The Sims 2

[Leper_Kahn]

I just reinstalled this game on my computer today. I love it! I could never get the sims to stay happy is my problem. Most people like to just light their sims on fire, but I wanted my sims to have a rewarding fulfilling life! Sadly I could never live up to this task. :smallfrown:

Anyway, what do you think of this game?

[Nychta]

I find it fairly easy, even without money cheats. Moderation in everything! Have you started off with a simple, Fortune+Family aspiration couple? They are the easiest to play.

Of course, I hope you do experience the many ways of killing a sim, because that's what's best - for me, anyway, because in the Sims 2 you can record it and laugh.
Yes, I do have too much time. But seriously. It's a great game.

[Trazoi]

I played the Sims 2 like a warped soap opera, with the good characters attempting to live happy Sim lives and the bad ones screwing everything up. I preferred to emotionally challenge my Sims rather than kill them. For extra weirdness I tended to base every Sim off characters from another computer game, so I had Ken and Ryu from Street Fighter interacting with the cast from Chrono Trigger, and Ganondorf was a bizarre version of Donald Trump.

My biggest gripe about the game that it didn't offer enough options for soap opera villains. You've got low level bad stuff, like arguing or playing mean tricks, and then there's psycho stuff like killing other characters (with user help). There wasn't any mid range stuff, like getting someone to lose their job or convincing someone that their spouse was having an affair (unless you wrangled that manually, but it didn't seem right). And all the add-on packs seemed to draw it further away from my playing style.

[Sensate]

I don't know, this game made me suffer like the OP far too many times to give it another shot. Someone who is a perfectionist like myself must have had a hard time taming the game. Yes, many people find it fun to make their Sims interact in a funny way or cause havoc but not me - my Sim would settle for a lonely, boring life where he could make progress at work and smooch with a decent looking girl occasionally. Apparently, that's much harder than it sounds, much like the real life :smalltongue: .

[Winterwind]

I have only played Sims 1, not 2, so I don't know whether this works in Sims 2 as well, but in Sims 1 one could make the start a lot easier by not building an actual house (for walls are expensive), but rather just building a small cabin, housing the stuff where the Sims have to have their privacy, and the whole rest (beds, kitchen-stuff, etc.) out in the open. That way, you save a lot of money, which you can invest in better starting equipment, which makes keeping the Sims educated and happy much easier. The actual house is then added when the family's income increases.
Though admittedly it looks ridiculous. :smalltongue:

[DeathQuaker]

Love the Sims 2 (and its predecessor). I like social experiments, but it's also fun to just play through Sims' lives. Trazoi has his video game characters, I have some random anime characters running around. I even have a (fairly poorly made) Read or Die based photo album uploaded to my Simpage.

I'm pretty good at playing Sims through the actual challenges of the game (get a job, get friends, etc.). Gotten people to the top of their career track etc. If folks want tips I can try to help.

I've got all the expansions (though I have yet to install FreeTime) so my ingame challenges mostly come from Open For Business--currently trying to become a successful restaurateur, which seems more difficult than it should be--and Bon Voyage, collecting all the vacation memories (the vacation locations are pretty cool).

Edit: Winterwind, you can do it like that in the Sims 2 to some degree, though I think some things require walls for things to work and some necessary objects are "indoors only." And if you have Seasons, it makes it harder because you risk exposing your Sims to bad weather, which can kill them (over time, in the case of heat or cold, or instantly, in the case of a lightning strike).

I usually don't go that far but I have started Sims off in a very basic small house, where the only thing in its separate space is the bathroom--furniture is just a stove, counter, a fridge, a bed, a chair, a table, a toilet, a sink. If you wish to "splurge," a bookshelf, a shower, and a smoke detector. It's worth getting the stove rather than start with no cooking implement or with a microwave--you get better food and which means you eat less which gives you more time to learn skills to get promoted. You can get some fun from the newspaper (turning it into a paper airplane and throwing it) and you can also learn logic from the newspaper by doing the crossword. You learn cooking and cleaning by doing those things.

Then when you get a job you want, get a TV and a bookshelf if you already don't have one, and any skill learning items you don't have that you need for your job (i.e., a mirror if you need to learn charisma). Live minimally for awhile until you have a good chunk of simoleons, and then give yourself a serious house upgrade, adding rooms and upgrading your furniture.

[SDF]

My friend just got sims 2 and I've been playing it a lot.
The character based on myself got abducted by aliens and pregnant... I was disturbed, but then I neglected the child and govement took mah baby! :P

My friend made a family consisting of most of the people we live with/hang out with. He made my best friend and his gf married, but she kept hitting on my character and I kept turning her down, it was hilarious.

Then, because the costumes matched, I made a family of the three Eva kids in an attempt at extra dysfunction.

My next game I want to make a harem anime theme. :P

[Icewalker]

Got it, was playing it, quite fun, lost it, never found it. Haven't bought a new copy. I liked the special money thing so you could buy all that really fun stuff like the money tree, with the special goals/day.

[obvious pun]

Oh I remember Sims 2, and the hours of addiction to it.

Normally, I would start out with the Sim I want, then build a bunch of extra families, or just use the premade ones. Then, I get my main sim a job, and all of the ability enhancing items I need. Whenever I need a bunch of friends for job levels, I save and exit, and start playing the extra Sims. Now, I could get all those Sims to call my Sim over and make friends, slowly until I have twenty or so, then go back to my main, and, before they end the friendship due to my neglect, I get the promotion.

Once I'm at the top, and still in whatever crude home I had, I try and get the other Sims to move in with me, giving me all their money as they do. Once the house is full, I wait till my main goes to work, then demolish the house and build a small room with a fireplace and plants... after the burning, I sell the graves and the room, then the land, and have my sim move out to the mansion/ my custom mansion. I then create one last female sim to do my bidding while I'm away at work.

Also, their was this one time when I got a family of 8, and moved them into this area I named the graveyard... Rinse and repeat, until I get a bunch of graves. It was kinda funny when death asked if I'm TRYING to kill my sims just for fun, and how horrid I am. Then, I moved a single sim with a fear of ghost in... Death was right, I am horrid.

Also, one time, completely not my fault, I once invited over a guest and he died in the street. He wasn't dead when I checked his house, but, weird.

My favorite job was chef, followed by supervillain.

I really enjoyed buying those de aging water coolers, and making sims who aren't worthy drink from it. Haha, grandpa is even older now! Grandpa...

Also funny, watching the repo man take stuff through the mail box. Makes you wonder why the firemen don't use it...

No matter how many times I looked up at the sky, aliens would never impregnate any of my sims. I really wanted an alien...

Also funny, depriving your sims of their needs. So great watching them wet themselves in their sleep, then cry about how they're alone while bathing in the sink, slowly starving to death, in a one room house and no entertainment.

What?! Me, evil?! No! But it was just so fun! All of it! It was like playing black and white again, but on a smaller scale.

[Pyro]

@^ Lol...that entire post made me giggle. Being mean to the sims is just so hilarious. I really should buy that game, but Sims 3 is due in what like 2 years?

Also I submit this (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122) comic for general consumption.

[Leper_Kahn]

Once I'm at the top, and still in whatever crude home I had, I try and get the other Sims to move in with me, giving me all their money as they do. Once the house is full, I wait till my main goes to work, then demolish the house and build a small room with a fireplace and plants... after the burning, I sell the graves and the room, then the land, and have my sim move out to the mansion/ my custom mansion. I then create one last female sim to do my bidding while I'm away at work.

You're sick! :smallwink: