From the neighborhood view, the player selects one lot to play, as in
The Sims. While there are both residential and community lots, Sims can only live in residential lots. Sims can travel to community lots in order to purchase things like clothing and magazines, and to interact with NPCs and townies. The player can choose between playing a pre-made inhabited lot, moving a household into an unoccupied pre-built lot, or constructing a building on an empty lot. One novelty from
The Sims is
foundations. The player switches among the Live mode (default) to control Sims, the Buy mode to add, move, or delete furniture, and the Build mode to rebuild the house and make structural changes. Although the Buy and Build modes cannot be accessed when on a community lot, the lots can be built on by using the neighborhood view. It is also possible to import neighborhood terrains from
SimCity 4. The game contains some time-bound social challenges that provide a reward if successful. Sims can throw parties to gain aspiration points or invite the headmaster over for dinner in order to enroll their children in private school. In
Nightlife, each date is a challenge to keep both Sims as happy as possible while accumulating aspiration points. Various other expansion packs introduce supernatural characters which Sims can be turned into, such as Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, PlantSims, and Witches.
Sims The main part of the game is to lead a Sim from the start of life to death. A Sim will be born when a female Sim and a male Sim try for a baby several times. The mother will spend 3 Sim days (each day lasts 24 minutes though time can be sped-up) pregnant before giving birth to a baby. During Pregnancy, the belly does not expand gradually. Instead, every day, it pops to a bigger size. Players can name the new Sim upon birth. The baby's appearance and personality will be based on the genetics of its parents (though the baby's appearance is hidden until it becomes a toddler). Babies can also be adopted by calling adoption service on the phone, even by single parents, old age sims or same-gender couples. The baby will change into a toddler in 3 days, and 4 more days for the toddler to change into a child. After 8 days, the child grows into a
teenager, and will live 15 days before changing into an adult. After 29 days, the Sim will become an
elder. An elder will eventually die; the length of this final stage depends on the aspiration bar when they become an elder. Players will need to build up talent badges, skills, and relationships with other people, so that they can be successful in their career. A player will also need to make sure a Sim is happy and well by fulfilling wants (including lifetime wants, avoiding fears, and fulfilling motives). Pregnancy, toddlers, teens, and elders are new stages of life.
Young adult is a unique age added with the
University expansion. Teen Sims will become young adults once they are moved to a university, and will be adults once they leave campus, regardless of the reason.
Create-a-Sim In
The Sims 2, Create a Family is entered by clicking the "Families" button in the lower left-hand corner of the neighborhood view, then clicking the large "Create New Family" button. Clicking the button labeled "Create A Sim" will expand a tab which has the "Create a Sim" and "Make a Child" icons. "Make a Child" will be grayed out unless the family contains an adult male and adult female. Clicking the "Create a Sim" icon will generate a random adult Sim, who may be male or female which can be edited by the player. As opposed to
The Sims, any age besides baby or young adult (which must be made in the University Create a Student tool) may be created. Instead of having to choose from already finished faces which include hair, it is now possible to alter the facial structure (e.g. widening the nose, thinning the lips, elongating the chin, and so on) and choose any hairstyle to go with it. Different eye colors and an additional skin tone is available for the Sims as well. If Sims are older than a child, their aspiration and turn-ons/offs (
Nightlife or later) may be determined. There are ten personality traits which are: sloppy, neat, shy, outgoing, lazy, active, serious, playful, grouchy, and nice but only 25 personality points which can be assigned to those traits. In
The Sims 2, all personality points must be assigned. Additionally, there are twelve pre-set personalities, one for each zodiac sign. A zodiac sign will be set which matches the personality the player has selected for the Sim. A sim also has one of eight Aspirations which is a lifetime goal that strongly influences their Wants and Fears which are: Grow Up (only for toddler and child Sims), Romance, Family, Knowledge, Popularity, Fortune, Pleasure (
Nightlife or later), and the Grilled Cheese aspiration (
Nightlife or later, and can only be set as a Sim's main aspiration if they use the ReNuYuSenso Orb machine and it malfunctions).
The Sims 2 comes with The Sims 2 Body Shop, which enables users to create custom genetics, make-up, clothes, and Sims, with the help of third-party tools, such as
Microsoft Paint,
Paint.NET,
Adobe Photoshop,
GIMP, and SimPE.
