User:Braindrain0000/The Sims 2

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The Sims 2
[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->|250px|The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition US box cover]]
Developer(s)	Maxis
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Designer(s)	Will Wright
Engine	Custom
Version	1.0.0.1022 / 1.0 Rev C
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac OS X, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, Sony PSP, Mobile phones
Release date	Windows: September 17, 2004 September 16, 2004 November 17, 2005 Mac OS X: June 13, 2005 (See more)
Genre(s)	Life simulation game God game
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: T (Teen) PEGI: 12+ OFLC: M (Mature)
Media	CD, DVD, mini-DVD, UMD, cartridge, download
System requirements	PC - Windows XP, 2000, ME or 98, 256MB RAM, 800 MHz CPU, 32MB T&L Graphics Card, 3GB hard drive space, speakers and Internet access recommended
Input methods	Keyboard and Mouse

The Sims 2 is a strategic life simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to one of the best-selling PC games in history, The Sims. In The Sims 2, players direct characters known as Sims through an open-ended simulation of life. They may form relationships, have children, get jobs and eventually die by one of several means. The Sims 2 has been released for both PC and Mac OS X. There are currently three expansion packs and three stuff packs, with an additional one of each announced for release by the end of 2006.

Contents 1 Game description and major features 1.1 Neighborhoods and lots 1.2 Types of Sims 1.3 Major changes from The Sims 1.4 Other game features 2 System requirements 3 Game editions and add-on releases 3.1 Core game 3.2 Expansion packs 3.3 Stuff packs 3.4 Console Releases 4 Pre-installed neighborhoods and characters 4.1 Pleasantview 4.2 Strangetown 4.3 Veronaville 5 References to popular culture 6 Bugs and glitches 7 Simming community 8 Sexual content controversy 9 Awards

[edit] Game description and major features

The sequel to The Sims, The Sims 2 builds on the concept of directing virtual characters called Sims through daily activities in a simulation of real life. The Sims 2 builds upon that by utilizing a more advanced and realistic game engine and improving the graphical presentation to a much more lifelike form.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Types of Sims

As mentioned, Sims are the characters of The Sims 2. 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 excepts an invitation to move in or be married/joined.

[edit] Major changes from The Sims

The Sims 2 introduced several new gameplay dynamics that increased the realism of the game over that of its predecessor. The most dramatic is the greatly expanded and improved aging system. Sims now progress through six stages of life from birth to death (baby, toddler, child, teen, adult, elder). In The Sims, while there are two life stages, adult and child, children do not grow up to adulthood. The Sims 2 allows Sims to experience the full range of life stages. If not created outside gameplay (as in initial Sims created for a house or "townie" and NPC Sims generated with the neighborhood), Sims may enter life either by birth or adoption. They grow up, being potty-trained and taught to walk and talk as toddlers, attending school for the first time as children, falling in love for the first time as teenagers, getting married, having children and advancing in a career as adults and enjoying retirement and grandchildren as elders, culminating in the Sim’s death when his/her time has expired.

With the new aging system came a system for inheriting genetic traits. Unlike "The Sims", where characters were created from a number of pre-drawn heads and bodies, things such as facial structure, skin tone, eye color and hair color are inheritable from one generation to the next.

Another new gameplay element is Aspiration. A Sim’s Aspiration is one of five walks of life which he/she follows: family, fortune, knowledge, popularity and romance (Sims younger than teen all have a sixth Aspiration, grow up). A Sim’s Aspiration Level is the measure of the Sim’s quality of life with regards to that Aspiration. Each Sim has certain Wants and Fears, those things which improve or detract from the quality of life. Fulfillment of a Want increases a Sim’s Aspiration Level, while realization of a Fear decreases it. The Aspiration Level is represented graphically by the Aspiration Meter. The Aspiration level determines the risk involved in performing certain tasks, such as using special Aspiration Reward objects. Aspiration desperation is a state where a Sim’s Aspiration Level is very low (red on the Aspiration Meter) and he/she begins engaging in autonomous desperation behaviors, such as a fortune Sim panhandling for simoleons, the currency of the Sims universe. When the Aspiration Meter completely bottoms out, a Sim experiences Aspiration Failure, the Sim equivalent of a nervous breakdown. They become unresponsive until an NPC called the Sim Shrink flies in and administers therapy.

