschool sweethearts and colleagues at their afternoon jobs. Very like actual teenagers, additionally they actually begin to emphasize their individuality by selecting private Aspirations that may form the course of the lives.
Adults
(30 Days) – the majority of a personality’s life is spent as an impartial grownup pursuing a livelihood, pals, and household in accordance with the whims of their lifetime Aspirations. Over the course of this life stage, sims will sometimes purchase and furnish their very own properties, take jobs in one among seven totally different profession paths, date, marry, and lift kids of their very own.
Elders
(Varies) – within the twilight of their lives, sims can retire to reside off their pensions and revel in their remaining days. In contrast to the earlier life levels, there is not any dependable solution to predict how lengthy these days may final: it is influenced by how excessive the character’s Aspiration bar has been in the intervening time they graduated by the earlier 4 phases, so sims who’ve seen lots of their goals come true will get pleasure from an extended retirement than ones who look again on a lifetime of distress and heartache.
As with the unique sport, no time passes for households past the boundaries of the lively lot. This may result in some odd discontinuities the place incessantly performed households can marry, increase kids to maturity, and move away from previous age whereas their aged neighbors seem to stay unchanged. The instruction handbook for The Sims 2 additionally prominently lists a cheat code which disables the growing old mechanic for all characters, although it warns that immortal sims will unbalance the sport’s Aspiration mechanics.
Aspirations, Desires, and Fears
Along with the persona sliders for traits like playfulness, tidiness, and laziness, The Sims 2 introduces the idea of non-public Aspirations that outline a person’s concept of non-public success. Sims, like actual folks, naturally worth issues like cash, household, and private improvement otherwise from each other, and characters who discover success within the features of life they treasure most will naturally really feel happier and extra fulfilled than those that do not.
Aspirations are chosen for every sim on the time they’re created, or upon rising up into youngsters. There are 5 choices:
- Household oriented sims cherish shut relationships with prolonged household, long-term relationships, and the prospect of elevating joyful and profitable kids to hold their legacy into the subsequent era. Their main objectives have a tendency to incorporate issues like getting married, seeing their kids excel in class, and holding their first grandchild.
- Fortune-centric sims measure their success by the dimensions of their checking account. They more likely to be onerous employees, striving to achieve greater rungs on the profession ladder to allow them to purchase themselves all of the fanciest toys, however generally marrying their approach right into a rich household can obtain the identical goal simply as properly.
- Data sims want private development purely for its personal sake. They aren’t solely the painters and the authors: of their opinion, the duty of repairing a damaged equipment is a matter of delight to indicate that they are as much as the duty. These characters are detest to aim any feat they may fail at, and have a fascination with the sport’s extra esoteric components similar to alien abductions and ghosts.
- Recognition sims crave shut friendships, legendary events, and profession paths the place they will rise to be superstars. They endeavor to keep up an ever-expanding entourage of colleagues and admirers, incessantly maxing out the celebration invite listing and throwing bashes that get damaged up by the cops.
- Romantic sims yearn for the heady ardour of a brand new love affair. Settling down with one individual for the remainder of their lives appears so staid and prosaic: these sims hit the relationship scene for the joys of the chase and the exhilaration of their subsequent conquest.
These lifelong journeys unfold every day as a collection of small steps referred to as Desires. A data sim, for instance, may begin off with Desires like “Acquire a Talent Level” or “Paint a Image,” and satisfying these easy needs finally leads in the direction of extra superior ones like “Max Out a Talent” and “Promote a Masterpiece Portray.” Characters who make regular progress in the direction of realizing their ambitions by often fulfilling their day by day Desires will fill a particular Aspiration Meter that signifies how content material they really feel in regards to the course their lives are taking.
The alternative of Desires are Fears: intense phobias which, if they arrive to move, will severely undermine a sim’s sense of self-confidence. Extremely social sims, for instance, is perhaps traumatized by a public humiliation, whereas Household sims is perhaps most distressed by the loss of life of a relative. Fears trigger the Aspiration Meter to empty rapidly, and if dips low sufficient, the character will sink right into a deep melancholy and should even begin to come mentally unhinged.
Neighborhoods
As an alternative of the small, static neighborhoods within the authentic Sims, The Sims 2 ships with three pre-made places with considerably totally different landscapes and the potential to assist a number of dozen separate households. Every setting begins out with a number of inhabited and vacant homes, and gamers are free to put down new plots for contemporary building nearly wherever on map.
