michelle7898's Full Review: The Sims™ 2 for Windows
The Sims 2 for Windows works with windows 98 through xp and is so much better then the first sims. I purchased it from Walmart for 49.99 a few months ago. I am addicted to the game.
There are a few families started for you and plenty of lots too. The families they have created all have a history and a plot to their lives. You can help them reach their goals or move on to making your own families if you want.
Once you go in create a family. You can create features such as eye color, hair color, or even skin color. You can choose your sims clothing weather it be for bed time or for formal occasions. I always do casual and just use the dressers or wardrobes in the game to change them if I want to later on.
Then you take your family and match their relationship weather they are husband and wife, sister and brother, mother and son and so on. You can even create a baby using both sims " dna " this makes the sim child look like both of the sim parents. You can have 8 sims to a house. You can even have them be same sex, those sims can adopt but not have children. Just like real life.
After your family is all related or simply room mates. You move them into the house of your choice. Or build a house for them and move them in. You are started out with a simle 20,000 I believe the cheapest house is 12,000 or so. From there you go into buy mode and buy furniture for your sims. Make sure to buy some stuff for them to gain skill from like chesstables for Logic, Piano for creativity, a mirror for carisma and so fourth.
Game play is simple. For instance. I built a house, created a few room mates, a female and male. They started out with a half way built relationship. I made them appreciate and admire each other, talk to each other, joke, gossip and play. Then they became friends, next they became best friends. Then I made them flirt, hug then kiss. Pretty soon they were in love. They wanted to get married. So I bought an alter and clicked get married and they did. It goes into movie mode at that point and shows your sims telling their vows.
Now that my sims were married. I made each one relax on a double bed. Then when they were comfortable I clicked on try for baby. If you don't want a baby you just click on woohoo which is the same as sex. Again since it was their first time it went into movie mode. You see the couple jump under the bed sheets. Then a foot or arm poke out here and there. You hear some moaning and stuff and then they pop back out. Now if your sim has gotten pregnant you will hear a short nursery rhyme right after they are through.
A pregnant sim gets hungry faster and always has to go to the bathroom. There is some throwing up and then her tummy pops out slightly.A few days later you see her getting bigger and another day after that " in sim days of course " you see and hear her scream, she holds her belly and her husband watches in panic as she goes into labor. Now in movie mode once again you see her waving her face because she is hot, then she smiles and the camera points up past her. Next you see a baby fall from the sky and into her arms... be cautious sometimes this can be twins or as many as my mishap 6! Then a box pops up to name the child. That child always goes by that name. Your job is to take care of it like it was a normal baby. When it grown into a toddler you must potty train it, teach it to walk and talk as well.
To keep aspirations high which is important you must take care of your sims wants. The aspiration is chosen by you, when you make the family you choose it or when a young sim turns into a teen you choose it. Your sims wants are displayed on the lower screen in the middle next to the picture of your sim.
Some sims want kids, other want to see aliens, be saved from death, do homework, gain skill points and even have multiple loves and woohoo with multiple sims, and some want to have tons of friends. Mostly every aspirtaion wants a job. Family aspiration doesn't require a job , but your sim may want one if he or she is not married yet, once married their want changes to wanting kids and when old they want grand kids. Same sex couples always want to adopt.
If a sim wants to work. You must click on the news paper which is delivered to you, or buys a computer and search for a job on it. The paper gives you 3 jobs to choose from, while the computer gives 6 to choose from. As you search for a job, you will find that a screen pops up with each job ad. Tells you what career it is like Culinary, Business, Law and so on. The job that suits your sim is either the one they are wanting already. Or if you are choosing it choose one that your skills are already built for. Such as I picked Culinary. In order to reach the top of that career track I had to build cooking skill by study, and by watching the cooking station on TV, I had to then build logic by using the telescope or chess board, and I had to have creativity. I got the creativity points by playing the piano and also by painting.
When you are emploiyed you also need to have the right number of friend that is required. On the right there are tabs going down, you need to go where your job tab is and click it to see if you have the right number of friend and right number of skill points.
