The Sims 2 brings to consoles a Sims game that vastly improves over its predecessors. PC players, stay away from it.
The Sims 2 for the consoles feature none of this. At core, this game is solid and plays like a Sim game, but don't expect it to have that extra but of "umph" that makes its PC counterpart so successful.
Fans of the previous console Sim games will be relieved to know that the feel of the game remains untouched. After EA took that left turn down the dark, dreaded path with The Urbz: Sims in the City, it's clear that they did not want to screw up in this next installment, especially with the blockbuster hit that is its PC primary counterpart. But perhaps EA was a bit TOO nervous. When you first boot up the game you are greeted by a number of clips showing sims doing various things in various viewpoints and perspective. Unlike the first two Sim games or The Urbz (Which I do not really consider a sim game) you can immediately choose to jump right into freeplay mode. But if you're anything like me, you're just peach to see what Story mode is all about this time. Let me give you the run down:
Go into story mode, randomly generate grandparents and parents of sims until you are happy with the not so decent and in most cases rather ugly sim that you generate, and go customize their appearance. You cannot change their facial features except for how big or small their nose, eyes, mouths, and jaw are. You can, however, change the skin color, but even a rare good looking sim with the effects of a changed skin tone will make it look very ugly. Anywho, wrap up your sim by choosing their name, personality, zodiac sign, and aspiration goals, and set off into the big world!
What are the goals you say? Nothing. Their aspiration system, which is completely identical to the PC version, has a list of thousands of goals per aspiration (including Romance, Wealth, and Creative) that will make your sims happy. Be completing these goals, you are awarded aspiration points. These points go toward unlocking extra items that can be bought from the catalog and placed in your home. Completing the gold and platinum colored goals will ultimately unlock new places for you to explore. This works great, the only downside is that you cannot choose what you want to unlock, and when you do unlock something, you are left in the dark as to what you've just unlocked (Unless, of course, you pay close attention to detail and are an over-observative person.)
So that's it. Most of these goals do, however, require that you travel to the unlocked places to meet and interact with new people in the world. These new Sims probably don't have the most vibrant personality in the world, which makes them kind of boring to interact with in the first place. If it was one thing The Urbz seemed to have done a good job on, it was making each and every character have a personality that only they had. Only certain Sims would know certain social moves, etc etc. Moreso, these new Sims now have memories! You and your wife/husband have some good times on the surf machine? Choose the "reminisce" social move to go back and think about it with them.
The sound in this game is what you'd expect from any sim game. New, modern music tracks can be played from the radio. Recognizable tunes sung in "Simlish" make listening to the radio better than ever before. All social moves have their own unique simlish added to them, and the sound effects are present for each and every action you can do in the game. The problem with this is that sometimes the sound isn't always synchronized with the actual animations. In fact, the animations aren't always synchronized with the actual animations.
Which brings me to the graphics of this game. As always, the console counterparts get the shaft in this department, but even so, that doesn't mean the graphics are horrible. A couple of problems are present in the PS2 version of this game like choppy animatons and sounds while speeding time up, or a few jagged edges here and there, but it really isn't anything to moan about. The graphical prowess can't stand up to a full-capable PC, but for what the game is, it can stand up on it's own 2 feet.
Speaking of standing on two feet, EA has done for the consoles what has never been done in a Sims game before (beside the handheld 2D versions), and that is give the player complete and total control over their Sims. There is a downside and an upside to this, however. The downside, first and foremost, is that you cannot multitask. You have to wait until your Sim is done doing what they're doing before going onto the next task. Technically, this doesn't change anything as you're still completing tasks right after each other in roughly the same time it would take if you were multitasking. The upside, you say? You get rewarded more for socializing with other Sims. You can choose to go into Control mode and socialize a sim, which will open up a broad spectrum of social moves depending on your personality, aspiration, and the relationship with the fellow sim. These social moves award you anywhere from 2 to 10 relationship points per move succesfully performed. This can also be a bad thing, however, as if you are neglected and/or get a negative response, you lose more points than you normall would.
Have no fear! All of you that loved the Multitasking in the past sim games are not left in the dark. You can simply press the Select button to switch from Control mode to Classic mode and it'll act just as before. Again, in this mode you can multitask and set a string of actions for your sims to complete tasks while they're off doing something else, and this also minimizes the number of options you can use to socialize with the other sims. In turn, this only awards you anywhere from 2-4 relationship points per social move, thus making it a much slower process of developing good relationships (or breaking them if you so wish.)
Overall, I'd say if you are a true, diehard, sims fan and only have access to the console versions, then by all mean necesarry buy this game. If you're still a little on the dark side, give it a 5 dollar rent and see if it is worth the full 39.99 price tag.