The Engrossing Day to Day Life of The Sims

I have always been pretty impressed by games from Maxis. Going back to the heady days of my Commodore 64 and various AMIGAs, stunningly original games like Sim City and weird and wonderful titles including Sim Ant and Sim Farm fired my imagination and kept me coming back for more.

It's true that the idea for the original Sims game was pretty obviously borrowed from the now ancient Little Computer People Discovery Kit, but it is to Maxis' credit that they were able to take a fascinating, but limited concept and turn it into a gaming phenomenon. With The Sims 2 they have taken their previous excellence to new levels.

As with the original game, The Sims 2 allows the player to take control of any number of computerised people and/or families in a wide variety of pre-made, or player built 3D isometric perspective neighbourhoods. Every detail of the day to day life of these electronic people is at the fingertips of the player - from eating and nutrition, to personal hygiene, to their loves lives and reproductive habits.

The real beauty of this game is that the sky is really the limit in your choice of what you do. There's no need to influence your creations too much, they will basically look after themselves, depending on their personalities, with minimal player involvement. You can make your Sims take the responsible path and go to work, strive for personal and career advancement, or let them enjoy an existence of bare subsistence, bumming around on the couch all day. It is really up to you.

Graphically, you might look at The Sims 2 and think it hasn't changed much, but really there is vast improvement. Graphics are crisp, character models and household decorations and improvements are detailed, and the world is just basically a delight to look at. A well designed Sims home reminds me of one of those insanely intricate doll-houses with the painted pewter furnishings.

Sound is similarly impressive. The Sims really has a distinctive series of jingles, much like in the original game, and there's suitable spot effects such as appliance noises, running water, birds chirping and so forth. Sim speech is, as in the first game, made up of random gibberish which sounds straight out of some imaginary Eastern European nation. You even get songs on the radio sung completely in this gobbledygook speak, some of which sound strangely like real life songs, as though they were dreamed up by Neil Innes for some new parody band.

With this sequel, Maxis have addressed many of the "but what abouts" and fans of the original game expressed and addressed some of the nagging game play issues which could make the original Sims a little frustrating on occasion. In the original game, there just weren't enough ways to make your Sims happy quickly enough, so if you really wanted to do well you had to really go hard in one given direction and game play became a repetitive chore. To alleviate this issue, items have dual or even triple effects on character statistics. For instance the hot tub can increase the social, fun, hygiene and fatigue statistics - although to a more limited level than items designed specifically with that stat in mind.

Finally, Maxis have decided to include weekends of a fashion in their game universe. That's right, your Sims who are gainfully employed are no longer expected to show up every day of the year. In addition to this, you can still call in sick once in a while and get away with it, but it's sure nice to have time off thrown into the mix, both for realism and for variety of play.

One of the best improvements in The Sims 2 is the inclusion of breeding among your Sims. That's right, Sims can bump uglies and start a whole new generation who go through life stages from baby, right through to elderly. This is an excellent feature. I particularly love how different stimuli during the stages in life (such as being played with as a baby, or succeeding at school) can effect how the Sim turns out as an adult. My only real complaint about the life-stages is that they move far too quickly, and although they slow down at adult and elderly, your Sims do eventually die, and sometimes it comes a bit too soon for my taste.

The possibilities for the growth of your family is endless. Right now I'm wondering if I can create a family straight out of HBO's Big Love. Haha, three small houses on one lot, with my male Sim doing the rounds of his three "wives". Ha.

One thing I will say, is that straight out of the box, this game is in need of patching. There are a few game-killing bugs which will really have you upset if you encounter them. I once lost literally weeks of play in a bug involving baby which got "stuck" on the sidewalk outside my home. Child protective services eventually showed up because the poor thing hadn't been washed, fed or otherwise looked after for days, but they were just as unable to access the kid as I was. Unfortunately the CPS woman's arrival takes place in a mini cut-scene which my game became lodged in and I was no longer able to access my home without a catastrophic bug ending my play. So heed my words - Patch before you play.

Overall, The Sims 2 is a real winner which is only improved by elements included in the expansion packs which followed (but those will be other Epinions). If you liked the original game, Sims 2 is a must. There are significant improvements and plugging of holes which make this an unmissable classic which will keep you glued to your monitor for weeks, if not months. Who knew that real life could be so engrossing?