This whole thing about why do you like this or that is the same subject " over and over" just with a different title. Personally I am so tired of this comparing Sims 2 to whatever Sims that follow be it Sims 3 or Sims 4.
Each Sims versions have it's "pros and cons" I don't care what version of the Sims you may prefer and why, after a while all this "why this and why that" become like the same old song or like a dead horse.
So my answer is "hell" play what you want to play if that what make you happy.

What is great about Sims 2? I quote Peni who has said it before: "Everything."
I have Sims 3 - I don't touch it.
I have Sims 4 - I don't touch it.
Sims 2 is a complicated game, yes. There are huge neighborhoods with amazing stories. There are wonderful characters; from the Curious brothers in Strangetown to Chester Gieke in the Sim bin. There are a millions way to play the game, and a million ways to explore.
There are the most amusing little details in everything the Sims do in Sims 2, from facial expressions to toddlers hugging.
THERE ARE TODDLERS.
You are in story mode, you can write a story while you are playing - and you can make up your own.
I'd suggest playing one of the Maxi hoods as well. Strangetown comes to mind! Play with ALL the families, because they are all connected. In any other hood the families are also more or less connected. You will have the time of your life, get to know how the game works, and can then think of starting your own custom hood or move your Sims into one of the existing hoods to mix things up in the daily lives of everyone.
Enjoy!

For once, children in the Sims 2 don't look like they want to kill you...

Now seriously, the thing that makes the sims 2 so special and so much better than 3 or 4 is control. The sims 2 offers the player huge control over the game, while 3 and 4 take it away. When I play 3 and 4 I feel lost, I can't play the game the way I want to; I can't create my own world, with my own sims and stories, and I can't shape the world to my liking either. There's just so much going on in the background, hidden from us and out of our reach, that it feels like the game is playing itself more than I am playing it, it's dumb.

You were correct Snuffle, I wake up and it's on page 2. Doesn't surprise me, I knew everyone would come out of the woodwork to post.




I think a lot of people new to Sims 2, especially if they have come from a background in Sims 3 feel this way because the game doesn't tell you what to do. That's why I said in Sims 2 it's your vision. Also on first glance this old game seems simple; make a sim, place them in a pre-made house and get a job. Most new players would do that and it's probably a good place to start. But really it's very deep and most new players are probably only playing a fraction of what the game holds.

I came from Sims 1 which was brilliant for it's time but so much harder. People often find sims 2 hard coming from sims 3, but it's a piece of cake compared to sims 1. I would say get use to just playing a sim in the ordinary way, then go to numerous community lots, find a spouse and have a family, but don't go above 3-4 sims. I would also suggest to leave free will on and not to get into the habit of cheating, cheating will make the game boring. Make sure you check your sims needs often and if you see they are getting more then halfway down start thinking about filling them up. Try everything, click on everything, objects, other sims and even the ground. Don't just think, low fun- go watch TV. There are multiple ways you can raise fun from a game of red hands with another sim, to painting, gardening, even looking at and kicking over the flamingo statue. If you make a sim with a whole heap of outgoing points they will act on that. They wil get lonley very quickly and that social meter will plummet if you don't get them out, make friends or chat on the phone. If you made them very lazy you can't expect them to do well in military because it takes lots of body skill, so think about the sim that you made and what might suit them, what they would like to do for work and a hobby. The game does come with a pre set hobby, but that's rather random. You might find it suits them or not. Once you understand how to play then start thinking about a vision or a story. There is a ton of custom content and mods to further your story, to give you added game play, to take away those things that drive you nuts.

Also before doing anything, make sure you read up on game corruption (do not ever delete sims) and get the needed mods to stop your hood from blowing up.

Screenshots are in My Documents>EA Games>The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection>Neighborhoods>The neighborhood you took the screenshot in>Storytelling



The list goes on forever.

Edit: I forgot to do this...

