The Sims 2 | 
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| From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $17.69
You Save: $12.30 (41%)
New (4) Used (27) from $17.69
Avg. Customer Rating:  898 reviews
Sales Rank: 407
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows Xp
ESRB: Teen
Media: CD-ROM
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 1.1
MPN: 14726
Model: EA9965814
UPC: 014633147261
EAN: 0014633147261
ASIN: B00009WNZA
Release Date: September 14, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Software is in good shape, however packing/case shows some wear. CD is in unused or lightly used shape.
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| Features:
| • | Sequel to the hit lifestyle simulation | | • | Manage your Sim's dreams and fears over a lifetime | | • | Mix Sim genes and see physical and personality traits inherited down through Sim generations | | • | Movie-making feature lets you control the camera and capture the action into mini movies | | • | Also available in DVD Edition |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Sims 2 is an incredible sequel to the best-selling PC game of all-time! You'll get to direct an entire Sims' lifetime, and try to get them to reach their goals in life. Will they have a long, successful and happy life - or will they end up poor and heartbroken?
Amazon.com
The Sims was one of the most popular games ever made. In it, players micromanage the lives of a family of virtual people, or Sims, and influence their paths toward success or something akin to a nervous breakdown. Its open-ended blend of cartoonish behavior and everyday living is unique in an art form otherwise obsessed with carnage and sports. With The Sims 2, long-time fans now have a deeper game with lots of ways to customize and share their experiences. The game will also attract first-timers because the goal-oriented gameplay and the luridly fun starter families make it easier to get into the action right out of the box.
Now Sims are born with the traits of their parents, families grow, and Sims grow old.
| The People in Your Neighborhood
The game starts at the neighborhood level. Here you can create a housing development from scratch or start with one of three premade neighborhoods, each with its own theme. From there, you'll settle on a house and a family of Sims to control.  | | Create your own Sim (above) or your own house (below) from scratch with advanced tools. |  | Aside from the basic needs carried over from the previous game, Sims now have aspirations, wants, and fears. The wants and fears are the day-to-day things that occupy their minds, like wanting to see friends or get married and fearing death or being rejected for a kiss. Satisfy their wants, and they become more efficient at completing tasks you assign them. Realize their fears, and Sims become lethargic, cranky, and unresponsive to your commands. Aspirations are the big-picture things, like raising a family, becoming wealthy, and gaining knowledge. Succeed here and you'll be able to buy odd gifts for your Sim to improve his or her life, like a money tree that pays dividends or a "fountain of youth" water cooler. What Else Is New?
Of course, you wouldn't be able to juggle all that if it weren't for the improved "Free Will" option, which makes it easier for Sims to fulfill their basic needs. The artificial intelligence of the game is noticeably improved; they won't turn on radios just as a family member is going to bed but, strangely, they do occasionally put their dishes on the floor. Another big change in the series is the concept of the lifespan. Now Sims are born with the traits of their parents, families grow, and Sims grow old. Not only does this go hand in hand with aspirations (growing up is the first aspiration that a baby Sim will have), it provides a limited time with which your Sims can achieve their goals.  | | The Universal Control Panel helps you manage your Sim family. | A Family Affair
The Sims 2 not only lets you create just about any type of Sim in any type of family, build elaborate houses, and even create a neighborhood from scratch, but it also allows you to start the game in medias res, with premade households. These families all have backstories that are smart spoofs of soap-opera plots--lots of scheming, romance, ghosts, and family fighting. Parents of teens shouldn't worry, though, because nudity is tastefully blurred out and "woo-hoo" between Sims takes place completely under the covers. The ESRB has given this a Teen rating. If The Sims 2 were a film, it would likely land between PG and PG-13. The makers have included some nice tools to help share the universe you've created. For example, you can capture in-game stills and video to show friends the private moments, family interactions, and house parties of your Sims. You can even package a household to share as a blog or an album on a special Web site. The Sims 2 is for patient gamers. Like life itself, the game is filled with mundane details, like getting ready for work and doing dishes. The game also demands a level of creativity from its players that the run-and-gun game genres wouldn't know what to do with. But those who stick with it will be rewarded with an absorbing, amusing diversion and a virtual family history that they've created themselves. --Porter B. Hall Set Up a Sims 2 Machinima Studio
 Amazon.com contributor Porter Hall reveals how you can make movies using the Sims as your actors. See his guide to setting up a Sims 2 Machinima Studio.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 893 more reviews...
