www.MarkTAW.com/reviews/TheSims2-Reloaded.html (printable version)

Humble Beginnings

I can still remember playing Sim City (Classic) for the first time at my neighbor's house. I was blown away by it. It's hard to explain the fascination I had with this simple game. It was both simple, and complex at the same time. A sort of chess-like cacophany of movement. You had to concentrate on many things at once, and think several moves ahead. I was an instant fan of the game company, Maxis.

Maxis experimented with a lot of games in this genre. Sim Life, Sim Earth, Sim Building, Sim Copter, a racing game Sim City 2000, El Fish, Sim City 3000, and... the best selling game of all time, The Sims.

If you haven't played The Sims, you don't know what you're missing. The architect in you can create houses in many shapes and sizes, and decorate them in any way you please (or can afford). The Sims (the people whose lives are in your hand) require a constant balancing act of coordination just to keep them on track towards getting a job, promotion, relationship, married, or raising children.

So what can Maxis do for an encore? 4 years after the birth of The Sims, and 4 years of computing technology later, how does the concept hold up, and how do they add on it?

The Sims 2: The Sims Reloaded

The Sims 2 is everything The Sims was and more. I probably haven't even scratched the surface, but I'm addicted.

The original Sims limited you to 2 floors for your buildings. I don't know what the limit is to The Sims 2, but I've seen some pretty odd buildings, so I know there are a lot more architectural possibilities. Oh wait, why am I talking about building when there's so much to talk about in the game itself?

Extreme Makeover: Sims Edition

If you haven't heard, there's an insane amount of control when it comes to designing the face of your sim. Size of the nose, tilt of the eyes, position of the eyes, size of the jaw... I'm sure with a photo next to your computer, you can recreate just about any face on the planet from Jay Leno to Mahatma Gandhi. My bet is that by the end of the year, several hundred virtual Britney Spears will have married several hundred virtual Justin Timberlakes.

The amount of control you get over the face isn't just a cute feature, it's actually an integral part of the game. If you remember back to the original version, your sims never aged. Adults were always in their prime, and children always stayed children.

This time around, you have children, get old, and die. Yes there's an immortality cheat just in case you can't give up your favorite sim (it's in the rule book), but the gameplay has definate stages of life and generations. In fact, when you create your Sim, you can choose what stage of life they're in, and create a family tree to connect them to other members of the household.

So what does this have to do with the freakish amount of control you get over the faces? Well, what your children look like, act like, and are interested in will be determined by your genes. Children will look like their parents.

As far as I can figure it, each game day amounts to roughly a year. You're in your prime around 30 days, you're a teenager 10 or so days (I'm not sure exactly how many). In other words, you've got to hussle if you want to accomplish everything you want to in life... (more on this later).

The wardrobe this time around isn't as rich as you're probably used to, but remember this is the core system, and there will be plenty of expansion packs, and downloads (which you can get from directly within the game). The damn thing is 3 gigabytes (I got the DVD edition, I couldn't imagine how many CD's you'd have to load while installing this thing - if at all possible, get the DVd edition), a wardrobe probably would've increased the size way too much. But don't worry, I'm sure right now someone out there is creating a "Janet Jackson Superbowl Wardrobe Malfunction" outfit for you to download.

Another thing I noticed was that there are only two body types. Everyone starts out as one of two body types, and through exercise can change their appearance. In this game the scientist will be a 90 lb weakling, and the military guy will be 200 lbs of pure muscle.

The Controls

The controls are sublime. Really. Maybe there's an occasional annoyance, like having to scroll through inventory, but the day-to-day actions, where you spend 95% of your time, are as simple as possible. Using the ~, 1, 2 and 3 keys you control the rate time goes (~ is pause). Left click does what you'd expect it to do. Right click centers the screen on where your mouse is. The mouse wheel zooms in and out! It's really amazing how closely you can zoom - your sims face can practically fill up your screen - and CTRL + right click or CTRL + mouse wheel lets you swivel the screen, or pan up and down.

With one hand on the keys, and one hand on your mouse, you can do anything you want, quickly and easily.

The Next Generation In Graphics

The graphics are also great. I should mention here I'm on an AMD 2100+, with an ATI Radeon 7500 graphics card and 512 MB of RAM.

I started the game not bothering to go into the configuration and I thought... wow, the detail is great. Little things like the pinball machine moving if you bumped it, how far you can zoom in to your Sims. It was very nice.