Read this on how to install mods and custom content (YOU WILL NEED TO READ THIS):
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...Fracking_Idiots

Also, read this to know WHAT NOT TO DO, because Sims 2 does have some bugs (that will never get fixed and CAN be avoided)..
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title...Hood_Corruption
(BTW, that says do not let Samantha Ottomas' pregnancy come to term, you actually can, since the Ultimate Collection has the Seasons patch)

And now you can get these ESSENTIAL MODS (these will help make sure your game will not explode):
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=532696

@rainydayz179 When you start up your game and before you chose a hood to play there are the tutorials you can chose to play.

Right below the hood buttons and its called "Learn to Play".

Okay so I re-installed the game, did all the fun and exciting tutorials, built a house, made a sim and a cat companion for her... and she only has 28 days until elder? I didn't know what to pick so I picked family so she wants to get married and have a kid and now I feel rushed. As far as the post about mods and what not to do I'll read it tomorrow and hope I don't break the game tonight. I read the sims 2 forums all day while it loaded, lol. Thank you all for your replies.

Luckily this is sims 2 and as stated before there are all sorts of mods out there to soothe your peeves and issues. Aging too fast? Well you could always type control + shift + C to bring up the cheat box and then use 'aging off' text to halt aging for your sim while you play her.

Also, there are a handful of aging mods people have created found here, just make sure to read through them to find which best suits your needs.

There are aging mods on other sites, not just here. Boiling Oil has a mod where adult sims only age a day once a week, and Almightyhat has a mod which is very long, so toddlers have 12 days, children about 24 and adults might be something like 100 days.

There is also a mod that allows you to click on any sim and turn aging on and off, so the adult can be aging off and the toddler aging on, because you might not want to use a cheat that prevents the younger members of the household from growing up.

In game there is also aspiration rewards, one being elixcer. If your sim is in the gold you can have them drink a cup for 3 extra days. Another non cheat way is to aquire a cow plant, have it eat sims you dislike and your sim can drink from the cow plant and gain 5 days.

I use a double aging mod so adults have 60 days, I find that just about right for me.

As you can see just this one area is very customizable and this goes for most areas of the game.

Welcome to Sims 2 @rainydayz179. Enjoy the journey!

I read all the what not to do's and downloaded the mods to help my game not break. Whew. My sim fell in love and is pregnant and I just added a baby room onto the house. I lost the cat because it didn't have catfood and she was at work but adopted it back later, yay! So I was looking at the aspiration rewards (I think that's what they're called) and I have enough for this pet bowl but the warning about staying in gold confuses and scares me from purchasing any rewards. What's up with that? Also if ya'll think I'd be better off just searching the forums for answers to my questions just let me know and I'll shut up. :P

I don't use the aspiration rewards hardly at all, except for Elixir. But when I do, it's a matter of timing. I wait till they get a platinum-level event (like a date or a big milestone) under their belts, and then they use the reward. That way they won't decay into the danger zone while on the way to use it. (Which did happen once with Elixir, and Lana Mann died when I was nowhere near done with her character arc. So I quit without saving.)

In the case of something like the Kibble of Life or SmartMilk, it's the person delivering the reward to the recipient whose aspiration matters.

Relax. Have fun. Back up your game frequently. The pause button is your friend. You can always quit without saving. And most of all - nobody has to be pleased but you!

You know how when you fulfil your sims wants, you get points? They also fill up a bar next to their needs. It decays over time as well, so you need to keep an eye on it to make sure your sims stay happy (and they told us TS4 was the first one with emotions!) If they're fine, it's green. If they're happy, it's yellow and if their life has been everything they ever wanted, it'll go silver. And if you never fill any of their wants, it'll turn red and they'll be miserable and walk around the house worrying and crying until they eventually break down from misery completely.

So, aspiration rewards. Use them when that bar is yellow or silver and they're guaranteed to work with no side effects. However, if it's green or red, there's a chance it could backfire. Like, the energiser will suck all their energy instead so they pass out, the lightbulb hat will backfire and they'll lose skill points and the elixir of life will rapidly age them. HOWEVER, I'm like 90% sure there's no bad effects attached to the kibble of life because it's not something sims use, it's something pets use. I think perhaps if the sim filling it isn't in the yellow/gold, it just doesn't work its magic.