Social interactions There are several new social interactions introduced in
The Sims 2. These new social interactions can create memories and can be related to certain age groups. Social interactions can come up in the Wants and Fears panel and can be dependent on the Sim's personality and aspiration. Sims with certain personalities may not want to complete certain social interactions. •
Influence :Influencing social interactions are introduced in the
University expansion pack. A Sim is able to influence another Sim to complete a social interaction or a chore. Sims gain influence points by completing Wants and can lose influence points by completing Fears. The size of the influence bar depends on the number of friends the Sim has. It also can grow in size with business perks from the
Open for Business expansion pack. Influence was also in the Nightlife expansion but added nothing. •
Chemistry :The
Nightlife expansion pack introduced a new feature, Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs. Teenagers and older are able to choose their turn-ons and turn-offs. These and other factors such as aspiration and personality, determine the chemistry that one Sim has with another in the form of lightning bolts. Sims can have up to three lightning bolts with another Sim. The higher the chemistry is that a Sim has with another Sim, the greater the chance for social interactions to be accepted. New turn-ons and turn-offs are introduced with the
Bon Voyage expansion pack. •
Fury :Reputation, which is found in the previous Sims game
The Urbz: Sims in the City, is reintroduced in the
Apartment Life expansion pack. A Sim gains reputation by interacting with other Sims on community lots. Sims with higher reputations are more likely to gain perks such as free objects and job promotions.
Careers There are 25 careers (counting all expansion packs) that come with the game that require skills and a certain number of friends in order for promotion. Each career track has ten levels. Success in these careers unlocks career rewards and higher salaries plus bonuses. Sims also receive chance cards. Correct answers to these chance cards creates rewards for Sims while incorrect answers could cause a Sim to lose its job.
Nightlife and
Apartment Life allow Sims to gain promotions through social interactions with other Sims.
Neighborhoods The Sims 2 ships with three pre-made worlds, known as neighborhoods for the player to explore, all with a specific theme and storylines. These worlds are Pleasantview, a continuation of the playable neighborhood from
The Sims, featuring many of the same families, such as the Goths and the Pleasants – Strangetown, a small desert town themed around the supernatural, with aliens, mad scientists and haunted graveyards. The final neighborhood, Veronaville, is a European-themed town based on the works of
William Shakespeare, with its central plot being a loose, modern retelling of
Romeo and Juliet. Aside from these pre-made neighborhoods, players can create and populate towns of their own, using built-in presets, or create their own entirely using
SimCity 4, since
SimCity 4 maps are compatible with
The Sims 2. Additionally, although
SimCity 4 has powerful tools for terraforming, only the middle section of the map is usable in
The Sims 2. Expansion packs add several new neighborhoods, such as university towns, a shopping district, a downtown area and several vacation destinations.
Seasons adds a fully-fledged neighborhood, a rural small town called Riverblossom Hills,
Free Time adds a hobby-themed town named Desiderata Valley, while
Apartment Life adds Belladonna Cove, a bigger, more metropolitan area featuring apartments and high-rises.
Comparison to The Sims Graphically,
The Sims 2 is more detailed than
The Sims and lets players view its world in full 3D. This is a change from earlier Sim games, such as
SimCity 2000, which used
dimetric projection and fixed resolutions, as the camera was in
The Sims. In
The Sims, Sims are 3D meshes, but
The Sims 2 introduces far more detail in mesh quality, texture quality, and animation capability. A Sim's facial features are customizable and unique, and Sims can smile, frown, and blink. The player can adjust a Sim's features in the in-game Create-a-Sim tool; for example, noses can be made to be very large or very small. Texturing is achieved through use of
raster images, although it appears more lifelike. The
GameSpot review wrote of how
The Sims 2 is "powered by an all-new 3D graphics engine so it looks much better than the original game did."
The Sims 2 characters pass through seven life stages — babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults (only with
University), adults, and elders — with eventual death of old age, while babies in
The Sims only become children before ceasing to age further. The aspiration system is also new to
The Sims 2. Sims can become pregnant and produce babies that take on genetic characteristics of their parents, such as eye color, hair color, facial structure, and personality traits as opposed to
The Sims, in which the baby would take on random appearance and personality. Genetics play a major role in the game, and as such, dominant and recessive genes play a larger role than they did in the original game. A player can also aspire to have a Sim abducted by aliens. Males then have the chance to become impregnated and produce after three Sim days a half-alien child. Some of the other additions to gameplay are career rewards, a week cycle, the cleaning skill (which was a hidden skill in
The Sims), a variety of meals (depending on time of day), exercise clothing, body shape affected by diet and exercise, and houses built on foundations. Cutscenes were another new feature in
The Sims 2. There are cutscenes featuring first kiss, woohoo, child birth, going to college and graduating in
The Sims 2: University, and alien abductions. == Development ==