THE SIMS 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Maxis

Publisher : Electronic Arts

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Virtual Life

Release Date : September 14 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon XP 1600+ / Intel Pentium 3 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0b Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5700 Series
ATI : Radeon X1050 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 3.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The Sims 2 is a great sequel and a great game in its own right, and it's recommendable to just about anyone. In the most basic terms, The Sims 2, like The Sims before it, lets you create one or more "sims"--autonomous characters with distinct personalities and needs. You then create a virtual household of one or more sims (you get to decide whether they're roommates, spouses, or parents) and move them into a house and a neighborhood that is either prebuilt or built from scratch. Your sims interact with each other and with their neighbors, children leave the house for school each day, and employed adults head out for work to earn a living in one of a number of different career paths. But the most significant additions in the new game are probably the enhancements made to the sims and the ways they act. While they still have specific personality types determined by their horoscopes and individual characteristics like neatness, niceness, and playfulness, sims now have some notable major new features, like memories, customized appearances, genetics, aging, and the new aspiration/fear system. The sequel also features enhanced appearance editing tools that let you customize your sims' clothing, hairstyle and hair color, and also let you make many adjustments to their facial features. In The Sims 2, your characters actually grow old and even die of old age. Like with the original game, sims can and will die from neglect and extenuating circumstances, and if you're one of those sadistic players that enjoyed making your sims suffer, you'll still be able to do this in the sequel. However, if you're the sort that might really get involved in your sims' lives and history, you may look at aging as a way to build a rich and storied life for your sims. If your sims realize enough fears, their aspiration meter empties out into the red and they go temporarily insane until a friendly therapist usually shows up. During this period of time, they're completely unresponsive to any orders you may give them, and their loved ones may also become distraught at the sight of them. However, if your sims successfully complete their goals of buying refrigerators and making best friends, they earn "aspiration points" that fill up their meter, which successively becomes green, gold, then platinum--and the longer and more often it hits platinum, the longer your sims remain "normal" young adults. In addition, The Sims 2's career system has been slightly enhanced. It still lets your sims follow a career path and get promoted by practicing certain skills, but it now features brief text choices while you're on the job that can make or break your sims' next promotion.

The neighborhood editor lets you add houses and empty lots, as well as city parks or shopping centers, which you can build out with phone booths, market stalls, restaurants, and other items, to your custom districts. These and other features work similarly to how they did in the original game. Perhaps disappointingly, and aside from the unusual prevalence of clothing and household furnishings inspired by Korean culture, the sequel offers about the same amount of content to build things out as the original game did. The Sims 2's sound is also great, though it's about what you'd expect from a Sims product. The high-quality soundtrack by composer Mark Mothersbaugh seems to fit extremely well with the game as well as with the previous games in The Sims series. It has the same upbeat, slightly ditzy feel that serves as a great ironic counterpart for when your kitchen is on fire and your sims are either panicking or burning to death as the Grim Reaper looks on, clipboard and cell phone at the ready. Also, there's an all-new set of spoken "simlish," the expressive gibberish language that sims speak, and while there's more of it than there was in The Sims, there are only a few specific voices for each age group. The Sims 2 has all-new audio for peripheral characters and fixtures, like shopkeepers, radio stations, and TV shows; these are, like the comparable simlish in previous products, enthusiastic, believable, and occasionally quite funny. Considering that The Sims 2 offers both the original gameplay of the first game along with the new aspiration system, larger house building, and better character customization options, it contains a good-sized chunk of interesting things to do. However, you may still find yourself wishing there was even more to The Sims 2, especially if you've played through the original game and its expansions. Hopefully future updates and community contributions will fill things out. While it seems that The Sims 2's most significant additions will be most compelling and beneficial to those that were already great fans of the previous game, it's still a pretty accessible game that now offers more focused gameplay, if you want it.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

The Sims 2 Trailer :-