THE SIMS 2 : Comprehensive Encyclopedia

Unlike other computer games, The Sims 2 does not have a defined objective. Players are essentially given limitless possibilities, guiding simulated characters, called Sims, through their daily lives and activities in an open-ended manner. While The Sims 2 has no set goals, there is a new level of strategy involved in balancing a Sim's life, as players now have a limited time in which to fulfill aspirations, meet needs, progress in a career, socialize and possibly have a family with the introduction of aging to the series.

Neighborhoods and lots

In The Sims 2, a neighborhood is roughly equivalent to a save slot in other games. A player can have a theoretically unlimited number of neighborhoods in their game. Neighborhoods are self-contained, meaning that Sims from one neighborhood do not interact with Sims from another. Expansion neighborhoods, introduced with expansion packs, extend the base neighborhood. While neighborhoods in their own right, expansion neighborhoods are linked to base neighborhoods. A sim from an expansion neighborhood can interact with a sim from the base neighborhood or another linked expansion neighborhood, and vice versa.

Each neighborhood contains lots. There are two types of lots: residential and commercial. Residential lots are where Sims live, while commercial lots are destinations such as shopping malls and parks that a Sim may visit. A neighborhood may contain numerous lots of either type. Expansion neighborhoods, however, are useful for reducing the number of lots in any one neighborhood, thus reducing the memory strain of loading a single neighborhood.

Sims

In many respects Sims are very similar to humans. They age, have basic needs, aspirations and dreams, exhibit personality, form relationships, hold jobs and eventually die. Sims progress through six unique life stages: baby, toddler, child, teen, adult and elder. As their lives play out, a Sim's role changes to suit its age. Babies are dependent on older Sims to fulfil their needs. Toddlers interact on basic levels and are taught fundamental skills, such as walking and talking. Children attend school and gain a new, yet still limited, sense of independence. Teen Sims are for the most part similar to adults with a few restrictions and differences. They are able to get jobs, but are only able to be promoted twice, and can begin romantic relationships. The third level of each teen career track included with the game is the same as the first level of the career track for adults. ^[1] Adults are completely self-reliant; they can marry, have children, and reach the top of their chosen career paths. Elders are given the same limitations as teens in their careers. Female elders are unable to reproduce.

Like humans, Sims are driven principally by their needs. In The Sims 2, Sims have up to eight fundamental needs, or motives, depending on their age: bladder, comfort, energy, environment, fun, hunger, hygiene and social. The importance of certain needs outweighs that of others. For example, if a Sim neglected its "Hunger" motive they could starve to death, but a Sim would only smell badly if they ignored their "Hygiene" motive. The motives combine to form a Sim's Mood. If motives are collectively low, the mood will be negative, preventing a Sim from engaging in certain activities. One of the challenges of The Sims 2 is properly balancing these motives throughout a sim's life.

The Wants and Fears of a particular Sim. Hovering the cursor over the want or fear will display specifics about that particular item

In The Sims 2, every Sim, age teen and older, has one of five Aspirations: family, fortune, knowledge, popularity and romance. These Aspirations guide a Sim throughout his/her lifetime. For the player, the most visible element of a Sim's specific aspiration is the Wants and Fears Panel. Each Sim has "Wants" and "Fears", depending on factors including aspiration, aspiration level, stage of life and present circumstances. When a Want is achieved, "aspiration points" are awarded and the Aspiration Meter is filled accordingly. Consequently, when a Fear is realized, aspiration points are penalized. There are six levels to the meter, the highest being platinum, then gold, two levels of green and two of red. Aspiration level plays a role in determining the length of time a Sim will live as an Elder before death. For example, a Sim who transitioned to the Elder life stage with a platinum level of aspiration will live a much longer life than one who transitioned with a red level. Aspiration points are used to purchase a variety of useful objects, whose beneficial effects are potentially made negative if the user's aspiration level is below gold.

Personality is a quantified way of measuring a Sims behavioral characteristics. There are five personality traits, each described by its opposing qualities: neat/sloppy, outgoing/shy, active/lazy, playful/serious and nice/grouchy. These traits determine how fast a Sim learns skills, the rate of need decay, the types of interactions in which a Sim will autonomously engage, the likelihood of accepting certain interactions, etc.

Teen and older Sims can get jobs in one of ten careers. Adult careers have ten levels each, while teen and elder careers (they are the same) only have three. The ten careers are: Athletics, Business, Criminal, Culinary, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Science and Slacker. Advancement in each career track is dependent on achieving certain skill levels (each career track requires building three specific skills) and having a certain number of family friends.

