The Sims 2

The Sims 2 is the second game in the life simulation video game series of the same name, developed by EA Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in 2004. Fans consider it the best in the series.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Same Sims gameplay as the last game.
 * 2) Sims now can age in six life stages. From babies, toddlers, children, teens, adults, and elders... followed by dying of old age. This is the first title in the series to feature a full life for Sims.
 * 3) * In addition, Sims can now become pregnant and give birth to new babies properly.
 * 4) Sims now have sanity. Fulfill wants to raise it, and realize fears to take it down. Keep it high, and the Sim becomes very happy. Let it drop low enough, and the Sim gets distressed and eventually gets visited by an imagined therapist.
 * 5) There are more unique neighborhoods to go to, and you can also create your own and modify existing ones by adding new decorations and place down plots on roads. Also, SimCity 4 cities can be used as the base for the neighborhood terrain.
 * 6) The Sims are a bit smarter compared to in the first game.
 * 7) The PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube versions have some differences to the original PC version, like a story mode which all other console Sims titles had, as well as being able to control your Sims directly.
 * 8) The music is less annoying, compared to that in the previous game.
 * 9) The first PC The Sims game to be fully in 3D.
 * 10) Lots of expansion packs were released to add new features such as pets, seasons, apartments, university, and more.
 * 11) The PC version has tons of awesome cheats to mess around with.
 * 12) Tons of cool mods for the PC version, which add not only new cosmetic items such as skins, clothes, and building objects, but new features as well.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The handheld ports for the Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance are bad and are not the same experience as the one on PC, while the PSP version is mediocre.
 * 2) There is a corruption issue on the PC version where if you play the game in a certain way, your neighborhood gets corrupted, which increases the likelihood of the game crashing or strange things such as bugged wants to happen when the neighborhood is played, or the game itself gets corrupted which also increases crashes as well as modifying elements such as certain Sims in all neighborhoods. For example, deleting families in the family bin immediately corrupts the neighborhood, and this is in fact a built in feature in the game.
 * 3) The Console Versions reuse the game engine used from The Urbz: Sims in the City.
 * 4) You can only create 4 sims in the console version, thankfully the standalone console versions of The Sims 2 Pets and Castway allows you to make more than 8 Sims due to using a upgraded game engine.
 * 5) *The only life stage in the console version is Adults due to hardware limitations, meaning you cannot have a baby or a kid.
 * 6) Though the graphics were solid for its time, the Sims themselves look pretty odd in this game.
 * 7) Speaking of the Pets version of the Sims 2, despite this standalone expansion being amazing in terms of gameplay, the Sims cannot die, even by starving, due to the inclusion of the pets possibly to avoid pet abuse and death, making it somewhat unrealistic and nonsensical. If this standalone expansion would occur like other Sims games, the pets would die from starvation and players who love pets, especially dogs and cats, would feel so saddened to cry way too much.