I just recently got a brand new laptop for gaming and could not decide which the sims game I should install. I mea ,I played all ,but I simply can not choose one. Can you help me and tell me which one is your favorite and why it's the best? It's a hard decision for me. Try to convince me. 😥

Sims 2 of course (this is the sims 2 board and we are diehards here )

My main reason for staying with Sim 2 is the sims themselves. I like how they react to each other, to their surroundings and how they look. When they talk they are expressive and have a much wider array of actions, faces and gestures. Watching a conversation is interesting. When they are angry they look furious, when they are interested you can tell; you don't need any pop up window telling you that Sally is feeling flirty she is actively flirting.

The babies are cute, you can bath them in a little bath, change their nappy/diaper on a change table, breast feed them (with a mod) and they use real baby toys. Each baby while looking similar (you can make them look more individual with cc clothes and hair) comes with real genetics. No pulling coloured hair or some random genetics from a sim in the family bin, the parents themselves passed down their eye and hair colour to them.

The toddlers are adorable. They can also play with toys, but take them outside and they will play with leaves, or eat sand. Two toddlers can huggle or fight over a bottle. Two together on an activity table will build up a friendship and the table has drawing and blocks to play with. A toddler who has learnt to walk can climb out of a crib.

Children are cute and can do more things. They can play chess, gain body skills, paint, garden and play piano and violin. There is a mod that lets them cook and a cc pottery wheel that lets them make pottery. They can learn an array of skills on the bookcase including things like fire safety. They have some cute interactions with their parents such as swing around, dance on feet. Their parent might autonomously tuck them into bed or read them to sleep in bed. Leave them alone for awhile and they are probably playing or talking to their parents. They don't stand around, sims 2 sims are very social. This also depends on their personality, if another sim compliments a shy sim you can see the sim is shy by how they react.

Because the game has been out so long there are mods for just about everything and you can highly customize your game. Great cc is still being made with some of the best custom objects this past year. (wine making, chickens that lay eggs, weaving furniture)

Sims 2 also has small details which you notice when they are not there. For example sims open car doors, get in and back down the driveway. Sims open a draw when they are cooking. If you tell a serous sim to go play chess they will give you a dirty look and might drag their feet. It's a very immersive sand box experience.

Sims games or expansion packs? Because if it's the first, the sims 2 forum might be slightly biased.

If it's expansion packs, Seasons would definitely be a top priority for me. Weather just adds a lot to the game.

I absolutely agree with Jo that Sims 2 is the best. For me, Sims 3 just made the gameplay more confusing while not adding anything that would be of interest to me. It's more like watching a cartoon where you have some, but not much, influence on the plot. And I don't even plan to try Sims 4. Like Jo said, I don't need the game to tell me that someone is flirty or sad. Even if I cannot make my Sims feel something, I can always pretend that they do and get on with the plot))

And I also love the genetics, how a baby can suddenly be born with his grandmother's eyes, even though his mother didn't. And I simply get attached to my Sims so I wouldn't trade them for others. I started playing in ca. 2005 and have played only one neighborhood (though I didn't play for several years and began again only last month).

I haven't had to shop for a computer lately, thankfully, but the last time I did, some seven years ago, those terms were mutually exclusive.

Minesweeper still counts as a game!

I love TS2. There's some things I miss about 3 (open world, ability to edit sims in CAS, townie aging, totally custom hair & eye colors) but TS2 has more things I love. Plus it actually runs on my laptop without overheating. That's always a plus.

If we are talking EPs, I'd say Seasons Ovenhole for the atmosphere AND Nightlife. Nightlife brought a huge amount of stuff to the game, not just the Downtown options. Stuff we'd now think of as basic/essential - like how sims relate to each other. NL changed gameplay significantly. The other one I'm getting a lot of use out of these days is OFB. I didn't like it much at first but it allows you to do all sorts of stuff and can be used very creatively.

For EPs, Pets and Seasons are staples. OFB is a fan favorite. NL adds tons of stuff plus Downtown.

Not many laptops can handle the demands of Sims 3, on that basis, I'd suggest Sims 2. Sims 4 will probably work as well, but many of us find the game unsatisfying.

If you mean EPs, I think I'd recommend Seasons or OFB for gameplay.

You ask the Sims 2 board, possibly the most biased of the boards here(no offense to any diehard Sims 2 fan - I'm one myself :P), about which Sims game you should play?

It depends on which playstyle you prefer. If you enjoy handling one lot at a time and having the neighbourhood progress the way you want by playing each house at a time, then The Sims 2 is the game you want. If, however, you want to have one family progress through the world, and have the world progress with you as you go, plus you want to have an open world experience, then you'll want The Sims 3. (though TS3 can simulate the TS2 "one lot advancing at a time" style) I'm not very sure about The Sims 1 and The Sims 4 as I never played them.