Sims form two kinds of relationships – daily and lifetime. Daily relationships are those most influenced by interactions with other Sims, or the lack thereof. It generally changes with each interaction and moves two points toward the neutral state (zero on a scale from -100 to +100) each day. Lifetime relationships are only affected by strong interactions (typically romantic) and a process known as normalization/decay, where periodically throughout the day, the lifetime relationship adjusts in proportion to the current daily relationship.

Sims can die in a number of ways. If a Sim reaches the end of the Elder life stage they will die of old age; Sims close to the deceased receive an inheritance whose worth is determined by the benefactor's relationship at death. In addition, Sims can also meet a premature end by various means. Deceased Sims leave behind markers (either a tombstone or an urn), which is typically possessed by the Sim's ghost. Ghosts who roam a given lot may scare another Sim to death if their needs are low enough.

Types of Sims

A Sim may either be playable or non-playable. Playable Sims are created in one of three ways. A playable Sim may be created using the Create-a-Family feature and placed in the game, by birth into an existing family, or by being a non-playable Sim moved into a lot. For the purposes of the game, there are two types of non-playable Sims. "Townie" Sims are those which are roughly equivalent to playable Sims, except that they do not actually live on a lot. They have jobs and other characteristics of a playable Sim. The other type of non-playable Sim is the NPC. NPCs perform a specific function, either by being a service NPC for residential lots (maid, gardener, repairperson, etc.) a worker at a community lot (e.g., a cashier), or a Sim performing a special function (social worker, repo man, Grim Reaper, social bunny, etc.). With certain exceptions, any townie or NPC may become a playable sim if he or she accepts an invitation to move in or to be married/joined.

Realism compared to The Sims

Graphically, The Sims 2 is far more accurate and true to real life than The Sims, immersing the player in a fully 3D world. Unlike early Sim games, such as SimCity 2000, which have used dimetric projection and fixed resolutions, the camera system in The Sims 2 allows the player to view things from a myriad of angles.

Sims themselves are also much more intricately detailed than they were in The Sims. Unlike the Sims from its predecessor, which were innately raster images over fixed shapes, The Sims 2 features Sims as 3D models created from meshes, demonstrating a more realistic presentation. A Sim's face is perhaps its most customizable aspect; the player is given a multitude of options, allowing for diversity. Texturing is still achieved through use of raster images, though it appears more lifelike. Movements are more smooth, natural and true to humans.

There is also an increased realism in gameplay. Sims experience a vartiety of things unavailable in The Sims, such as aging and eventual death. Sims become pregnant for a time before giving birth, where in The Sims a baby instantly appeared after two Sims kissed repeatedly. Sims act as unique individuals, choosing to act and behave in response to their given Aspiration and personality. Additionally, babies in The Sims 2 will progress through the age stages to become adults while babies in The Sims only became children, where they stopped growing.

Simultaneously, The Sims 2 incorporates a number of supernatural and fantasy elements into gameplay. Alien abductions take place very rarely, impregnating the male Sim. When a Sim's Social motive fails, the "Social Bunny" comes to keep them company. When a Sim falls into aspiration failure, a therapist called the "Sim Shrink" will appear and assist the Sim. Both characters are figments of the Sim's imagination. Upon selecting another Sim, the Social Bunny or therapist will disappear.

Game editions and add-on releases

For the PC, there have been three released editions of the core game, three released expansion packs and two released stuff packs. Many of these have been ported to Mac OS X by Aspyr. The Sims 2 has been released for a number of game consoles, with a planned release of The Sims 2: Pets for game console in conjunction with the PC release of that expansion pack.

Core game

The Sims 2 – released September 17, 2004 (US release date) on four CD-ROMs. Released for Mac OS X June 12, 2005.
The Sims 2: Special DVD Edition – released September 17, 2004 on two DVD-ROMs. The first DVD contains the core game; the second contains bonus content viewable on DVD players.
The Sims 2: Holiday Edition – released November 17, 2005. This edition contained core game and content from The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack. Sold in Europe as The Sims 2: Christmas Edition.

Expansion packs

The Sims 2 expansion packs provide additional game features and items. Generally, expansion packs add one central gameplay element, several peripheral elements, a new type of “expansion neighborhood” (neighborhoods linked to a base neighborhood; multiple expansion neighborhoods of the same type may be linked to a single base neighborhood), and approximately 125 new objects. There have been three expansion packs released, with a fourth currently in development. Maxis has plans for seven expansion packs. [5] For the main article on each expansion pack, see link provided with title.