Graphically, The Sims 2 introduces a new, fully 3D rendering system to the game, moving from fixed camera angles and zoom levels to a dynamic camera system with three types of cameras, the normal gameplay camera, a top-down camera for use when placing objects or structural elements in houses and a “cameraman mode” used for getting different-angled positions for screenshots, etc.

[edit] Other game features

The Sims 2 also carries on many of the gameplay elements that were already in The Sims. Particularly, the use of relationship, motive, personality and skill meters was continued. 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. Motives are measures of a Sim’s personal satisfaction. Teen, adult and elder Sims have seven motives: hunger, fun, social, comfort, hygiene, bladder, energy and environment. These motives, or needs, decay at varying rates depending on age and personality. If needs decay below certain levels, a Sim will refuse to do certain activities. Additionally, a Sim will exhibit certain time-consuming autonomous behaviors (such as smelling his/her underarm and reacting when hygiene is low). When needs bottom out, or fail, certain actions take place, such as passing out (energy), wetting oneself (bladder), being visited by an NPC known as the Social Bunny (social) or even starving to death (hunger).

In The Sims and The Sims 2, 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.

Skills measure a Sim’s ability to perform certain tasks. There are seven skills: cooking, mechanical, charisma, body, logic, creativity and cleaning. With higher skills comes an increased chance for a Sim to succeed at tasks related to those skills. For example, a Sim with a higher mechanical skill level is less likely to be electrocuted than one with a low skill level. Sims must acquire certain skill levels as a prerequisite for most job promotions.

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.

[edit] System requirements

The following requirements are for a PC with a T&L-capable video card and at least 32MB of video RAM:

• Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
• 800+ MHz processor
• 256+ MB RAM
• 3.5+ GB available hard disk space

While a T&L-capable video card is optional for the core game, all but one expansion pack and all stuff packs require such. Additionally, later expansion packs require a 1 GHz processor. All expansion packs require additional hard disk space.

[edit] Game editions and add-on releases

[edit] Core game

The Sims 2 core game has been released in three editions for PC and one for Mac OS X.

• 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. Contained core game and content from The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack.

[edit] Expansion packs

The Sims 2 expansion packs provide additional game features and items. Generally, expansion packs include 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. For the main article on each expansion pack, see link provided with title.

• The Sims 2: University – expansion pack released 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. Also added lifetime wants (select powerful wants that will put a Sim in a state of perpetual euphoria) and influence (the ability to direct others to perform certain tasks). Four careers restricted to graduates were added ( at Paranormal, Natural Scientist, Artist, Show Business).
• The Sims 2: Nightlife – expansion pack released September 13, 2005 for PC and March 27, 2006 for Mac OS X. Added attraction-based dating system and nightlife destination expansion neighborhood. Two new Aspirations (Pleasure and Grilled Cheese) were added, as was the ability to change Aspirations. Use of drivable cars was included.
• The Sims 2: Open for Business – expansion pack released March 2, 2006 for PC with projected release date September 9, 2006 for Mac OS X. Enabled Sims to operate businesses. Added shopping district expansion neighborhood. Added badges as another type of skill and instituted “perk” system for successful business owners.
• The Sims 2: Pets – expansion pack with 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 add to existing neighborhoods. Among the pets announced for this expansion pack are several varieties of dogs and cats, parrots and “womrats.”

[edit] 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 approx. 40).

• The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack – booster pack (now being called a stuff pack) released November 17, 2005. Holiday Party Pack included 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 – stuff pack released April 13, 2006 for PC. Included mostly family-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 – stuff pack with projected release date August 31, 2006. Announced to be including luxury items and fashionable clothing, among other things.

[edit] Console Releases

The Sims 2 was released for Nintendo DS, Nintendo Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox October 24, 2005 in North America. The same games were released in Europe Novvember 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." The Xbox edition was rated 4.5 out of 5 by Gamepro Magazine. 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.

