Sims 2 Dopers, what should be my next expansion pack?

Cafe Society
1

I’m starting to get a little bored with Nightlife, so i figure it’s time to spice the game back up with another Expansion Pack…

I’m currently running it on a slightly outdated machine, which limits my options (PowerMac G4 Mirror Doors, dual 1.25GHz PPC, 1.5 GB RAM, nVidia GF4-TI 128MB Vidram, 2 internal 160 GB ATA drives, two SuperDrive DVD-RW burners)

I’m basically limited to either University, or Open for Business (OFB), Pets and Seasons require more horsepower than this machine is capable of

I could care less about the University carreer track, however, Uni has a few objects i’d like to get, specifically Zombies, the Cowplant, the Ressurect-O-Nomitron, and that plastic surgery thingy (so i can give my Alien Sims actual noses, that way it won’t look like Strangetown is populated by a bunch of freakish, green-skinned, Michael Jackson lookalikes (freakish Michael Jackson, is that redundant? :wink: )

the other advantage is that all my hacks and mods will still work, as Uni predated Nightlife

I would also be able to run The Zombie Apocalypse mod…

then there’s Open For Business…

OTOH, i’m not a fan of micromanagement (my Sims all have free-will enabled), which the businesses in OFB will most likely need, but there are some objects in OFB that i’d like to get, mainly the Robot factory, make some Vampire-Run and staffed businesses (We’ll Embrace any sim for $49.95!!)

however, the ability to use your Talents to run a business is interesting…

2

OFB will let your Sims build robot sex slaves, eventually.

3

Well, i went with Uni, because on balance, it added more “stuff” to the game…

the “Hang Out” talk interaction allows your Sims to talk with a group of Sims, just lounging on the ground
“Pillow Fight” and Kicky Bag" Play interactions

It added the Zombie character (you call up Grimmy on the “Ressurect-O-Nomitron” hotline and be cheap when paying him to ressurect a Sim) more on Zombies later…

it added more objects as well…
Bass guitar, guitar, and drum set
Facelift machine for the truly ugly Sims
Cowplant (Think Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors), it eats any Sims foolish enough to fall for it’s “Cake” lure, turning their essence into an Elixir of Life, extending your Sim’s lifespan
Bubble Blower, okay, lets be honest, it’s a device that allows the Sims to “blow bubbles”, during which they giggle, laugh, and float, getting rather…high…for lack of a better term, i think we all know what the "Bubble Blower really is, don’t we? :wink:

the College track isn’t as tedious as i thought it’d be, it’s not really all that bad, “My” Sim in the Strangetown college has already been inducted into the Secret Society, and has fallen madly in love with that Alien student, Stella Terranot…
oh, yeah, the Zombies, normally they’re pretty darned boring, they just sit there and moan and shamble about, so i installed the “Zombie Apocalypse” hack linked to in my OP, and Zombies have become far more dangerous…

I created a new town, “Zombieville”, and dropped in a bunch of my backed-up houses and families i was bored with, i converted one of my Sims into a Zombie, and invited over some visitors…

She went right for the first visitor, “Eat Brain” stacked in her actions queue, the “Fight” animation played as she attacked the first Sim, to get at his spicy braaaaiiiinnnns!!, the attack succeded, the visitor turned into a Zombie, and proceeded to attack the next visitor, as my controllable Zombie went for another visitor…

on a whim, i sent her and her hordes Downtown to a Nightlife lot (the park), it was hillarious, whenever a Sim walked onto the lot, all the Zombies began lurching towards them, with the sole purpose of munching on their braaiiiinnnnss, occasionally one of the Undead horde would get a short burst of speed, but generally, they all shambled towards the closest unzombified Sim…

overall, Uni’s better than i thought, Nightlife is still better though, and at some point, i’ll pick up OFB, it’d be interesting to staff a store exclusively with Vampires and Zombies…

can Zombie employees resist the urge to “snack” on the job, will Vampires be able to “influence” customers to buy with their hypnotic powers, can Vampires and Zombies even get along…

4

IS “Zombie Apocalypse” something that can be turned off?

It sounds like fun.

I have all the expansion packs so far. Pets… Is only good if you are interested in having your furniture destoryed by your “furbabies”. Actually I created a crazy catlady house but tiy are only limited to 6 cats… Still I imagine the place stank with all the mess around.

I haven’t really used OFB much yet so I can’t really judge it.

I Love Night life and University because they do free up the game a little (New age for the Sims to be, interesting interactions, Nightlife.)

Seasons… hmmm so far I’ve had rain… and leaves… Sally Nerdling had fun playing with the leaves at Sim U but had more fun Streaking around the campus. (That shrinking violet became unencouragable when she went out on her own)
I hope for Snow soon. The gardening is interesting and would mesh well with OFB. Grow it sell it.

All depends on what you are looking for.

5

well, it’s a .Package file, so when you want to turn it off, just pull it out of your Downloads folder and reload the game

with ZA in place, zombies become extremely dangerous, every time they eat a brain, they gain a body point, making them stronger fighters, brain-eating also refreshes all their wants except hygiene and environment, so they need no sleep…

6

reload… as in restart or reload as in get out all my disks and reload?

7

No, just restart.

8

I’d vote for University. U was the pack I was least interested in, and I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Conversely, OFB was the pack I most anticipated, and I found it disappointing. I have all the packs. If I had to reload all but one, OFB is the one I’d leave out.