The Sims 2: University – March 2, 2005 for PC and December 12, 2005 for Mac OS X. Adds major gameplay element of being able to send teen Sims to college (adding additional optional “Young Adult” stage) and university expansion neighborhood. University also adds lifetime wants (powerful wants that will put a Sim in a state of perpetual euphoria known as permanent platinum aspiration or simply "permaplat") and influence (the ability to direct others to perform certain tasks). Four careers restricted to graduates are added (Paranormal, Natural Scientist, Artist, Show Business).
The Sims 2: Nightlife – released September 13, 2005 for PC and March 27, 2006 for Mac OS X. Nightlife adds an attraction-based dating system and a nightlife destination expansion neighborhood. Two new Aspirations (Pleasure and Grilled Cheese) are added, as is the ability to change Aspirations through an Aspiration Reward object. Use of drivable cars is included as well.
The Sims 2: Open for Business – released March 2, 2006 for PC with projected release date September 9, 2006 for Mac OS X. Open for Business enables Sims to operate businesses. Also added are the shopping district expansion neighborhood, badges as another type of skill and a "perk" system for successful business owners.
The Sims 2: Pets – projected release date October 17, 2006 for PC. Will focus almost exclusively on adding pet capabilities to game. EA has announced that this expansion pack will not have an associated neighborhood, but will instead include lots to place in existing neighborhoods. Among the pets announced for this expansion pack are dogs, cats, parrots and “womrats.”

Stuff packs

Stuff packs are add-ons to the game that only add new objects. Stuff packs were originally called booster packs, as seen in the release of The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack. Current releases are called stuff packs and include certain gameplay elements introduced in previous expansion packs (as opposed to Holiday Party Pack, which only added a package file containing object data). Stuff packs typically add around 60 new items (Holiday Party Pack added approximately 40).

The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack – booster pack (now being called a stuff pack) released November 17, 2005. Holiday Party Pack includes a number of items related to various holidays, mostly Christmas. The pack was sold as The Sims 2: Christmas Party Pack in Europe. It was combined with the core game in The Sims 2: Holiday Edition and The Sims 2: Christmas Edition as a limited-edition release at the same time. The official The Sims 2 website offered free downloads of some of the items included in Holiday Party Pack.
The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff – released April 13, 2006 for PC. Includes mostly themed sets of objects and decorations, most notably medieval-themed children’s objects and tropical objects and clothing. Known in the Sims community for having a few major bugs upon release, necessitating the release of an emergency patch by EA within a couple of weeks.
The Sims 2: Glamour Life Stuff – projected release date August 31, 2006. Announced to be including luxury items and fashionable clothing, among other things.

Console releases

The Sims 2 was released for Nintendo DS, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox October 24, 2005 in North America. The same games were released in Europe November 4. The game was released for Sony PlayStation Portable in December 2005, with European release January 13, 2006. The game is also available via cell phone, with availability depending on carrier. GameSpot rated all console versions at 6.5 (on a 10-point scale), saying that "The Sims 2 loses something in translation from PC to consoles. Namely, its addictive, entertaining gameplay."[6] The Xbox edition was rated 4.5 out of 5 by Gamepro Magazine[7]. The console games have a number of different mechanics than the PC/Mac editions. The console games feature two modes of control; direct mode allows the player to act directly as the Sim, while classic mode uses the game controls to select objects to use.

Bugs

Players have reported a number of bugs and glitches in The Sims 2 and its related expansion and stuff packs. These bugs are typically corrected in subsequent patches and/or expansion packs, but some remain unaddressed officially. The following is a list of such unaddressed bugs:

