The Sims 2

"Want the Sims 2? Get the PC version."

For all those people with no lives, here's a game where you get to live one! Okay, gamer or not I'm sure you're already familiar with The Sims, the game franchise that spawned too many versions of a human tamagotchi type experience where you basically just live life. Now The Sims 2 has arrived changing the game for the better....on the PC. However if you own an Xbox, PS2, or Gamecube like I do, expect this game to remain the same.

STORY
The story mode has you moving out of your mom's house and building a life for yourself. You meet new neighbours, build a family...all the stuff you'd expect.

GRAPHICS
The graphics have really improved greatly. The characters look about as detailed as the people in the Tony Hawk games. You can see their moles, their acne, their fabric, everything dammit! All the characters have sweet and interesting animations, whether they're breakdancing, making out, or playing video games on the toilet, they always look neat and cool. HOWEVER. I have seen The Sims 2 on the PC....the console version dropped the ball in the customization section. The game feels so.....empty when it comes to creating characters. I can't explain why for the life of me. I wanted a red sweater...like I always wear in real life or any other video game. Like The Sims 1! I couldn't find it in this game for some odd reason. The hair colours aren't different at all. Like you can't even get green or blue like a punk rocker or something. Come on now you could do that in Urbz: Sims in the City!

SOUND
The game still sounds like a Sims game. Everyone still talks in the odd Simlish. This time is was a little funnier I thought, especially when telling jokes. The stereo songs were awesome and high quality this time around...and the best part was that even those songs were in Simlish! They literally made these songs that I didn't mind listening to. It sounds great, everything from pinball machines to having sex....and yes I had to mention the sex.

GAMEPLAY
Played the Sims? You know the gameplay. You live a virtual life. You have to help your sims with eating, bladder, sleeping, etc. They have jobs, get promoted, and earn money. You can build your house the way you want, landscape the grass, blah! You know what happens in it! So what changed? For one, now you can actually manually control the sims. You can walk around as them with the control stick and interact with whatever you go to and touch. But if you don't like those controls there are still the classic movements. So that was neat.

When you die, you can actually control the ghost and spook the living. And if you talk to Death you can bribe him to bring you back to life. That is freaking sweet! Uh.... that's the only positive stuff I can say. Honestly this game hasn't changed much. In fact all the changes that are there are for the worse. You can't have kids in this game....I thought that was odd. You can have sex like 5 times in a row, and no kid! The AI felt dumber. There were too many times where I was rejected a kiss, and then I try again and it works. Or she accepts the kiss and then hates me like right afterwards. I'd tell them to do simple tasks like taking out the garbage, and they'll take hours to do so!

And the biggest thing that decided how high my score couldn't reach was the memory card space. It takes up too much memory! 130+ memory on the Gamecube!

IN THE END...
In reality while this game is addicting when you first try it, you'll soon get tired of it and that will be the end of that. My problem is that it's called Sims 2! The PC version is 10X better, and I highly recommend that over this dry console version. What a disappointment. If you love the Sims I'd say give it a rental since it hasn't really changed...but that's my big problem. It hasn't really changed.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/06