I'll have to say, though, the AI also plays a role here. In The Sims 2, if two or more Sims need to use a staircase at the same time, only one will use it while the others will stomp and complain because the staircase is (obviously)occupied, and then drop whatever action they were doing, which can be a real pain in the a**. In my experience with The Sims 3, Sims are more tolerant about being unable to use an object at a time, and will wait for a Sim to finish using said object instead of throwing a fit and dropping the action - at the cost of having an extremely long tolerance and waiting longer than they need for. They also seem to walk slightly slower than TS2 Sims, but time seems to also move slower so it's not much of a hassle.

The OP asked this same question also on the Sims 3 board, it pays to check peoples profiles. So they are after why they should play sims 2 here, not what EP's to get.

I personally like Sims 2 and Sims 3, but am apparently one of the few that do. I refuse to touch Sims 4 with a 10 foot pole, but I can tell you about Sims 2 and Sims 3.

First of all, just because a computer is new, doesn't mean it has the ability to run Sims 2 and Sims 3. (Another reason why I won't play Sims 4 is that I basically can't, according to the official website, my computer processor and graphics card are on the list of processor/graphic cards that can't handle Sims 4. I can play Sims 2 and Sims 3 on high settings without lag, but apparently I don't meet even the basics for Sims 4.)

Between Sims 2 and Sims 3, a lot of it comes down to play style. With Sims 3, the player only controls one house at a time, and gives up control of the other houses to Story Progression. While you control your one house, Story Progression controls and progresses the rest. A lot of Sims 2 players express frustration with this, since they want to control the whole neighborhood and don't like the face that Story Progression can make Sims get married, get divorced, change jobs, have a baby or other major life events happen without them controlling the household.

A lot of Sims 3 players have expressed that they like the fact that they don't have to switch between houses (they don't like rotational play) and like to let Story Progression handle the rest. I personally like to have control of the hood, so I prefer Sims 2, but have gotten to the point that the Nraas Story Progression mod doesn't annoy me too much with its control of the world while I play Sims 3.

Another thing: Sims 3 requires most of the Nraas mod to remain stable. It is not stable at all without the Nraas mods and is very prone to crashing to desktop.

You're not alone here. I like both games, too.

And you're right on the Nraas part. Nraas is to The Sims 3 as Pescado is to The Sims 2(minus the humour and hostility).

While I would agree with much of what you say Orilon, I would also add that TS3 didn't come with much of the story-telling equipment that TS2 has. For this reason, being a story-teller, I find it a much less interesting game (added to which I also find the TS3 sims much less interesting - bland I'd say - and character is important to me). There were things about TS3 I did like but too much about it I didn't.

Off topic: Do the Nraas mods reduce the memory usage of the game? If they did that do you think it would reduce the overheating on my laptop from playing it?

@OpalSpeedster In my own head, I've always considered Twallan (maker of the Nraas suite of mods) to Sims 3 what TwoJeffs was for Sims 2. Its much easier to ask questions on the Nraas Wiki site and get answers (without the verbal skinning that the members of Pescado's site usually give to anyone that asks questions.) I've always been able to get good help from Twallan while he was still active, or the other members of the Wiki. I don't know if Twallan meant to be funny in some of the notices for his Story Progression mod, but a few have made me laugh over the years I've been using it. An example is under the Spoiler:



@Maxon I don't do storytelling with Sims 2 or Sims 3, so I can't compare them in that way. My Sims in Sims 3 have plenty of personality, but it may be different from what you need for Storytelling.

@AmandieLove as far as I know, the Nraas mods don't reduce the memory usage of the game. You may need to clean out your laptop vents (I know my computer used to overheat because what I called "kitty tumbleweeds" (large clumps of fur on the floor that accumulate when the cat sheds) would build up in the computer vents and not allow the cooling fan to work.

No - as I think you said, what game suits you depends on what you want from it. I've always been a story-teller and TS3 simply can't do that effectively. I found the characters of TS3 sims to be samey.

@Orilon

How would I clean the laptop? It's not like you can open the case, and wouldn't blowing compressed air into it just get it further in there?

Also, I found an FPS limiter that's supposed to fix a lot of TS3's problems. So once the game patches up I will try that. Fingers crossed!

In my experience, compressed air gets it out, not further in. Hopefully the FPS limiter will help you.

It took 3 tries and 2 hours to get the patch downloaded. Once the game patches I will use the 3loader from MATY and the FPS limiter to test the game. Then, if that works, I will test with my necessary Twallan mods. I thought about getting Ambitions or Generations when I was done to reduce the amount of CC necessary to have a playable experience, so I can get a non-second hand license code to get CAW with, and because I heard that patches are more harmful to performance than many of the EPs, so my performance shouldn't take much of a hit. Is that true? Also, which EP would be easier on my PC?