@rainydayz179 - I'm sure you know this, but The Sims 3 can be known for it's crashes (ALL of my Sims 3 Simmy friends have at least one crash every month, and they have super computers). It seems to crash a lot and or freeze (especially if you have Island Paradise). For most people, The Sims 2 never seems to crash. I've played for about a year now and I haven't had a single crash yet (I bet most crashes are from CC stuff - too much for the game to handle or corrupt CC). So, I'm sure you'll like that part of the game.

Except for memory crashes (the game uses too much memory and crashes to desktop), I think nearly all the S2 crashes I've had has been because of corrupt, too much, or badly made CC. My S3 game would crash even with minimal or no CC in, and would throw me a larger selection of bugs in a game session than my Sims 2 game could come up with in a year. S3 did cash a few times too, but the bugs were more annoying since I usually had to quit the game to fix it.

As for longevity, I actually copied one of my neighborhoods from my now-dead laptop back in 2009, and while my new laptop won't open it for some reason, it's still chugging along on my other computer. All in all I've played the same 'hood for about 7-8 years. Even my M&G disc is still working, after some 5-6 years of use. To compare, nearly all the saves in my S3 games would eventually get corrupted, some after less than a month, and two of the install CDs didn't even work straight from the box.

So yeah. If you want quality and few bugs, TS2 is your best bet.

It's good to know Sims 2 crashes less. I've given up on Sims 3 entirely after I crashed and it corrupted all my saves, several of which were challenges that I was pretty far into. I was devastated. Sims 4 hasn't been crashing for me but there's lots of little things that upset me about the game that I won't get into here and make this all about complaining. So far I'm loving Sims 2. There have been so many little things that have shocked me. Especially my character carrying around the baby! LOL When the baby turned toddler I freaked out. It's been fun. I usually do a challenge or story and blog about it and so I'm not sure how I'll do that with Sims 2 yet. I took a couple of pics and cropped them in paint and took some by clicking C out of habit but I have no idea where to get the screenshots from. I'll figure it out. Thanks again everyone for the responses.

I grew up watching the older sibling play The Sims, which I later played for 4 years until I discovered The Sims 2. Something about The Sims 2 has always just felt right. The game made so much more sense to me, it was cooler, more fun. It was everything that The Sims was and wasn't. Perhaps I associate The Sims 2 with my childhood, which could explain why it means so much to me as a game. What gets me every time is it's playfulness and realism. That nostalgic feeling when we all lived slightly simpler lives. There are quirks to the game that always annoy me, for example the camera angle can't be tilted to what is most comfortable to me it, or difficulty in having toddlers in the household etc . Somehow I find that I can accept these issues and just have fun playing the game.

After 5 years, I moved on to The Sims 3. I liked it. It was different, yet similar to its predecessors. My sims had more freedom, I could build bigger, better houses because of the increased flexibility from the improved tools. With CASt, I suddenly didn't need to download recolours like I had to with The Sims 2. My stuff was unique. However, unlike the other two games, the Sims were oddly podgy which I found very unsettling. Furthermore The Sims 3 after some updates, a whole array of problems wildly appeared. I suddenly needed a heap of mods just to be able to run the game! Unlike with The Sims 2, if I do play The Sims 3, I only build and test play.

Having not yet experienced The Sims 4, my opinions of the game are based off what I have read here on MTS and other websites, and from conversations friends. Focusing on the base game of the series, The Sims 4 seems to be the least complete of the four games. I have mixed feelings about it. Due to my game play style, The Sims 4 is not for me.

The Sims 2 will always be my favourite because playing it is always just as exciting as when I first played it 8 years ago. Unlike the other games within The Sims series, I have found that it is hardly repetitive, yet if I do get bored, there are countless ways I can make my game more interesting.