Extra inventive customers may even design their very own customized neighborhoods from scratch. Utilizing a 3D terrain software harking back to the one in SimCity 4, gamers can sculpt rolling hills, scoop out areas for lakes and rivers, and construct up mountaintop plateaus to provide almost any type of countryside they will think about. Objects like water towers, signal posts, and sailboats can then be positioned so as to add just a little extra character to the surroundings, together with the community of streets essential to begin creating properties and neighborhood outlets.
Residents of 1 neighborhood are nonetheless unable to work together with the denizens of some other, however as future enlargement packs would exhibit, every neighborhood is able to linking up with a lot of different locations for sims to go to.
Graphics & Customization
The Sims 2 replaces the 2D graphic components and inflexible isometric perspective of the unique sport with a completely 3D engine which will be rotated and zoomed at will to view the atmosphere from any angle. This shift to a completely polygonal atmosphere additionally made it a lot simpler for the thriving mod neighborhood to launch their very own new objects, hairstyles, and clothes content material for the sport — an endeavor which is actively inspired by the builders who built-in some neighborhood sharing options immediately into the sport interface.
Gamers are additionally given full management over each facet of a sims’ facial look, from overt components like eye coloration and pores and skin tone all the way down to the subtlest change within the form of the lips or the gap between their eyes. These options change naturally as characters age by the totally different life cycles, and may even be “genetically” handed alongside to offspring.
Consoles
The Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Gamecube variations of The Sims 2 embrace a “Free Play” mode which retains a lot of the identical primary gameplay of the PC model, albeit with out the outstanding new ageing mechanics or the flexibility to procreate. On account of reminiscence and engine restrictions, there are additionally a lot tighter limitations on how subtle properties can turn into.
In change, the console video games embrace a “Story Mode” wherein the participant creates a single sim and takes singular accountability for his or her life. There may be really no definable plot concerned: the character’s objectives are outlined totally by their chosen Aspiration, a lot as they might be for any resident within the common sport. This mode has the choice to take direct management of the character with the analogue stick, however the one actual distinction in gameplay construction is that satisfying Desires will earn Aspiration Factors to unlock new properties to go to and extra objects to purchase.
These variations of the sport additionally embrace a novel cooking system whereby gamers can really choose every ingredient within the dish. Uncommon components collected from sources all through the sport will be blended collectively to unlock recipes for meals that imparts some particular bonuses to the one who eats it.
The Sims 2 was launched on Genesis (Mega Drive) in Brazil, usually as a pack-in sport. It’s a port of the cell phone model.
Handhelds
With a purpose to adapt The Sims 2 for the Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and PSP, the open sandbox fashion of the PC model was ditched altogether in favor of an unique deal with goal-oriented journey gameplay. All three variations happen in Strangetown, one of many three default neighborhoods within the PC version, and put the participant in direct management of a single character throughout the story.
Gameboy Advance
The GBA model of The Sims 2 casts the participant as a participant in a actuality tv present set in Strangetown. Gameplay is organized right into a linear collection of “episodes” with a number of preset objectives required with a view to proceed, and separated by “business breaks” which encompass a quick micro-game like fleeing from an enormous can of soda.
The eight Wants like Starvation and Vitality are condensed right into a single Stamina bar alongside just a little graphic indicator displaying whether or not the sim presently wants meals, relaxation, or a rest room break to fill it again up. Aspirations are equally diminished in scope, consisting of solely a handful of attainable social interactions carried out in every chapter.
DS
As an alternative of a actuality present contestant, the DS version of The Sims 2 facilities on the travails of a younger sim questing for cash and affect to assist renovate a decrepit lodge in Strangetown. Every visitor on the lodge has their very own specific quirks, and by catering to their whims, gamers can afford to broaden their enterprise and entice much more enterprise.
Targets within the sport are closely influenced by the hand held’s inside clock and calendar, with a day / evening cycle that synchronize to the precise time of day and characters who attend to their very own schedules in accordance with the day of the week. Sure duties should be completed inside a particular window of time, although there is not any mechanism to stop the participant from manually altering the system clock as essential.
There may be additionally some touchscreen interactivity within the DS model, together with minigames for chores like vacuuming and metallic detecting the place gamers use the stylus to separate valuables from the detritus.
