Excessive

It's difficult to decide where to start when writing about The Sims 2... I could write about what I've thought of the earlier installements of the Sim series, how people view the games, how this game is... I just don't know, so I guess I'll just jump right in.

I think it's safe to say that from the outside perspective, The Sims appears to be nothing but a new age Barbie and Barbie's Dreamhouse, and I can easily say that that's how I've viewed it over the last few years; simply a way for little girls to dress up their Barbies and play with them in a doll house, and I think that's a fair assumption because on the surface, that's what it could easily be... but that is, only if you never actually play the game the way it was meant to be played. At it's core, The Sims 2 is an RPG grindfest of the greatest proportions, and I'm talking a huuuuge grind. Yes, there are parts of the game, namely the creation of your character, that involves dressing and styling your Sim, but that's present in any western RPG (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fable), and really has nothing to do with the game, it's simply there for your amusement, and you can spend as little or as much time fooling around with clothing as you want, it's basically just so you can identify your character easily.

What the game comes down to is gaining levels, and unlike most RPG's where you've simply got your character level and maybe sometimes a weapon level (like Dragon Quest VIII), The Sims 2 has so many different 'levels' to gain, that it becomes this obsessive experience where you just want to get one more level, and you just never stop playing. You gain experience and eventually level up in the basic skills of life (cooking, cleaning, mechanical, charisma, logic, body and creativity) as well as leveling up your career level based on the levels of your life skills, as well as the number of friends you've made. Making friends is another grind, as you become friends with someone by gaining relationship points, which you earn by spending time talking, joking or playing with them in various ways, all which take time. So those are all things you are trying to constantly level up while you play, and you gain experience in each stat by doing various things (cooking food gains cooking experience, playing chess gains logic experience, or you can read books and tons of other things) and so the feeling of 'wanting just one more level' is always present and I end up playing for three hours longer than I had wanted to simply because I had just kept gaining experience and never was able to turn it off. That is the core of the game... like any RPG, the core of the game is the desire to reach the highest level and be a glorious example of an amazing gamer.

So where is the challenge you ask? Well you certainly don't just stand around grinding experience from cooking all day, that would just be boring and not addictive. The fun comes from balancing your mood, while still trying to gain as much experience as possible. Your character's mood is determined by their Social, Bladder, Hygiene, Hunger, Fun, Energy, Comfort and Room stats, which go up and down based on your actions, and if they get too low, than your mood becomes bad and if you're in a bad mood, you can't gain experience in your skills, can't get promoted at work (a level up in career basically) and can have other severe effects as well. That is where the challenge comes in: keeping your mood up, but still having time to gain experience in your skills. It's such a basic concept, but it's done so well and it's so addictive that I can't help but play and play. You keep your stats up by obvious things usually... like keeping your hunger up by eating food, playing games to keep your fun up, going to sleep when energy is low, and the other obvious things. The thing is, you need money to pay for the food you eat, to buy games to keep them amused, for the books you read to gain experience, to buy beds, and toilets, and all that stuff, and you get money from going to your job (and get more money by getting promoted, by getting higher skill levels, by being in a good mood... and well, you can see how it's a vicious, addictive, cycle of unimaginably fun grinding).

Alright, so that's the basics of the gameplay, and I believe it's easy to see how one would get sucked into the game. How it gets difficult however, is that you end up having to control and manage more than one sim, in fact, so far it seems about one more sim for each level. So the first level you control the character you created, the second level you control two, the third you control three, and so on, and there are sixteen levels, so making sure all those characters are gaining experience, eating, being in a good mood and going to work at the right time can get very overwhelming at times, so much so that it can take hours to get into the right routine, but once you get that routine down, that's when you get into this crazy trance of nothing but glorious money making and success. I've put tons and tons of hours into this game already, and I'm only on the sixth level, and there are sixteen locations to visit and complete, with tons and tons of characters to complete, so the size of the game is just mind blowing.

