There’s a pretty good review of Sims 2 on Gamespot. I haven’t really been very excited about it because I guess I have too much invested in the first one. I’ve been playing the original Sims game since its release in 1999 and have been collecting downloads of player-made objects since they first became available.

In fact, Cody was among the creators before Transmogrifier, when creating became much easier and it became possible to add animations. He created the original indoor grill from the stove and the ‘pot of shrooms’ from the cheap tv which you can still get at the sims resource just look for Syniq.

So I’ve spent five years - just slightly less time than the length of my marriage - downloading stuff for my game. I have just under ten gigabytes of downloads and I don’t want to think about what I spent on memberships and donations to get my greedy hedgehog cursor on some of those files. There has been some incredible creativity out there and I’m pretty attatched to my objects.

Also, this sequel seems to be much more about actually playing the game. Oddly enough in all my years of playing the Sims and all its expansions I’ve logged very little actual playing time. My fun is the building and decorating. I don’t usually care who owns the lot or what they do or look like - I just use cheat codes to make them rich enough to build really cool houses. The only interesting thing I’ve heard about this sequel is that there might be the ability to build a third floor now.

So I’m not really that enthusiastic about this release but I know a lot of Sims fans are. I never played the Sims Online either because, again, it was about actually playing. I do understand why people would get excited about the genetic thing. Reminds me of the fun with breeding in that old Creatures game. All the pre-release downloads that I’ve seen from user sites have pertained to skins and genetics so it could appeal to people who are really interested in that.