PSP
After a automotive accident on the perimeter of Strangetown, this closely story-based model of The Sims 2 opens with the protagonist stumbling right into a property deal too good to move up. It seems to be a really aptly named metropolis, and after assembly a couple of of the residents, the participant may have quite a lot of freedom in resolve quite a lot of eerie mysteries whereas concurrently pursuing the Aspirations and Desires of their very own character.
The mix of conventional Sims character mechanics with a structured story make it probably the most just like the Story Mode in earlier console editions. A significant change to the standard gameplay is the lively chat system the place the participant should rapidly match up a collection of symbols with a view to efficiently accomplish the purpose of the dialog, be it pleasant, romantic, or confrontational in nature. If a sim kinds a excessive sufficient relationship, different sims might even quit private secrets and techniques which may advance the plot or be traded away to different characters.
Working up the protagonist’s talent ranges can enhance the percentages of success in most of the totally different duties within the sport, and in contrast to the opposite handheld variations, Aspirations and Desires play a task very related the standard PC gameplay.
Trivia
- On July twenty second, 2005, within the wake of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas “Scorching Espresso” controversy, Florida legal professional and anti-gaming activist Jack Thompson accused Sims writer Digital Arts of facilitating the supply of full frontal nudity and graphic pornography to underage gamers of The Sims 2. The allegation centered on an unauthorized, unpromoted third-party mod which, when used along side an obscure debugging command, may make bare characters within the sport seem extra anatomically appropriate. Thompson went on to counsel that The Sims 2 was a “pedophile’s paradise” wherein they may “rehearse, in digital actuality, for his or her abuse,” even though no such interactions are attainable underneath any circumstances.
- Bella Goth, a preferred character from the unique Sims sport who “mysteriously vanished” from the PC version of The Sims 2, makes a outstanding cameo initially of the PSP model. It’s unknown whether or not or not her look in Strangetown is taken into account canonical within the unfastened storyline that bridges the foremost releases collectively.
- Within the occasion {that a} player-controlled character dies, many variations of the sport characteristic an look by the Grim Reaper who will be bargained with to deliver the liked one again to life. Failure transforms the deceased into an object which turns into a headstone when positioned exterior or an urn stuffed with ashes when moved indoors, and if the surviving residents fail to grieve correctly, the sim might rise to wander the property as a stressed spirit.
- Typically when a sim gazes out into the void of area, the void gazes again. Frequent use of a telescope will finally entice the eye of area aliens who will abduct the curious sim for a time frame and probably even impregnate them. Human-Alien hybrids are characterised by distinct inexperienced pores and skin and strong black eyes, bodily traits which will be handed down by to future generations.
- As free downloadable content material and numerous enlargement packs have been added to the combo, a number of different EA titles have made cameo appearances in The Sims 2 as video games the characters should purchase and play on their gaming methods. Examples embrace SSX 3, The Urbz: Sims in the City, SimCity 4: Rush Hour, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, MySims, Spore, and The Sims 3.
Expansions & Merchandise Packs
The Sims 2 had many enlargement and merchandise packs which got here continued to return out even properly after the sport’s preliminary launch.
Expansions
Merchandise (Stuff) Packs
The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack
The Sims 2: Glamour Life Stuff
The Sims 2: Celebration! Stuff
The Sims 2: Kitchen and Bath Interior Design Stuff
The Sims 2: Mansion & Garden Stuff
Minimal System Necessities
When you’ve got a T&L (information about what T&L is under) succesful video card with at the least 32 MB of video RAM (similar to nvidia GeForce 2 or higher or ATI Radeon 7000 or higher) then you definately want at the least:
- 800 MHz processor
- 256 MB RAM if Home windows XP
- 128 MB RAM if Home windows 98, Home windows ME, or Home windows 2000
- At the least 3.5 gigs of free onerous drive area
When you’ve got a non-T&L succesful video card (similar to TNT2, Intel, or Rage for instance) then you definately want at the least:
- 2.0 GHz processor
- 256 MB RAM if Home windows XP
- 128 MB RAM if Home windows 98, Home windows ME, or Home windows 2000
- At the least 3.5 gigs of free onerous drive area
Recommened video playing cards (and the extra video reminiscence the higher):
- ATI Radeon 9800 Professional
- Nvidia Geforce 4