I wrote an essay

rainydayz179, C-button pics can be found here: C:\...\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\[HOOD NUMBER]\Storytelling

Lately I've thought of getting TS4, but mostly because there were so many items I'd like to convert from the Work EP (that's why I keep TS3 installed even if it doesn't work - there's always stuff to extract). If the playstyle is anything like TS3, in the 'do tasks and collect stuf to get promotions' way, I think I might enjoy it at first, but get bored when things start repeating over and over again. It might be fun to collect things and do tasks the first 5-10 times, but after that it gets boring when there's nothing new to do. TS3 in particular had that annoying repetetive pattern. Even the careers were built up almost identical. I've seen some videos of TS4, and it looks like they've managed to make the careers a little more interesting and unique from each other, so there's that, but I could still see a repetitive pattern, if a bit less so.

To make toddlerhood easier grab yourself a sleep mat or a toddler bed, I can link to one if you like. Unless you want to have a toddler in a crib and a parent get up to take them out. I was told the other day using a sleep mat was too easy, so everyone to their own play style.

I would not go and collect all the mods right now - I'd suggest getting those essential ones that prevents corruption first - then learn how to play Sims 2 - and then you can decide which aspects of play you''d like to change. Some players have hundreds of mods, others have only a few.
One does, I believe, develop a unique style of play - mods have to fit into your style and not the other way around.

@simmer22 Thanks for the tip of where to find the pics. I got a good one of a penguin looking at 2 snowmen today. I was like omg a penguin! As far as Sims 4 GTW goes I haven't gotten to the top of any of the careers but the repetitiveness made me dread work. Like in the doctor career the same patients would come in and the tasks would be the same every day.

@joandsarah77 I would love a link to the toddler bed and mat. My toddler went to sleep in the cats bed one day, lol.

@Justpetro I don't usually do many mods so I doubt I'll do more than the ones I already got that are to fix the game. I am interested to see what CC there is though.

There are quite a few toddler beds and mats around.
One of the beds: http://modthesims.info/d/464847
One of the mats: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?p=1530815 post 3#. Grab the toddler one.
Toddlers get up and put themselves to bed without needing a parent. This was one of the many things that drove me nuts with sims 3 toddlers -no floor mat! Unless someone has made one now. A lot of toddlers in real life from about 2+ have a little bed.

My RL niece and nephew (both under 5) each have their own little beds, but getting them to actually get in them and go to sleep? Virtually impossible, although sometimes my nephew will put himself down for a nap if his bunny is there too. That is one bit of reality I'm glad is not in the game -- fighting over yes, it is time to go to bed, that means in bed, asleep, no it doesn't mean talking, no you do not need to go downstairs and bring the kitty up, the kitty will come up to sleep with you on her own if she wants to and if she doesn't want to you can't make her, you have a cup of water right there if you need it, no you have to stay in bed, yes you are so tired...

That said, I like the personalities that the sims have, and the way that not all sims with the same point spread will act the same way. I think I mentioned in another thread once how very different three of my sims with a single Nice point were, and I had a couple once (husband and wife) who were the exact same personality on paper, but who behaved very little alike because of their Aspirations, Wants, and histories.

Yea, crashes just happen to easily with TS3. I'm running on a top-notch laptop and it has crashed 3 times, and keeps freezing since the moment I installed in February. I am using ONE piece of CC (lipstick) and mods to help STOP the crashes and lag! And my settings are all on low! And for those who think what I am saying is virtually impossible..


I don't know what causes it. And that's the main reason I switched over to The Sims 2 so easily. I just couldn't handle the crashes anymore! As you saw in the pic, my game save was corrupted after only a MONTH (created it in the beginning of March) of playing. And ever since I switched over, I keep seeing on blogs on here, that people can have a save (if they are careful) for YEARS.

I'm just like, "WHAT?".

That happened to me anytime I played Sims 3, which wasn't often and I had a similar amount of cc for it. I know my computer is old, but it isn't that bad. Using a fix I am now playing Dragon Age Inquisition and that isn't a light game. I found one hint for that, which might also help sims 3, but if you right click on origin you can disable Origin overlay in game, this stopped DAI shuddering and crashing.