 Say "bye-bye" to your social life! July 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ah, the Sims. Wonderful little creatures that obey our every commands, making us feel like God, only without some smart-a$$ coming along and nailing things to cathedral doors.
You're doubtless quite familiar with the Sims as a premise. Basically you create and control people. You run every aspect of their lives. You make them do their bidding, and if that means building a house full of nothing but wooden furniture and fireplaces, then by gum, you can do that!
"Sims 2" is a massive improvement over the original game. It took everything that was good about the original and basically set it to eleven, while toning down a lot that wasn't so great (you don't have to micromanage your Sims nearly as much). With this game you get a whole new set of bells and whistles, including a 3D enviroment, Sims that actually age and will eventually die of old age (provided you aren't the sort who tells them to go swimming and then deletes the ladder so they can't leave the pool. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!), new jobs, new aspirations, new gizmos, new building options, etc, etc!
It can be kind of overwhelming at first, but if you start out small the game will guide you, and you'll soon be running people's lives just like that one aunt you have who thinks she knows exactly how everyone should do things and loves to tell you, at length, about how you're messing up your life!
Addictive Game July 24, 2008
From the moment I installed this game I was hooked. Who doesn't want to control other people's lives? To be honest since this is just the base game after you get the feel of the game and how to play it will get boring. So before you buy it make sure you can afford and your computer can handle a few expansion packs and maybe even some of the stuff packs that are offered. However, it is worth the investment.
LOVE THIS GAME! June 17, 2008
I absouletely love the sims 2! Even though it is much better with the expansion packs it is so much fun to play...I'm really into life simulating and stuff like I always just played with my dolls and stuff when I was younger so this is extremely awesome! There are some downfalls but the good things over weigh them!
A GREAT game, and it NEVER ends! January 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
OK. I got this game in the middle of 2007 summer, and i have had it half a year now. I have gotton two expansions, and i am hooked. This is the #1 gamethat i play! There are only a few downs.
CONS
1 It takes forever to install (who cares, it will pay off) -1/2 star
2 It might get boaring to some for a couplem days, then you are hooked again. -1/2 star
PROS
1 You can make the sims look as freaky as you want, and no-one will say a thing! (though I do think they THINK it.. ;P )
2 You can have kids and grow them and start a family from 2 to 10000.
3 You can have 8 people in your family, and that is alot compared to the gamecube amount of sims. (whitch i USED to play)
4 There is alot of detail put into it, and it matters when you play.
5 There are tours of the game PUT INTO THE GAME! You don't have to read the manual 20 times anymore!
6 There are tons of expansions, whitch two i have.
Over all this is a REALLY good game!
If you are like me, you are reading all of the 1070 reviews, and i wish you luck!
I LOVE my Simmies people!!!! November 13, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I love this game. The idea of the game is to create a person-a man or a woman-young or old- that may or may not have a family-you decide-you choose what they look like, how clean, how active, how nice, how serious, etc.. they are. You decide what they look like and what they will wear for everyday, pjs, swimwear and formal.
You decide if they'll have a family and how many will be in the family. You decide if they will be pretty or ugly, their likes, their dislikes and their aspirations.
You go to the main screen and then you decide where they will live. What neighborhood? How big of a lot to build the house on? They all start off with the same amount of money and you have to build your house within that budget (20,000 sim bucks) or you can buy a premade house. OR you can type in a cheat to give your sims free money.
You move your simmies in and then decorate your house with furniture you have to buy from the buy menu screen. You choose sofas, rugs, decorations, toilets, kitchen cabinets, etc...You choose how many bathrooms, bedrooms and you choose the colors of the wallpaper and floors and the windows and doors and where these items will go in/on the home.
