5 stars (Simsational!) - In truth, The Sims 2 is the best PC game ever.
I was a HUGE fan of the original Sims, and it was my favorite game for quite awhile. However, I recently aquired The Sims 2, and I must say, I was so excited over it I couldn't sleep. It is a grand improvement over the original, and it opened my eyes to the number of flaws that the first Sims game had. Quite honestly, I don't know if I'll ever be able to play it again.
Here are just a few of the high points:
~In The Sims 2, players have an incredibly large, extensive amount of features, clothes, hairstyles, etc. to choose from when they create their Sim. I'm not even going to compare it to the original because, well, it just doesn't compare!
~The addition of family trees and life cycles was what excited me most about this game, and quite frankly, it is the one thing that makes this game totally worth your money, in my opinion. Sims now age from baby to toddler to kid to teen to adult to elder, where they will eventually pass on to to old age, depending on there aspiration level. It's a great joy to see your Sims start out as babies and end up as successful, married adults, and I was just as proud of my Sims as I would be with my own child...not that I would know anything about that.
~Aspirations and fears give the game a whole new meaning. Your Sims can have one of five different aspirations: Wealth, Romance, Family, Knowledge, and Popularity. Depending on which of these your Sim has, they will have different lifetime hopes and fears, which change periodically. When an aspiration is realized, Sims gain reward points that they can use to buy cool things; when a fear is realized, however, Sims lose reward points.
~The Build/Buy options are FAR more improved. Now you can make homes that have more than three stories, change the appearance of that ugly blue bed, create mountains, lakes, whatever!
~The neighborhood options are different too. Choose from playing in Pleasantview, Veronaville, or Strangetown, or even create your own neighborhood and add plants and other decorations to it.
~And last but not least, the graphics are, of course, far more improved.
All I have to say now is that if you're not convinced after reading the above that this is the best game ever, you have some serious issues to work out. 'Nuff said.
5 stars (Difficult to install but found the answer) - I finally got the thing loaded. After several tries on two computers to get the cds to load past disk 3 I finally got smart and went to the support website. techsupport.ea.com
Normally I don't bother because these tech support sites tend to be worthless. But not the EA support. I was impressed how quickly I found the answer I was looking for.
It was actually a hint for loading an expansion pak but it worked for Sims 2 as well. I made a folder on my local C drive called Disk Images. In that folder I made 4 folders: disk1, disk2, disk3, disk4. Making sure no space was between the word and number. I put in each cd and cut and pasted them into each folder. Then I went to the disk1 folder and double clicked on autorun.exe. It installed all four folders in no time.
Great graphics although the houses at night are very dark without buying a lot of lamps. But I haven't played it much yet.
4 stars (good but not great) - better graphics, more realistic, but items and options for building and designing are lacking |