[edit] Pre-installed neighborhoods and characters

The Sims 2 has three fully-developed neighborhoods available for play immediately upon installation: Pleasantview, Veronaville and Strangetown. Pleasantview is largely based on the neighborhood and characters of The Sims, after some 25 years have passed. Veronaville is a parody of Shakespeare’s plays, most notably Romeo and Juliet. Strangetown is a spoof of Area 51. While each neighborhood has a scenario and backstory with a recommended play order (laid out in the Prima Guide for The Sims 2), the player may choose to ignore it and play the houses normally.

[edit] Pleasantview

The Goth family is the wealthiest in Pleasantview. Upon opening Pleasantview, the player learns that Bella Goth has disappeared – reports have it that she was last seen climbing the side of Don Lothario’s house; Don is a new character in the neighborhood. Dina and Nina Caliente, sisters, appeared in Pleasantview shortly before Bella’s disappearance. The Calientes are said to be interested in Bella's husband, Mortimer, mainly for his money. Incidentally, Dina was previously married to the late Michael Bachelor, brother of Bella. Brandi Broke, daughter of Bob and Betty Newbie from The Sims, is a widowed mother with two children – toddler Beau and teen Dustin – with another on the way. Her husband, Skip, died in a “pool ladder accident,” a reference to a common way of killing off Sims in The Sims, whereby a Sim would be directed to enter a pool and the player would remove the ladder, leading to the Sim’s death.

Daniel and Jennifer Pleasant, children in The Sims, have each grown up and have married other Sims. Daniel married Mary-Sue Oldie and had twin daughters, Angela and Lilith, while Jennifer married Johnny (now John) Burb, who was a child from a family added in The Sims: Unleashed. They have one daughter, Lucy. Darren Dreamer has lost his wife and is raising his teen son, Dirk. His new romantic interest is Cassandra Goth, adult daughter of Mortimer and Bella. Unfortunately, Cassandra is engaged to Don, who, being a romance Sim, has four different love interests going simultaneously, including Cassandra, both Caliente sisters and his maid. In addition to Cassandra, Mortimer and Bella have one other child, Alexander.

[edit] Strangetown

Strangetown is a spoof on Area 51 and is known for strange things happening. Bella Goth, from Pleasantview, is seen in Strangetown, leading to numerous theories about how she came to be there. Many of these speculations were settled on August 3, 2006, when Electronic Arts released an "interview" between her and several "highly trained SimCity investigators" on The Sims 2's official website.

The Curious brothers — Vidcund, Pascal, and Lazlo — are knowledge sims who have a desire to explore the universe. Pascal has been impregnated as a result of an alien abduction, and gives birth very soon after play begins on the lot. Because of special scenario coding on this lot, Vidcund will be abducted the next time he stargazes with one of the telescopes on the lot.

Olive Specter is only a couple of days away from dying of old age. There are a number of tombstones on the lot, leading to angry ghosts who haunt the lot at night. When she dies, the bulk of her inheritance money will go to her only child, Nervous Subject, instead of her niece, Ophelia Nigmos, who does not have a sufficiently high lifetime relationship with Olive.

According to the storyline, Circe and Loki Beaker are career and fortune-minded individuals who are supposedly performing experiments on the other resident of their house, Nervous Subject. Nervous begins with a low aspiration meter and must work his way out of it.

The Smith lot features Pollination Technician #9, an alien who retired to Strangetown after a "fruitful" career - the playable alien characters in this neighborhood are his offspring, according to the family tree tool in the game. He took the surname Smith and married Jenny Curious, sister to the Curious brothers. Their teen son, Johnny, has an alien complexion but their child daughter, Jill, does not.

The Grunt family in Strangetown is led by General Buzz Grunt, whose son Tank wants to follow his father into the Military career track. This family also includes the teen Rip Grunt and child Buck.

[edit] Veronaville

As a neighborhood based on Shakespeare's plays, the storyline of Veronaville reflects that of Romeo and Juliet. There are two families, the Capps and the Montys, who are feuding with each other. The teen children of the main households, Juliette Capp and Romeo Monty, are involved with each other; one of the suggested actions is Juliette asking Romeo to go steady. There are a number of peripheral family members (two households each of Capp and Monty) available which bear the names of other Shakespearean characters. An additional family, the Summerdreams, is based on characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[edit] References to popular culture

A number of references to popular culture, often as parodies, are found in The Sims 2.