Then I turned on all the graphics options.

Zooming in to the whirlpool the game slowed a bit, but the detail on the water, the transparencies (objects become transparent and then disappear as you move through them with the camera), and being able to see hands, legs and feet under the water is truly amazing. And the game moved fine, even focused on the whirlpool with people inside, it was only when I moved the camera that it slowed down a bit.

For the extremely rare case when the game slows down, it's worth it (if your computer can handle it) to leave all the options on. Just seeing 5 o'clock shadow on someone's face as they walk around is great.

The lighting effects aren't spectacular, at least, not that I've noticed. But really... I'm not complaining.

Game Play

Okay, enough about the controls and the graphics. What about the game itself?

All of the game play you knew before is still there. What they add is another layer in the form of Ambitions. There's a handful of ambitions, that will determine what kinds of things your Sims will want to do with themselves. What pleases them, and what will upset them.

The first two Sims I created - Alice and President Evil - had two very different ambitions. Alice wanted to be a high powered business woman, and President was more intellectual. This means Alice wants to do things like make friends work on her charisma, and go to work. President loves to learn, and would rather stay home from work.

This manifests itself in the form of hopes & fears. Alice hope's she won't miss the car to work, while President hopes he'll get to stay home and gaze through his telescope at the stars.

You're rewarded with points. You get both a meter (like the mood meter) and money to spend (which can only be spent on) special items. Alice got a money tree and a putter to practice her Golf swing. President got a helmet that helps him learn and Alice got a vacuum that sucks up other people's ambitions and skills. She can't wait to use it on Mortimer Goth. You think he'd appreciate Alice using the telescope to look in his window since his wife Bella was abducted by aliens and he's left alone (a senior citizen now) to raise the kids. Oh, did I mention the game is set 25 years in to the future? And did I mention you get several vastly different neighborhoods and can create your own? One neighborhood is near the crash site of an alien space craft... But I won't tell you any more, I don't want to spoil all the surprises.

This adds a new dimension to The Sims. Each character's personality manifests itself in more than just what they talk about. They want things. Alice wants a lot of expensive furniture. President wants to perfect his cooking skills. They're afraid of things, like losing each other, or setting fire to the house.

It's actually a lot of work balancing all this, and it's hard to do with more than one or two Sims.

Romance

So one day Alice's friend Melissa was over, and I noticed a new interaction possible - Kiss. Well, long story short, Melissa and Alice got married and they're looking to kick President out at the next opportunity, and adopt a child. President should pick up the paper and look for a new place to live, unless he enjoys his role as Jack Tripper. Too bad they built a second floor bedroom and moved the hot tub up there too. (Did I mention that you can zoom in extremely close?)

Unknown to Alice (and me until she moved in) Melissa's ambition in life is to be a romantic social climber. Her current goals include "Kiss 3 different Sims" and "Meet someone new." Alice is not going to be happy, and you know she doesn't take this kind of news well. I don't know who to feel more sorry for, Melissa or Alice.

The strange thing is, Melissa won't be fulfilled in life unless she gets to live out these goals. If the original Sims made some interesting social commentary along the lines of "You need to spend money to be happy," this one opens even more questions, or maybe it answers them. President would be perfectly happy at home with his books. Melissa probably just wants to go to the town swimming pool and flirt. Alice wants all the best furniture (she really needs to learn to budget herself).

Goals also change based on the circumstances. For a while they may seem all career based, but they're not. If someone cooks hamburgers, your Sim will want to eat one. If he learns how to make Mac & Cheese, he'll want to try out the recipe. And if President starts getting closer to the Maid (did I mention you can interact with the maid, mail carrier, repair man, newspaper girl when they're around and then invite them over for parties?), his goals will start to include things like wanting to kiss her or make "Woo Hoo" in the hot tub.

The DVD Deluxe Edition has a second disk with - I don't even know what yet, commentaries and interviews and tips I think. Plus I have only 1 game disk instead of 90 million I'd probably have with the CD-ROM edition.

This game is a monster, so if your computer is old... well, you have three choices. Don't buy the game. Suffer with a slow Sims 2. Upgrade. And isn't it really time you upgraded your computer anyway?

The Sims 2

The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition

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page first created on Tuesday, September 21, 2004

this site and it's contents copyright Mark Wieczorek