offers a realistic world with a sidedish of weird
The makers have answered this question quite well. They have intoduced things like goals, and rewards. Letting your children grow up is good too.
First off it starts off already with a downtown kind of area where you can shop and enhoy yourself. It also starts off with a bit of living large type of thing where you can get abducted by aliens which can get weird.
The rewards for work can range from lie detectors to a candy making machine. The aspirations are their goals. At the start of their life you select what there aspiration is whether it be knowledge, money, love, family. These will change what the sim will want. When you acheive something that the sim wants you get points. These points will amount up and let you buy rewards such age a money tree or a revitalizing machine.
Anyway the game is great and adds alot of things that people always wanted in the original game. The game offers a realistic world with a sidedish of weird.