Seasons is great :slight_smile:

9

The latest “Torture Family”, University edition…

It’s been a while since I created a “torture-family” in the Sims, a family that I try to make their lives as miserable as possible…

it was time for another torture family, so I created the following two Sims;

Bill Gate$ (my personal enemy); a skeletal-faced evil little troll with beady eyes, and the Sim of him is not too flattering either… I made sure he was smacked hard in the face with an ugly-stick, gave him a bad combover and a really tacky looking leisure suit

Fred Phelps, SDMB’s favorite punching bag (and he deserves it, for sure); this Sim’s a bloated faced severely ugly, balding man, just to add insult to injury, I put as much tacky, gaudy makeup on him as I could, he looks like an old, overweight drag queen, I put him in a kilt outfit as it was the closest approximation of a “dress” that I could find for male Sims

i let them loose in a cheapo single-level house with all the natty, cheap furnishings and only a double-bed to sleep on…

surprisingly, Phelps made all the moves on Gate$, and they became a happy, gay couple (hear that, Fred, you are what you hate now <evil grin>), in fact, they hit it off so well that I had to mess with them further…

using the InSimenator cheat object, I switched the “Gender Behavior” of Phelps to Female (the only reason I did this was to allow the possibility of pregnancy, the only things that the GB switch does is change the voice-pack (female) and allows the possibility of pregnancy) and sent them to bed, commanding them to WooHoo…

Phelps got preggers on the first try, so I switched his GB back to Male

watching Phelps constantly running to the toilet with morning sickness was vaguely disturbing, and oddly hilarious, but he seemed to adjust well to being pregnant, I couldn’t have that…

…so I called up “Death by Satellite”, Phelps got “Smited”, and Grimmy showed up to collect his ?soul? (does he even have one?), Gates begged for his life, and Grimmy agreed to resurrect phelps, for a cost… since Gate$ is a cheap bastard, he shortchanged Grimmy, and in retaliation, Grimmy raised up Phelps…as a Zombie…

now, since I have the Zombie Apocalypse hack in place, the first thing Phelps did was try to eat Gate$'s Braaaiiiinnnns!, they got into a fight, and Phelps lost…

for the next few nights, Phelps would shamble around the house, moaning in pain, his levels all in the red, occasionally shambling off to the toilet with another bout of morning sickness… yes, at this point, Phelps is a gay, pregnant zombie! he enters the second trimester and third all in the red, for some strange reason, while he’s pregnant, he seems to have no desire to eat brraaaiiinnnss…

he finally eventually delivers, Twins, no less, extremely UGLY twins, and as soon as he has delivered twin #2 , he shambles over to Gate$ again, intent on eating his braaaiiiinnnnsss!, they start fighting, and after an extremely short fight, Phelps successfully eats Gate$'s brrraaaaiiinnn…

so now, we have a pair of extremely ugly gay zombies raising their hideous demon-spawn kids, I fear for how messed up their kids could be, being raised by two Undead-American sims… sadly, their last fight, and the resultant zombification of Gate$ seems to have put both of them in a very bad mood, their honeymoon is over, and they’re really staring to hate each other now…

no insanity effects yet, but give it time, one of them should go insane at some point

10

Zombie Sims (with the Z.A. patch in place) are actually rather fun, in my Zombie-specific neighborhood, Gate$ and Phelps have been chowing down on quite a few brains, and the population of Zacks is increasing

it’s an absolute riot to watch one Sim Zombify another, then both of those Z’s head towards a Sim, that sim turns into a Z, now there are three, each Z targetting it’s own S, and so on and so forth

somehow, Z’s don’t munch on brains when their pregnant, nor do they attack pregnant Sims (so there are some morals that survive zombification…)

so, i had to perform an experiment, i created another experimental family, the “Gnops**” family, had them have kids, and artificially age-accelerated the kids to the Adult phase, i then did the same thing with the Gate$-Phelps’s, forced a Gates-Phelps to fall in love with a Gnops and have a baby, age accelerated him to Young Adult, and let him get zombified

“Brad” is an extremely ugly Sim, large, prominent nose and chin inherited from Daddy, tiny, close-set eyes and tiny, compressed mouth inhereted from Mom, with the exception of his massive nose, his entire face is compressed and tiny in the center of his head

he’s also a very, very hungry Zack, highly agressive, and extremely lethal (10 Body points essentially guarantee him victory, all earned through brain-eating, no cheats here), however, he also has an amorous side, he’s taken a liking to this pretty redheaded Asian sim, Karen GilsCarbo, and has been putting the moves on her…

for some strange reason, Karen is responding favorably to him, however, any time they perform any Romantic action (flirting, hugging, kissing), she gets this “disgusted” look on her face, like she smells something repulsive, it’s clear she knows her boyfreind is Undead, but for some strange reason, she is still attracted to him, even though he’s a disgusting walking corpse…

Hmm, wonder how she would react if she was a Vampire…

It’s all these little details in the game that still keep impressing me, every time i think i’ve seen it all, i notice a new detail
**the term “Gnops” refers to a photo-edited image where a person’s facial features are proportionately shrunk down, the eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth are all shrunken in size and sqished much closer together, it’s done mainly for comic effect, it is a counterpart to the “Spong” photo-editing, where the subject is given big, googly eyes (and occasionally, funny teeth), basically the reverse of a Spong