The Sims 2:

The Sims 2 is the sequel to Electronic Art’s highly successful strategic life simulation game The Sims and was released for Windows last December 14, 2004. It then es<>tablished the then sales record of 1 million copies sold in ten days.

As with its predecessor, the game revolves around the player guiding the Sim in their day-to-day activities, fulfilling wants and needs, attending work, etc. The Sim likewise grows old and may have a lifespan o up to 85 days, which may be further extended by the player. Unlike the earlier version of the game, however, a Sim has wants and fears, life goals, and if not attended to, affects the Sim in either a positive or negative manner.

As the game intends to simulate life experiences, the Sim, much like persons, have work, attend school, may get married, bear and raise children, pursue their predetermined interests, skill building, relationships with other Sims, and the like. Sims may also experience supernatural phenomena such as alien abductions, near death experiences with the Grim Reaper, and ghostly encounters.

Sims are also given their own respective personalities which the player may tweak so that they may react differently in a given situation. A Sims’ personality also influences to a certain extent how fast they can learn a skill.

The game also comes included with several other Sims with whom the player’s Sim can interact with, as with its predecessor. This also spares the player of the pains of having to make multiple Sims just to have someone to interact with the player’s Sim. The non-player Sims may come in the form of townies who are the neighbors populating the neighborhood, service sims such as the mailman and the pizza delivery guy, and special sims which cannot be controlled such as the Grim reaper, therapists, and social bunny.

The strength of Sims 2 lies in its customizable content. There are several sites which allows players to download custom content to tweak their Sims and even allows additions to the items usable in the game. The game is also constantly updated and modified through subsequent releases of expansion packs.