Firstborn Clone: Under certain conditions, Sim randomizations related to genetics and personality are not really random, particularly when first starting the game. This can cause the same combinations of genetics and personality to appear. This can be addressed by using the Randomize tool in the Create-a-Sim screen.
Memory Leak: Memory leak, sometimes caused by hiring non-player characters, causing abnormal use of system resources.
Constant animation effect on characters: When a character performs a task that includes graphical effects, such as fixing the shower or having a drink of the Elixir of Life, and does something very quickly afterwards, like sleep or shower, they are sometimes stuck with the effects, like water spraying from the body like the broken shower or the glowing effect from the Elixir. This can be fixed by redoing the task or deleting the sim and re-entering the lot.
Vanishing Family Members: Hardly anything is known about this glitch except that it occurs when a family member goes to work or school for the first time, they don't come back and vanish off the portraits of the family members on the left of the screen; there is no memory of the disappearance in any of the other family members.
Unused objects designated as in use: Engine bug which makes unused objects appear as in-use, like doors that don't close. Caused by proximity to other usable objects.
Carpool bug: All Sims living on a lot refuse to enter cars, taxis, buses, etc, causing them to fail at their job or at school. Can be fixed by moving the family to another lot.
Stove Bug: If a child has a play stove and leaves a muffin in it, the stove can't be deleted until a child takes it out. If the child grows older no one in the household can empty the stove, leaving the stove unremoveable unless a new child comes on the lot or a cheat (moveobjects) is used.
Xbox bug: If the game is saved while a Sim is at work and then closed, upon re-opening the game, the camera will be stuck in the street until the Sim comes home.
Kidnapping Bug: If a sim is asked to leave while holding an infant, they leave as they normally would, except with the baby. This can be fixed by saving, exiting and re-entering the lot. The baby will be lying next to the mailbox.
Leave World Bug: Sometimes, near either end of the sidewalk, a space will appear. Upon clicking that space, the "Leave World" option comes up. After selecting it, the sim will simply walk off the lot. Their portrait disappears, and there is no memory of their disappearance. The only way to restore the sim is to exit the lot without saving.

User modifications ("mods")

The Sims 2 enjoys a large fanbase of users who enjoy modifying both game content and behavior. Such fans are often called modders.

Modders have developed websites to share and distribute modifications to the "base" or unmodified game. Using programs such as SimPE, users are able to examine and edit game objects. Such edits can be as simple as a "recolor" (where a user provides an alternative color or texture to an already-existing game object) to the creation of completely new items, "meshing", for use in the game. These kinds of mods are refered to as "custom content".

Other modders work to directly modify the game's original code. These individuals write their own code to override a number of default game behaviors, such as modifying game variables, expanding and contracting the scope of an interaction or even adding new game behaviors. Many mods are developed to remove undesirable behaviors or provide glitch solutions in lieu of an official patch. Mods of any kind can significantly change game play techniques and strategies, and can fundamentally change the "flavor" of gameplay.

Often, advanced modders who are experienced with directly modifying the game code create modding tools to assist those who do not have such experience. One such tool is SimPE, which allows players to read the contents of various game-related files in a more user-friendly way.

Sexual content controversy

On July 22, 2005, Florida attorney Jack Thompson alleged that Electronic Arts and The Sims 2 promoted nudity through use of a mod. He called this "worse than Hot Coffee," a reference to a similar mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The claim was made that pubic hair, labia and other gential details were visible once the "blur" (the pixelation that occurs when a sim is using the toilet or is naked in the game) was removed. Electronic Arts issued a statement saying that when the blur was removed, Sims lack such anatomical definition (they have been compared to Barbie dolls in this respect). While custom content does exist to produce these anatomical structures, the creators of this content have made efforts to place it on "adult-only" websites or in adult-only sections of websites.

Thompson later retracted his statements concerning the specific anatomical structures, but made an incorrect assertion that Electronic Arts should lose its copyright for failure to prevent such changes to the game. Electronic Arts executive Jeff Brown said in an interview with GameSpot:

This is nonsense. We've reviewed 100 percent of the content. There is no content inappropriate for a teen audience. Players never see a nude sim. If someone with an extreme amount of expertise and time were to remove the pixels, they would see that the sims have no genitals. They appear like Ken and Barbie.

Albert Mackenzie from the website www.illspirit.com claims he baited Thompson into attacks on The Sims 2 as "the Hot Coffee fiasco began to reach dizzying heights of silliness." On the website[8], he presented what he says is an e-mail exchange with Thompson.

See also: Jack Thompson (attorney)

Cultural references

Maxis has included several cultural references in The Sims 2. Names of objects, people, and descriptions are drawn from places like literature, movies, music, other Maxis games, and religious imagery.

See also List of Cultural References in The Sims 2 for further information on these references.

Awards

E3 2004 Game Critics Awards: Best Simulation Game
Nominated for 2005 BAFTA Award for Best PC Game
Nominated for 2005 International Press Academy Satellite Award for Best Puzzle/Strategy Game

Notes

^ Kramer, Greg (2004). The Sims 2: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides). Roseville, CA: Prima Games. ISBN 0761542922, 146-149.

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Contents

Gameplay