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The Sims 2

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The Sims 2
The Sims 2 Special Edition DVD US box cover
Developer(s)Maxis
Publisher(s)EA Games
Designer(s)Will Wright
EngineCustom
Platform(s)Windows, Mac OS X Forthcoming: PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, Mobile phones
ReleaseWindows: September 17 2004 Mac OS X: June 13 2005
Genre(s)Simulation
Mode(s)Single player

The Sims 2 is a strategy/simulation computer game from Maxis and is the sequel to the popular game The Sims. It is a vast departure from the previous version and various updates. It is fully 3D, and, unlike in the first installment, characters age and have genetic traits that can be passed on to their children. The game was officially released on September 17 2004. Customers who pre-ordered The Sims 2 received their copy on September 14 2004. A port to Mac OS X was done by Aspyr and was released on June 13 2005.

Description

Sims age through 6 unique stages: baby, toddler, child, teen, adult and elder. Family relationships are much more integral to this version of the Sims than the previous version. As Sims age, get married and have children, these relationships are recorded in an extensive family tree.

In this installment of the series, Sims can have more realistic marriages with engagements and parties. Sims are pregnant before having children (unlike in the previous version, where children just appeared). Other unique events such as deaths, funerals, and a first kiss also take place in a Sim's lifetime. Good and bad experiences are kept as memories and can affect the Sim's behaviour.

File:Sim sad.JPG
In The Sims 2, sims have facial expressions and react to situations as they unfold in the game. In the above picture a teen Sim reacts to his parents' divorce.

The graphics and house design engines have improved with more choices for houses, neighborhood design, food and clothes. The Sims Body Shop, a tool which allows a user to design a Sim's body, clothing, genetic features, etc., was available before the game's release. Modders from various sites have been designing programs to edit things from the game, such as recoloring objects which originally could not be recolored, extracting meshes of both clothing and objects, as well as changing different aspects of the game, like Teen Woohoo (Woohoo is the sims version of sexual intercourse), and the inSIMinator, which allows you to edit various things about sims, like their mood, their relationships, or even make them pregnant with any sim on the lot, including the sim that will be pregnant.

The Sims 2 introduces a new aspect into the game: Aspiration. Aspiration manifests itself in two ways: the aspiration which each Sim has, and the Aspiration Meter.

Sims will each have an aspiration which is set either when they are created by the player, generated by the game (if they are an NPC), or chosen by the player when they become a teenager. The five aspirations are: Romance, Family, Knowledge, Popularity and Fortune. A sixth aspiration, that of growing up, is possessed by all sims when they are toddlers and children.

There are six levels to the aspiration meter: The highest is platinum, beneath that is gold, followed by two levels of green and two of red (red being negative aspiration and therefore an undesirable state). The level is raised when a Sim fulfills a "Want", and is lowered when a "Fear" is realized. Wants and Fears are different for each sim depending on several factors including aspiration type, age and aspiration meter level. They may change on a daily basis, and are displayed graphically in slot-machine fashion on the toolbar. When the Aspiration Meter is high, aspiration rewards may be properly used. For example, the Elixir of Life Machine allows a Sim to live longer. If this machine is used before the Aspiration Meter reaches the gold level, however, it sometimes backfires and the Sim loses life days. The Aspiration Meter also affects how long an elder will live for once they enter this phase of their life.

This also means that while the game still has no set goals, there is a new strategic level to balancing a Sim's life as you now have a limited time in which to fufill Aspirations, meet needs, progress in a career, socialize and possibly have a family.

System requirements

Many have criticized The Sims 2 for needing extremely high system requirements. A similar complaint was levied against Maxis' SimCity 4.

The system requirements for The Sims 2 (from the official The Sims 2 website) are as follows:

  • 800 MHz processor for systems with a T&L-capable video card with at least 32 MB of video RAM. 2 GHz processor for systems without a T&L-capable video card with at least 32 MB of video RAM.
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Windows® XP, Windows ME, Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Operating System.
  • At least 3.5 GB of hard drive space

Bugs

The Sims 2 contains a number of bugs. Many of the bugs listed below have been corrected in a downloadable patch.

  • "Liney" Sims: Graphical glitch with ATI Radeon 9000 GPUs. This problem has been fixed in the new version of ATI's drivers.
  • "Jump Out" Bug: Time-out/scripting bug, causing characters to abort ( "jump out of" ) certain animations and interactions. Solved by the Maxis patch.
  • Memory Leak: Memory leak, sometimes caused by hiring non-player characters, causing abnormal use of system resources.
  • Invisible Colleagues: Graphics glitch involving colleages visiting by helicopter, causing colleages to be invisible. Solved by the Maxis patch.
  • Unused objects designated as in use: Engine bug which makes unused objects appear as in-use, like doors that don't close. Caused by proximity to other usable objects.
  • Floating Teddy: After a few uses, the object of the bear will float in the air and there will no longer be proper animation of use of the bear. Can be fixed by buying a new teddy bear.

Expansions

Maxis released the first expansion pack, called The Sims 2: University, on March 2 2005. In the expansion pack, there is the option to send sims to college. There is a new age group called "Young Adult", which comes after "Teen". Young Adults are any students at the university. They will become adults when they graduate or flunk out, or they will skip that life stage and become adults if they don't attend the university. There will also be influence points to influence others to do a certain thing.

There will be a new expansion called The Sims 2: Nightlife, planned for release in Fall 2005. It will include things such as nightclubs and restaurants for romantic dinners. They will be including vampires as a new feature. They will bite the sim to make them a vampire also.

Interesting Plot Details

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Veronaville

The neighborhood Veronaville is supposed to be a spoof of Verona (the Italian city in which Romeo & Juliet, a play by Shakespeare, takes place). In this neighborhood, there are two families who are supposedly conflicting with each other: the Capp family and the Monty family. Supposedly (according to the story of the neighborhood) the conflict started when the leader of the Capp household broke a promise to the leader of the Monty household. Just like in the play, there are two lovers from each family: Romeo and Juliet. The other teens of the either household are named after actual characters in Romeo and Juliet, except one teen, Hermia. Her character (as well as a third family, the Summerdream family) was pulled from A Midsummer Night's Dream, another Shakespearean play. Characters from other Shakespearean plays can be found in the family trees in Veronaville. Although these spoofs are supposed to parallel the plays they parody, the Romeo and Juliet parody is significantly less tragic than the actual play.

Michael Bachelor

Should one take a look at the Goth family's family tree, they can find out more about Bella's branch of the tree. As it turns out, a Michael Bachelor is her brother (now deceased). The Bachelor family was one of the pre-packaged families that came with the original The Sims. Only one person was in that family... a man named Michael.

Console/handheld ports

The Sims 2 has been confirmed to be released on the following consoles and handhelds:

It is expected to make its debut to the console/handheld market during Q4, 2005 (source). At the moment it is still unknown whether The Sims 2 will be ported to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and/or Nintendo Revolution.

As with the port of the original The Sims to consoles, the game will most likely feature greatly different mechanics and goals as compared to the original computer version.

See also

Official sites

Producer journals

Community and fan sites


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