TS2 is personally my favourite. With my mods and CC, it's a near perfect game. Not only that, but even with every expansion pack, stuff pack and 2gb of downloads the game works like a charm on my laptop. Although I enjoyed playing TS3 for a little while, it never held my interest like TS2 has for all these years.

I've played The Sims 1, 2 and 3.
I like sims 2 best, because the sims look more realistic. (my opinion.) And I don't have any plans to buy TS4.

The sims 4 is just at the start. It cam be classified in next years.

I would say my fave is sims 2 for now. You can build true big cities, with over 6000 inhabitants (Once I did that)

I dont have the sims 4 yet but i love sims 2 over sims 3 and ive played the sims 3 longer so i dont know if sims 4 is better than the sims 2 or 3

I always have and, I expect, always will return to Sims 2. <3

I must however note that while I love sims 2 the most with sims 3 after that, sims 1 did have some good things for it that sadly got lost and never returned.

Sims 2 practicly was the perfect sequel, it improved pretty much everything of sims1. But still, there was something about sims 1 that was discarded along the way.

The sims 1 was a bit more mature in some ways. While the cartoony style of sims 2 works well mostly, the sims 1 does have a certain charm. It did not seem intended for children. You'd also get funny messages when sims would have an excuse to not visit you. They would actually say no to invitations. Also some weird phonecalls that sometimes resulted in money.
There was also the sex bed that sims could use, and sims would comment on the sex they had afterwards. I remember a time that the woman was all enthusiastic afterwards, and the guy cried!
Also there where pie dancers for bachelor parties, the chemistry set was very random. I dont like that in sims3 it says what it does. should be a surprise. thats part of the discovery.
Lot of ambiance when going out for dinner. even people playing music and the place seems more crowded.
Also, the superstar expansion. They have thrown some half assed shallow stuff in this direction at us yes, but nothing fully fledged where sims could act on stages, walk on catwalks and be in photoshoots and music videos. The sims 3 version of it was terrible and quite bland in comparison.

Some of the sound effects and sims speech was also very memorable. I liked that little music sound when sims had a job or something else positive.
It's also still the toughest sims game of them all, not pulling any punches here. Getting a succesfull sim was really an accomplishment.

In Sims 2 if you don't have a good enough relationship with a sim you're inviting over they will give an excuse not to visit. The most recent one I got was "I have a Baked Alaska in the oven." From John Duncan Thomas-Brooke, with 1 cooking point, to his wife Taeryn Brooke-Martin while he was at college.

Ah I did not know that. In sims 2 its rare for my sims to call people who are not friends though, unless its an estranged former friend or someone they went to university with.
But I think that in sims 1 even friends could have such excuses at times.

Also thinking back, the sims 1 could actually be scary at times. That moose head freaked me out, the sound played when ghosts of dead sims walked around was very creepy, and some random critters like the bear and such made weird noises too.

When you have all the expansions of TS2 sims who only visted and briefly talked to them for a short time phone your sims, i've had this happen several times now. I've had several sims who they didn't even meet phone them too, i think when you get univeristy other sims can reccomend their friends to me friends with you.

It is a bit odd when my sims get called by someone they spoke briefly to in the street yes.. that's actually pretty creepy when you think about it.

Just imagine you said hello to someone in the supermarket, along with some simple joke that made them chuckle. And then you get home and are relaxing on the couch and they suddenly call you up! somehow they have your phone number! Similar things may result in a restraining order in real life.

Good thing sims are pretty harmless. Exept for toddlers. They tend to cause death by blocking off paths with teddybears.