I will share more in a bit. I want to know about what others are seeing in the Sims2.
So does nobody else have it yet, or are y’all too busy playing to post stories?
I’ve got the box right here, but I’m still at work and will probably be home too late to play it anyway. I need to at least read about it.
How do you “spoil” a game like The Sims?
There’s no story to spoil, but there are lots of little surprises like animations or events that pop up that are a lot more fun if you “discover” them for yourself. For instance, in the original Sims, I had a character die in a kitchen fire. The Grim Reaper showed up at the door, and the wife had a “Plead” interaction with him. This resulted in her playing rock-paper-scissors against Death; she won, and her husband was resurrected.
And I haven’t played Sims 2 long enough to get any good stories yet.
While your sims are at work, sometimes they have dilemmas, for example a sim working in a nursing home had the choice to try to get a patient to the bathroom, or have him use a bedpan, even though he would have to clean the bed pan. Choosing the bedpan got him a promotion. Choosing the morally correct one usually garners an award, but it is not always clear what choice is the right one. If it seems too good to be true it just might be.
So, Darren and Dirk Dreamer have moved in with Runcible and Slice Quince This gave me gobs of money to expand their house, which is good because Slice is pregnant. I am thinking of naming their childen Spoon and Spork. I need to start a guard family so Spoon can marry a Guard. Soon we will try to get Dirk into a private school.
The eyedropper tool can copy almost anything, windows and objects as wells as wallpapers and floors.
I need to have Runcible purchase a thinking cap and smart milk. I have a nursery with all the children specific objects in it.
I enjoy tossing people from my website in the game and recording what they do. In the original version I had two brothers (who weren’t known on the boards as the sharpest knives in the knife drawer) move in to a house together. I bought 'em a model rocket thing-a-ma-jig and let 'em go to town on it. Somehow they managed to light the house, and then themselves on fire, and were quickly consumed by the conflagration. 
It was totally unplanned (I was planning on making a story about them striking out with every female in the neighborhood one by one), which was what made it so funny. I was snapping pics like a mad man.
The Sims 2 promises to be even more fun with the addition of the movie maker function. Just click “V” and it starts recording (note - the videos are tiny unless you change the settings, and you probably have to have a pretty quick machine to handle the highest quality). Toss the movie files you recorded into Windows Movie Maker (free with Windows XP) and you’re good to go. Here’s a simple (and rough) example I made last night.
I’m going to have a lot of fun with this game.
Anybody got the specs on hand? My SO is convinced we won’t be able to run it and I’m convinced we can. Looking online, too.
Works fine on my Athlon 1800+ with 512Meg and a Radeon 9200.
My copy came today, a day earlier than it’s supposed to be released here. So thank you Gameplay!
Anyway, anyone been able to connect to the website from in game? Y’know, with the Custom Content Browser thing? I tried and got past the login screen but then it just…stops. The rotating hourglass/arrow still moves but it hadn’t connected after ten minutes so I gave up.
There is a site at microsoft.com that will run a check and show you where your computer ranks for running various games. I don’t have the link handy here at work, but when I find it I will post it.
I repeat…
DO NOT gaze at the clouds! 
I got home and fiddled with the computer and got the game loaded and up and running in about an hour…I then entered the two “advance player” tutorials.
I finished both of those and decided I’d start playing in Pleasantville.
I spent the next 30 minutes working on a harmless sim.
I then bought the harmless sim a nice house.
I then furnished said house and saved the game.
I went into play mode and had her go out on the lawn to gaze at the clouds.
As she did this I realized that she needed a computer to find a job.
I go into buy and get the computer and place it oh-so-prettily on the desk.
As I re-enter the play mode a PIECE OF FREAKIN’ SATELLITE or sumpthin’ falls out of the sky and crushes her to death. :eek:
So our buddy Ol’ Grim shows up to take her away.
He seemed pissed off, took out his cell phone and made a call before taking her soul. 
RESTART!
Huh. Windows XP Game Advisor (what lee was talking about, I assume…). It wanted to copy a bunch of stuff to my PC, so I won’t be finding out whether or not my work computer can run Sims 2.
Perhaps that’s just as well…
Better yet, have someone else on hand to argue with Grim.
When you have a single Sim family that’s not an option.
Believe me, I tried. I was hoping he was calling to confirm her death and that there might be a chance it was some mistake.
No dice.
But speaking of Ol’ Grim, according to the guide if your sim dies and there are no other Sims in the household there’s a chance that he will watch TV, use the bathroom or make himself a drink before departing.
Now for spoilers!