Sims also have memories, if a sim is born into the game that sim has memories from a toddler on. If one of it's siblings grow up well, or get an A+ report card it will be there with a photo of that sibling in the memory tab. Who taught them to walk, use the potty and talk and eventualy if they grew up well or not.
Older sims like to have family reunions a lot. They like to retire and they get checks in the mail even when they retire. If an elder sim is created with out a mate and they have the family aspiration or romance aspiration they will still want to fall in love and marry. They will not want to have a child but will want to adopt if they don't have a child already by the time there are elders. Their main want is to have a grand child. But if the elder couple has several kids they may end up wanting 10 grand children which is fairly easy to meet, but if they want twenty it is hard to do.
To get to a community lot you must click on the telephone, choose transportation. This will call a taxi, you then pick go to lot or invite a sim and then the cab picks you up. A pregnant sim can not go to a lot by taxi but beware she may already be there when you get there so if your trying to get your sims husband to cheat he may get caught.
Sims have fear too one of them is getting caught cheating so in order to preserve your sims relationships you must make sure that they are not caught at all costs. If some one your sim partner knows is there and sees you cheating she may gossip about it causing her to find out and break up with you. Once a relationship is torn apart it is very hard to fix it again.
Sims only age when you are playing that lot. My sims will remain the same age until I go back to that lot so I can play other families and keep those sims the same age until I return for them.
Each want gives you aspiration points if you fill them. Once you get enough you can buy special rewards with them. Including a thing you go in that fills all of your needs. Your needs should always be filled to avoid accidents such as peeing on the floor or falling asleep while standing. Or even dying!
When a sim dies the Grim reaper comes along. You can plead to save your loved ones life. He plays a game with you and hides something in one of his hands. If you pick the wrong one your sim dies, if you pick the right one they come back half filled with needs. Beware the Grim Reaper sometimes is sneaky and will put the item in his pocket so you guess wrong no matter what!
You must have a fire alarm at all times or when your sim cooks the house may burn down, kill one or all of your sims or distroy your items. Also if you ahve the fire alarm and it goes off. The fire departemnt is already on the way. But you can go to the phone and call the fire department to speed things up. Or help put out the fire by clicking on it and then selecting extinguish.
Thats really the whole idea. Grow your sim families, build houses using floor and wall tools, creat neighborhoods, keep your sims wants and aspriations high and of course avoid all of their fears.
You can buy furniture and decor items for enivorment points. You can buy toys, games, baby items, party item and such. You can buy every type of furniture there is including, couches, TV, beds, toy boxes, cribs, appliances and so much more.
A sim needs a birthday cake to grow up. You click the birthday cake and click bring so and so to cake, or if they are older sims you click blow candles out. They do that and then they grow up to next stage of life.
Here are the stages they go through in life if started from birth:
Infant to toddler, toddler to child, child to teen, teen to adult and last adult to elderly. Once Elderly you must make sure your sim stays healthy and fit. It is best to fill all of their need so they will live longer, some live weeks others months. The ones who are not taken care of simply die a short time after they have become an elderly person.
You can have your sim work for thier money. But I took the cheat off the game box. I hit ctrl- shift- c then type in motherlode hit enter and presto you have 50,000 simoleons to spend! This cheat come with the game.
There is so much to this game, a lot you can build, make or create. I love the look of the game too. It is amazing how real the people look and how life like they are. They do talk aloud but it is not in any language I have ever heard before and not understandable to a point. Sometimes they say something you can hear clearly but mostly jumbled up stuff. The houses look very real and once finished you'd swear it was a model of a real home. You can put curtains, rug and all sorts of stuff in. They can even watch the tv or dance to music. You can put your own mp3s into the sim radio to play real music just like using winamp only you can't control which order they play in.
Sims 2 gives you access to their web page where you can download more lots, objects and skins. That is a good plus. There are many other sites you can get stuff like that from too but you need to be cautious what you put in your game. Check for viruses first before you put anything into it.
Play is great, idea is great, price is great and graphics are great even the fires look real. An amazing game. I am impressed. I wouldn't recommend it for kids though because of the whole woohoo thing.It's not like they show anything and they come out of bed with undies on. But I still don't want to have to explain to a kid what they are doing. Other than that the game is highly recommended by me.
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