You generally take direct control over one character at a time, and directly influence where they go and what they do, and that's the easiest way to succeed with them, as you tell them to eat, poop, read that book, play that game, so their success is directly attached to your actions. Like I mentioned before, there are multiple characters that you have to manage and make sure they do well, so when you have one character under your control, the AI takes over controller all the other characters, and they act based on their personality and skills, and can generally take care of themselves, but sometimes do pretty retarded things (usually realistic... like stay up until their dead tired, or not really eat enough, etc).

There are quite few annoyances that I've run into while playing the game however, and as fun and addictive as the game is, it's hard to believe some of these problems made it through to the final console version. I'll just run through a few of the things that get on my nerves (but overall don't effect the game play that much). First of all, the AI can be retarded at times... like, not realistic at all, especially when you switch to them (directly control them) when the AI was in the middle of doing something. For example, let's say I was controlling my personal character, and I decided I wanted to switch to Bob Smith and get him to gain some skill levels, if I switched to him while he was in the middle of preparing a meal, the AI would just stop what it was doing, and put the food on the ground, and then walk away, instead of just continuing the actions it was doing. Why!? Chances are they needed to eat, so why would the AI think putting it on the ground would be a good idea? I view this as a bug in the game, as I can't see the designers thinking.. "hmmm, well let's say a Sim is starving and making supper, but then the player switches to them... oh I know, let's make it stop what it was doing and place the food onto the floor!" Another bug (has to be a bug) that I've run into frequently (and is probably the most annoying) is that if it comes time for a Sim to go to work, and the carpool comes to pick them up, and they are being controlled by the AI, they'll change their clothes, and start to walk towards the car (as normal, what they should do), if you switch to control that Sim, they'll stop dead in their tracks, take a good 20 minutes (sim time) change out of their clothes, and then stand there, so you have to take 20 more minutes (sim time) to change back and get in the car, and you only get an hour and fifteen minutes (sim time) to get into the car). It's so annoying having to just sit there and wait for them to change when they should've just kept walking. Thirdly, another bug I've noticed is when you instruct your character to 'socialize' with another sim (to build relationship points with them and become friends) they'll walk around until they get into a very specific position to them before talking, and sometimes they'll never find that position and just aimlessly walk around in circles for minutes and then just stop and you have to do it again.

As far as bugs go, I think those are the only obvious ones. There are still a few issues that I think they could've done better however. The ability to name your saved games would be freakin nice for one... There are 8 save slots (even on my Xbox hard-drive.. wtf?) and when you save, the slot is simply called Sim 1, Sim 2, etc, and no more information is given at all. It could be story mode, it could be free play, it could be Michelle's character, it could be an older save game... you're just supposed to guess. Being able to name it after the character you're playing, as well as showing you which location you were at, your points, the time you've played... those things make sense in my head. Also, the game gives you some goals to achieve while playing (called 'wants') which when you do them, give you Aspiration points. Getting aspiration points unlock new things to buy for your home, but after 27,000 points, everything is unlocked, and therefore have no reason at all to ever do any of your characters 'wants' (except the gold ones which continue the story). Sure, it's a measure of your 'points' like an arcade game, but it sort of eliminating the entire reason of having wants is kinda stupid, and they could've just put tons of other things to unlock and it would've fixed that whole thing. Lastly, the inclusion of a play time counter, to show how many hours of your life you've spent playing the game would've been super cool, as I love that in Disgaea and the FInal Fantasies... it's like a meter of how awesome at the game you are, but at the same time sort of like something you can measure the amount of shame you should feel. I dunno.. I would've enjoyed it.

So, to sum up, the game is not a doll house, it's a freakin crazy addictive grind fest like Diablo 2 or any MMO, and that while in the first level or two is quite easy, it can get overwhelmingly difficult as the levels progress and you need to control and succeed with many different characters all at the same time. The game is a lot, a lot harder than you'd think.

It's one of the greatest games yet, and I'm amazed at how addicting, and instantly rewarding it is, and it's refreshingly difficult, but not frustrating. I don't care who you are, if you've ever enjoyed the stat building in an RPG, you must play this game at least for a day. Dooooo it.

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