The Sims franchised was developped by EA Entertainment company in the 2000s and has since been evolving as a major game of the ‘true-life’ genre. Sims is an open world adventure game where the user can create a « Sims » (or character) either a male or female, give his Sims a profession among the different ones available and equally set his sims behaviors (like joyful, serious, cheerful or humorist among others). These sets of predefined choices shall be crucial in decision makings later in the game.
Sims 2 is the second game of the Sims franchise and was released in 2006 for Sony’s PlayStation 2, Portable PlayStation, PC and Microsoft’s Xbox. The game was highly appreciated by the gaming community and it offers a series of upgrade which were not available in the previous version.
In Sims 2 the player can either incarnate a woman or a man, choosing its profession and customizing its body structure (eyes, nose, lips, hair, skin color etc) and fashion.
Overview
The game starts as the user’s character (or Sims) while driving gets lost in an unknown town. The Sims’ car gets bad just as he finds an oil station with a mechanic willing to fix his car, after some few discussions the Sims is sent to a station’s shop where he meets the Shopkeeper and a woman who resembles a desperate “crackhead”. The shopkeeper “Mauna” helps in explaining the Sims the basic functionalities of the game:
Interacting with other characters in order to gain XP points, make friends and even date.
Completing task like missions assigned by other users.
Discussing with other characters to snatch secrets which can later be sold for money.
Constantly checking the mood bar to see if the sims in good conditions. The mood bar is a sort of indicator found at the top left of the screen to indicate the user whether the sims is in a good or bad mood. The mood bar adjusts positively when the user completes its task or objectives and degrades when the user fails to check on his health (bathing, eating, urinating or even entertaining).
Strange happen after meeting the shopkeeper, the oil stations disappears with the mechanic and the car and the user’s Sims has to find a way out. He picks a phone receives a call from a weird doctor who assigns him to get to the other town in order to find more about the recent events. He now has to get in touch with a policeman roaming around the station’s shop, who’s apparently the only person who can take him to the other town. Following that the Sims will have to carry out a set of task including chatting with the desperate woman (who’s even going to give him a Mansion).
The continuation of the story-line is quite interesting as the second town is full of characters with different moods, lives and stories.
The game contains 4 towns in total which are to be unlocked progressively using tact, critical thinking and lots of efforts.
Additional features
Sims 2 present a lot of features with some of them being brand new.
The games offers the ability to cook using real ingredients which can either be grown from a backyard farm or bought in groceries using the game’s currency “the Simsflouz”. Sims can buy new outfits and customize their homes buying new furniture or electronic equipment (like fridge, television sets or piano). Sims have to pay taxes and other bills but its possible to cohabitate in a house with a friend and share bills.
More skills can be unlocked by upgrading tools, critical thinking for example can be acquired by reading lots of books as well as cooking skills can be acquired by upgrading kitchen equipment.
It’s equally possible to be in a love relationship, make love and live with his/her lover. Romantic goods like rings, perfumes or love cakes can be bought in shops.
Globally Sims 2 offers a unique gaming experience especially for those who love games which combines fiction with realistic aspects of Life.
Screenshots
