This is the kick in the pants the series has needed since "Hot Date".
User Rating: 9.3 | The Sims 2 PC
When gamers look back at the history of "The Sims", one might mistake it for the Old Testament - "In the beginning, there was The Sims, and The Sims was good." and then "The Sims begat Livin' Large. Livin' Large begat House Party. House Party begat Hot Date. Hot Date begat Vacation" and so on. And on and on and on and on and on. The five-year gap between Sims 1 and Sims 2 has been made bearable by the steady release of the expansion packs. However, it became obvious as the series went on that nothing really was changing. The game had the same shortcomings it had when it began, and all the community lots and recipies for honeycomb sandwiches couldn't disguise the fact that the game was past its prime. What it needed was a kick in the pants. The Sims 2 then, IS that kick in the pants. Even before the game starts, you can tell that Maxis have their game caps on. Providing a little memory and trivia game to play while the main game installs is a nice touch. Certainly takes your mind of the mind-numbing task of sitting through the four-disk installation. As soon as the game starts, you get a sense of how much the game has grown up. It's still got those quirky little Sims things going on - like the jokey "system" messages as the game loads, but you soon see that the game has its own style. Here, though, I was a little bit disappointed, as I didn't get a chance to change any settings before the game started. In fact, the game starts as soon as you insert the disc, which is a little disconcerting. However, once you're in, the options are easy enough to manage and set, but it would have been nice to not have to load the game before making changes. The all-new 3D look is amazing. Sims 1 was about as close to a two-dimentional 3D game as you can get, and the new look makes it all look like a sick joke. The free camera is another masterstroke - anyone who got sick to death with the four angles and the three zooms will agree. The camera can get a little confused at times, and at other times be a pain in the neck to get it to do what you want, but with a little time it sorts itself out. The large neighbourhoods are well realised and come preloaded with all manner of interesting characters. On the downside, most of the supplied houses for the Sims to move into are on the inadequate side, only leaving a little room for decorating and no room whatsoever for house expansion. The smaller houses anyway. Sims 2 gets most of its gameplay from Sims 1, but this is OK because there wasn't anything technically wrong with the Sims 1 system. Of course, now we have the Aspirations & Fears to contend with, which adds a level of gameplay that wasn't there previously. Sadly, most of the rewards you can claim with this system are functionally useless, and in some extreme cases, may even cause death - not directly, but they can damage your Sim beyond repair if used incorrectly. Still, it's fun to pick up the Aspirations in the morning and work through them as you get them. It makes a change from wondering around aimlessly. The amount of detail, especially on the Sims themselves, is simply mind-bogling. Things aren't just painted on anymore - the objects have a depth previously unknown and there's a genuine sense of ownership, rather than just stuff placed randomly around. The mirrors, for example, are real mirrors. You can look into them, and they reflect perfectly. I don't think showing the Sims' house in a completely empty field with only the horizon for company was such a good idea - it creates the illusion that the family is actually on some deserted farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere. As I said, the new Sims models are amazing. The choice of clothing offered at the start of the game is a little sparse, and the body types could have been a little more varied than "thin" and "fat", but what's here still looks very good. All of the detail goes into the face and hair. It is so nice to see an animated, emotive face on a Sim, rather than the painted-on ones of Sims 1. The hair models are fantastic and well varied too. It's something of a shame that the colour-change option of the hair and of some of the objects as well didn't get carried over to the clothing as well - because I wanted one of them in a yellow.... For anyone who may feel a little ripped off having bought the orginal Sims and all of the expansion packs - be warned - a lot of the stuff that had been introduced in the expansions hasn't made it here (the pets, vacations and a few of the job paths are missing), but a lot of the good stuff has - like the community lots (for shopping or dating) and the house parties. In fact, the parties now come with their own with their own scorecard and countdown - a vast improvement. I can see what Maxis have done here - instead of trying to squeeze everything in, they've taken the "best" bits from the various packs in order to make a tighter package. No doubt anything desperately missing from the collection will be added in future expansion packs. Sonically, the game is incredible. Sims 1 had plenty of memorable tunes (even the Simlish-free instrumental tracks were excellent) and Sims 2 follows suit - special mention to "Dance Hauled", probably one of the best tunes developed for the series. If the music has a fault, then it's that most of the cutesy instrumental stuff that gets played in neighbourhood and build modes is a tad irritating. Functional, but you wouldn't want to play them on a long car trip up the coast. All the other sounds are spot on, from cheery little dings and phones ringing, to the ambiance of birds singing and even the sea crashing on the shore. Simlish is back with a vengence too. I look forward to the day someone gets married in Simlish, and they have Simlish conventions where you can't get in unless you shout "Ah Bracken!" at someone. OK I don't, but it's a perfectly functional language and conveys a lot of emotion. Emotion is what a lot of the Sims 2 is about. Just seeing the relationships work within families and the rest of the neighbourhood is a joy to behold. They laugh, the cry, they comfort each other .... they actually acknowledge each other's existence, rather than having to be told to all the time. Perhaps nowhere moreso than when there's a death in the family. In one family I was playing (one dad, two daughters), it was late at night and Dad was midnight snacking. Unfortuately, he was snacking on some rather dodgy sandwiches, and before I know it, poor old Dad's doubled over and died. The teenage daughter was up during this episode and I tried to get her to plead with Death, but for some reason she thought it was more important to make the bed. By the time she got back, it was too late - Dad had gone. She immediately burst into tears, and continued for a few moments before cleaning herself up, a set herself to become head of the household. Then the most amazing sequence happened. The other daughter remained asleep in her bed the entire time . The teenage daughter went to her bedside, talked to her for a while, tucked her in and kissed her goodnight. I almost broke up over that. After that, there was a noticable bond between the two sisters, even stronger than the one they already had. They were there for each other. They greeted each other as they passed in the house, broke out in spontanious games of "punch me punch you", and met each other with hugs whenever they came home from somewhere. Who writes that stuff into games anymore? No-one. The level of detail and the emotions of these Sims really make them feel like you are part of their lives. You really want to get to know these people you create, and to help them achieve their goals in life, not just lock them in the toilet or force them into homosexual relationships. Not that there's anything wrong with that.... To be perfectly honest, this is a game that should have come out last year. I don't think Maxis did themselves any favours by putting effort into Makin' Magic instead of the sequel, especially when you consider that they were almost certainly being worked on at the same time. I think by then everyone was tired of playing the same tired engine with the same nuiances the game had in 1999. Having said that, Maxis certainly haven't wasted the time they gave themselves, and have used that time to listen to the fans, the critics and maybe even themselves to work out what needed to be done to reinvent the series. The sheer depth of the resulting game, in particular reference to the relationships, is incredible - you'll find yourself thinking "how did they think to put that in?" whenever you see something amazing happen. The Sims 2 is a stunning game. Anyone who says otherwise is LYING to you. Give them one in the teeth for me. 