Some Sims 2 Cheats according to The Sims 2 Guide!
[spoiler] Summon the cheat window by pressing ctrl + shift + c
esc will get you out of this box if you need.
General Cheats
Kaching: Adds 1,000 simoleans to household fund (harmless note: I tested it and the !;!; doesn’t work for this one.)
Help: Lists some, but not all, cheats.
Autopatch: (on/off): Toggles notification of available game patches
Moveobjects (on/off): Move unmovable objects and put them in illegal places. Causes problems, so use carefully.
Aging (on/off): Sims won’t age
Vsync (on/off): turning off increases game performance but with some graphical errors as the price.
Neighborhood Only Cheats
deleteAllCharacters: At Neighborhood view only, removes every Sim from the neighborhood. Don’t use unless you have a very good reason.
TerrainType (desert/temperate): Only in Neighborhood view. Toggles between two terrain types.
There are also 6 film cheats listed but I don’t feel like doing them just now.
If anyone wants them just say and I’ll post them.[/spoiler]
Well, I got home from work last night/this morning about 4 AM and against my better judgement, installed the game. Next thing I knew it was 7 AM and my sims were sleeping, but I wasn’t. This is going to be bad for me, I can already tell.
No real stand-out events yet, but the game is just so cool. The first thing I did was recreate my most successful couple from the original game (the two guys who I couldn’t convince to marry the Roomies because they were more preoccupied with each other). I tried building them a house, but everything I did was outside their budget, so I just dropped a starter house – one of the many pre-built ones from the tool palette; how cool is that? – and moved them in there.
I had them go from roommates to making out on the couch in under an hour. (If only real life were that easy.) Watching them go about their regular day when they’re crushing on each other is just so much more engaging in this game – they make growling noises and catcalls when they see the other one in the shower, for instance.
I was skeptical about the whole aspirations thing at first, but it turns out it’s really neat and well-presented. It really does let you focus on higher-level stuff for your Sims, because they’re a lot better at taking care of base motives like eating and going to the bathroom. One of the guys has the Romantic aspiration, and his main goal is to have “Woo-hoo” with someone. Maybe tonight!
Yes, I realize how sad and pathetic it is to be looking forward to computer game characters to get lucky. But I don’t really care. The game is just cool!
Ok, guess I’m first to ask the question everyone really wants to know:
Can you see the Sims naked??
I just played this for a while and its terribly boring. What am I supposed to do to make this fun?
You can do that in the original game, btw, if you have the nude patch and get custom nude skins.
(Or are you asking if there’s an option for this one as well? If not, I’m sure someone will come out with a patch).
I’m a fan of the increased Sim customization. Anne Appleby, my longtime standby from regular Sims, now has the kickier haircut I always imagined. Also, I was able to make her as money-grubbing as I always thought she should be via the aspirations.
Anne quickly hooked up with Benjamin Long. The name must also be a descriptor, because in pretty short order, she asked him to move in. Then they got engaged and, almost immediately, married. They must have eloped. It is hard to tell how compatible they will be in the long term, as Anne’s thoughts mostly revolve around getting new decorations for the house or a better job. Benjamin’s thoughts used to revolve mainly around Anne. He still thinks of her sometimes, but most of his plans now revolve around his son.
Yes, Anne and Benjamin have reproduced. Anne went through a pregnancy, with maternity leave, cravings, a growing belly, and worries about fainting and not making it to the bathroom. Finally, Anne gave birth to a baby boy. Sting Appleby benefitted from the three days of maternity leave his mother got after his birth, though his father seemed far more attentive.
Young Sting, now in the toddler phase, has darker skin than his mother, but shares her dark hair. He crawls around a lot, and is disturbingly fond of splashing in the toilet. Occasionally, one of his parents tries to teach him to walk, or bathes him, or gives him a bottle. Sadly, Benjamin used most of his day off to try and flirt with a lady friend of his who came over on Anne’s first day back to work as a criminal bag (wo)man. So Sting, once he woke up from his nap, did a lot of crawling around on his own.
Sting, it should be noted, is one whiney little brat. As soon as he wakes up, he starts screaming and rattling the edge of his crib to be let out. I hope he appreciates the irony when he gets older and winds up forced to care for whatever younger brothers or sisters he may have.
Speaking of which, as time goes on, I am hoping to study the effects of Sim inbreeding. So Sting had better be extra-nice to those future sisters.
I gotta say I’m not too impressed with the vaunted new AI. I made a family, left them alone for a couple of hours when I went off to do something IRL, and when I got back one was dead and the other was eating cereal.