22 September 2004
This is an extended hands-on analysis of The Sims 2. Due to the fact that this game is so large in scope and one which consists of many factors I felt the need to review it after giving it a nice long playtest. Here I will keep a log of events as I begin to play it and will use this "log" when I finally write my review of the title.
It should be noted that the following log comes from a player who has never played any Sims game before (unless you count that old classic, Sim Copter) so the game will therefore be totally new to me. I won't be cross-referencing it with the original game or expansions.
Part One - the first few days
After learning the basics and reading up on what I needed to know to be able to even play the game I knew two things; 1) to do this I would need to make a family of my own and, 2) They would need a suitable house. This meant I needed to build one as my first priority. So, not being the natural architect I followed my instincts and created... a shambles. I decided to camp down in Strangetown, one of the three pre-made neighbourhoods you can start in. You also have the freedom to make your own neighbourhood and can even use Sims City 4 to help, but I felt no need to bother at this stage and besides, Strangetown sounded very interesting indeed with alien abductions, truth seeking trailer trash, and a large radar station.
The mess I created was not only lacking a solid foundation (literally) but it was also way too expensive for my sims posse' to move into. And by the way your eyes do not deceive you, that pic of the house does show a "floating" flat roof. At first I thought it was a halo, then realised I just sucked that badly at construction. You see I didn't know at this stage each family started with 20,000 Simoleons (the fictitious Sims currency). This meant I needed to start from scratch and with a budget in mind.
So to begin now I needed to make my family. I spent hours using the create-a-sim system to make my real life mates and myself, of course. The seven of us were going to share a house! I knew where this was going already. Me (Martin), Sean, Yogi (not the bear), Chris, Neil, Stephen, and Rachel, were going to embark on a flat share - and seven sims under one roof is one heck of a challenge! In real life we all tend to drink too many alcoholic beverages, so a drink's cabinet would be in order.
Once I had made my crew, who all looked spookily lifelike thanks to the impressive create-a-sim system, it was time to make the proper abode. This was not going to be anything more than a compound to begin. The budget of 20,000 was extreme enough for a five person family, but seven! I needed to devise a masterful plan of construction, I needed to form the perfect budget plan and end up with change to spare. So, after many hard hours of physical labour (yeah physical - mouse clicking can be hard on the index finger) what did I achieve? Well, this. I managed to construct a building site of a house and ran out of money to even get near completing my grand design.
This was when the dark side of my gaming brain kicked into play (which it often does). Why would me and my band of dastardly amigo's all move into a house in the first place? Well there was the perfect answer, we all bought a joint lottery ticket and won a stash of the good stuff. Because we all had a joint entitlement to it we all decided to buy a nice house and move in together! Right? Well it worked as a story nicely for me to laugh evilly and continue the construction project. This was one heck of an evil construction project too, forcing an entire flock of albino sheep to move from their desert ranch and it caused much protest amongst the local pro-albino sheep group. Actually that wasn't the case and there were no sheep :)
After convincing myself of my own justification for continuing I brought down the cheat console and gave myself enough money to finish my dream house and get my friends and me in. I gave myself enough money to finish it with only a small amount of money left for them once they moved in - they blew their winnings on the house, the fools, and now they had to work for a living!
The construction of the house fell into many problems early on, mostly down to my lack of knowledge regarding how to use the tools but finally I had achieved this spectacle! It was still unfinished but patience is the mother of all virtues. I decided that it was silly to keep my family waiting and moved them into the unfinished dream house at this point, after putting in beds and a good enough tv and sofa. The gang of once rich lottery winners would have to live on a construction site whilst waiting for your's truly to get the work done. It has to be said I'm half Irish - and we all know what Irish builders can be like!
My gang and I were moving into a neighbourhood I had already added many other inhabitants to above the many that already lived there. There was Buffy Summers and Willow at number 47, living with Angel and more surprisingly a dried up, raw, Spiderman who seemed to insist on sitting around watching tv all day as opposed to fighting crime. There's also Avril Lavigne sharing with The Crow and Tyler Durdon (Bradd Pitt), not to mention the evil household of Dr Evil, Go-Go Yubari, a Zombie, and Mr Fod (don't ask).
Stay tuned! Or stay away, an equally logical choice.