TV channels in The Sims 2 reflect real-life channels. Sim Broadcasting Network (SBN) is a reference to the major broadcasting networks, featuring video loops of a medical drama, a soap opera, a talk show, a reality show and a news broadcast. SimStation Dance reflects the music video channels. KidzTube is a parody of children's television channels, showing scenes similar to live-action children's programming. The Yummy Channel shows a number of parodies of typical food shows. Incidentally, many of the videos consist of gameplay from other Electronic Arts games, particularly SimCity 4 and various EA Sports titles.

Many of the name brands and object names used in the game are similar to those of actual companies and products.

• Moneywell - reference to the Honeywell electronics conglomerate
• Soma - reference to Sony. It is also a reference to the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Soma is a drug used to keep people happy, much like TV.
• SimCity 4: Rush Hour and The Sims Bustin' Out are two games available for puchase on community lots. A third, The Urbz: Sims in the City, is available for download from the official The Sims 2 website.
• In the console version of The Sims 2, The Urbz: Sims in the City is one item found by the metal detector.
• Prisoner of Azkalamp - reference to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
• Shiny Things, Inc. - possible reference to The Sharper Image.
• Rave Against the Machine - this ultra-modern light is most likely a reference to the band, Rage Against the Machine.
• Pix-Arm Drafting Lamp - reference to Pixar Animation Studios and their film, Luxo Jr., whose main characters are lamps.
• Soma Audio Geek TK421 Tower System - reference to the stormtrooper with designation TK-421 from Star Wars: A New Hope.
• Daisies of Our Lives - this flower bed is a reference to the NBC soap opera, Days of Our Lives.
• Stairway to Eleven - reference to the Led Zeppelin song, Stairway to Heaven.
• Red vs. Blue Oil Portrait - reference to the machinima series Red vs. Blue by Rooster Teeth. Incidentally, in Rooster Teeth's machinima series based on The Sims 2, Strangerhood, this painting appears several times in background shots.

[edit] Bugs and glitches

As with all software and games, The Sims 2 contains a number of bugs and glitches. Patches and subsequent expansion packs have corrected some of these issues.

• Firstborn clone bug - an issue exists where certain initial genetic and personality randomizations for Sim creation would not be truly random. A standard fix to this is to press the randomize button on the Create-a-Sim screen a number of times in order to clear out the questionable randomizations.
• Jump bug - a glitch that developed involving Sims aborting (i.e., jump out of) animations and interactions. This was fixed by a patch.
• Memory leak - a memory leak, sometimes caused by hiring NPC characters, could develop in a game session, causing abnormal use of system resources.
• Invisible coworker - coworkers who come home with sims by helicopter would sometimes be invisible. This issue was resolved by a patch.
• Constant animation effect - under certain conditions, visual effects such as water from a broken shower or a glow effect from using some objects would become "stuck," continuing to trigger despite the activity no longer being done. This has not been resolved by a patch.
• Unused objects - occasionally, objects that cease to be used do not revert to their unused state, including registering as used for the purposes of interacting with the object and deleting it.
• Floating teddy - after a number of uses, the teddy bear object will float in midair as if being used. This was fixed by a patch.
• Carpool bug - sims refuse to enter vehicles, causing loss of job and school perfomance due to poor attendance.

[edit] Simming community

The Sims 2 players (often called "simmers"), discuss the game in great detail and make use of its ability to be easily modified and expanded. A number of fansites exist for the distribution of custom content. Two such examples are ModTheSims2 and The Sims Resource.

Custom content typically takes two forms. The first involves creating items such as hair and clothes and in-game objects in order to provide variety in the game. Such new content can either be a "recolor" of an existing game item or a new item based on a custom "mesh", a file specifying the 3D structure and properties of an object. The other form involves writing code to change default game behaviors and mechanics. This is known as "modding," with the code known as a "mod," short for modification. Mods are often packaged with custom objects so that the new behavior can be selectively applied. The term mod is sometimes applied to the first category of custom content.

[edit] 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 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." In his claim, he presented what he says is an e-mail exchange with Thompson.

[edit] Awards

• E3 2004 Game Critics Award: Best Simulation Game