The sims have needs. They have to have food (fridge/stove, or order delivery otherwise they'll die a horrible slow death with pain and suffering-unable to sleep and function) they need to use the bathroom (toilet or they will pee on the floor and lose their dignity) they need a shower or they will have green smoke coming off them and when their needs aren't being met-they will look up at you from their Sim world and wave their arms trying to get your attention and with thier Sims dialect- which is not english and is incomprehensible-they will scream out to you (I am roughly translating what I think they're saying ) "Help me-I need a shower! I stink!!! Look at the green smoke coming off of me! Please! People person who controls my life-My GOD-PLEASE-give me a shower or a sink to bathe myself in!!!" and you may show mercy and give them something to bathe in or you can be a cruel god and let them suffer. Muahahahahaha!!!!!!!
You make them find a job on their computer or from the newspaper that's delivered in front of their house everyday. They have to pay bills that are delivered by a mailman every 3 days in their mailbox. You can have them open their own business from home (expansion pack Open for Business) or lease land and open a store. You decide what to sell and how much to sell it for.
You make them go to work-or school or you can make them play hookey and make them lose their jobs and become fat lazy bums. OH yes, and they do become fat if they don't exercise. You have to make them swim, workout, exercise on a machine or do some other activity-otherwise they get FAT. You decide what they eat and what they eat depends on how well you've taught your Simmies how to cook.
You can make them call other sims or they can greet them into their homes as visitors. But you cannot go off your lot to go visit them. Although you can take your own car or call a cab and go downtown(with the right expansion pack Nightlife) or to a store in the neighborhood and you can go shopping or eat dinner out or go for a night on the town with other simmie friends.
You meet a mate-male or female-gay or straight- you can live together, be engaged or get married. You can have kids or you can adopt-you can even buy or adopt a pet (expansion pack Pets). You then teach your kids/pets to be good or bad-to love them or neglect them (You can't kill the kids-yes, I've tried-you'll understand when you've had one that's turned into a toddler-grrrrr...the social worker takes them away before they are too badly damaged but you can make the little suckers suffer or you can show the little angels mercy and give them a good, loving home. (I don't know about killing the pets, I've never tried killing an animal.I don't care how much they pee on the floor or rip up the furniture-I cannot try to kill a dog or a cat even on my most evil days. And YES You WILL have EVIL days, my friends and your simmies will suffer for it although you don't have to save the game when you're finished and the next time you load it'll be like nothing ever happened. :)
When the brats grow up and go to high school you can send them off to college (Expansion pack University City) after a week, I think. And you can follow the kid into college you decide their major and their friends and love interests and make them do well in school or fail and then when they graduate they become adults and they move back into the regular neighborhood again.
Oh, and the simmies age and they live as a baby, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, adult, elder and then they crook. During their lives they can become zombies, vampires, aliens, plant people and there may be more. ONe of my simmies were abducted by aliens and one was biten by a vampire. It depends on what expansion pack you have. But this Sims 2 game without the expansion pack-you can be abducted by aliens and give birth to aliens. And when you die-you even get a tombstone or an urn. They can come back as ghosts but you can't control them.
THat sums up the game. It's a lot of fun. I like following the family generations. You can have a grandchild or a great grandchild. There are cheats to make them stop aging if you want, also.
Don't waste your money on the console version-the PC version is so much more superior. But you have to have the right specs on your computer so make sure to check those out before buying the game. It was worth upgrading my computer-to me. I have this and most of the expansion packs but don't waste your money on the "stuff" expansion packs because besides the meshes for items-it's really a waste of money. I was not at all happy with the Family stuff expansion pack I got. All the things were ugly and there were only a couple of dozen things-for $20? Bleh! You can download FREE stuff for your Simmies by going to reputational websites like www.thesimsresource.com and www.ModtheSims2.com. Read the how-to page and first download the necessary free software from the website. They have how-to pages. Taking the time to understand what you need and what you have to do and reading what items you have to download meshes for goes a long way and in the end it makes for a great gaming experience. Especially if you like to create great houses, interior design and totally unique people.
Anyway, if your computer has the right specs-definetly buy this game. It is so much fun and addicting. :)
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