Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of The Sims 2
The Sims franchise has seen success across nearly every platform it's been built on, but it's the PC version where its popularity rose and where it continues to chug. The franchise branched away from the PC's "god sim" concept for the console game designs, giving players more direct control over one inhabitant instead of dictating to all Sims what to do and watching them play out the task. Even with the drastic change in design for the series, the console and handheld versions held their own in the Wil Wright created universe.
The Nintendo DS version of The Sims 2 is a great original title that revolves around running a decrepit hotel in the middle of creepy Strangeville. At the start, you'll have barely enough money to scrape by, but by checking in clients, doing odd jobs, gambling, and saving Strangeville from the frequent alien attacks, the Simoleans will start raking in and enable you to build your hotel up and outwards. Like the Game Boy Advance and console versions of the games in the Sims series, the Nintendo DS design gives you direct control over a specific Sim character, with customization over sex and appearance both in and out of clothing. The DS sequel is also now in true 3D, which, even with its more limited visuals, brings the game in line to the appearance of the console games and looks great…at least for Nintendo DS standards.
The Sims 2 for the DS is heavily structured in chapters, starting with a Godfather-inspired citizen moving into the hotel. After performing strange and suspicious tasks for this guy, he'll move out and a new character will move in with her own requirements. These tasks will build up the hotel's size and revenue and enable you to do other Sims tasks -- keeping your patrons happy is Job Number One most of the time, so you'll need to cheer them up when they're down, calm them down when they're furious, or sober them up when they're feeling a bit tipsy. But The Sims roots aren't forgotten, as players will have to eat, sleep, and pee when their sanity levels get too low.
The Nintendo DS version is even more significant this time around, for many reasons than simply being an adventure that's completely original to the Nintendo DS system.
When Animal Crossing came out, many observers noted that it was inspired by The Sims. This time around, though, it feels that The Sims 2 is inspired by Animal Crossing. The Sims 2 on the DS now strays away from the exaggerated quicker-than-real-life game clock and instead works on real time based on the system clock of the Nintendo DS system.
This new addition is both good and bad, and for Sims fans it may take a bit to get used to. With the new clock players can enjoy the game on their own time and schedule, and not have to think about it when a character needs something done "in an hour" or "at 8:00pm," and can easily understand when a Sim is going to check out of the hotel "on Wednesday." It also allows the designers to put in some time-sensitive elements, like a day/night cycle that matches the real-world environments and a weather pattern where players can learn when it'll rain or sunny.
The downside, though, is that since the game features an adventure game that's a lot more "linear" than Animal Crossing's open ended design, players will be more than likely inclined to simply advance their system clock to bypass the unnecessary wait times. When players buy a new room for their hotel, they have to wait eight hours for it to be finished. That's eight real world hours, not the usual Sims hours that pass in a few minutes time. It's clear the development team wanted to make a game that would work on the player's schedule, but those who know how to change the time on their system (who doesn't?) will be tempted to do so, just so they can finish the main quest.
The change in time also affects normal Sims activities, too. In classic Sims games, it made sense when a player had their character go to sleep to snooze away the minutes. In the Nintendo DS version, players are still required to turn in for a few minutes in order to keep their "sanity level" up, but it seems a little stupid to fall asleep for 30 seconds and wake up refreshed. But then, this is a videogame, not real life. And this time change is certainly not the end of the franchise because the rest of the game's a lot of fun.
Designers really had a ball finding ways of pushing the DS elements in The Sims. Standard tasks like vacuuming are now touch screen interactive, with players sucking up crap on the top screen while sifting through the vacuumed junk on the bottom to score potentially money-making tossaways. Players can also do a little metal detecting in the desert for Simoleans, using the bottom screen to tune the detector to see if the buried treasure's worth the energy to dig it up.
And the Animal Crossing influence really comes through in the amount of customization that can be put into the adventure. Though players don't have the ability to change up their hotel structure, they can furnish each room to their liking with furniture acquired and purchased at the store. When players open up their art gallery in the hotel, they can supply their own custom pieces with a very versatile paint program; paintings will even be randomly sold to Sims inhabitants for Simoleans, which is a great way of building up your bank account. And in the music room, players can orchestrate their own in-game cellphone ringtone, as well as and mix their own voice into the background music.
The game tries to keep everything controlled via D-pad and touch screen so players don't have to constantly take out and put their styluses away. But seeing as how the camera needs to be controlled with the L and R button, it makes for an awkward system holding position to keep the DS and stylus in hand properly. It took some training, but I managed to develop a position that enables right-handed people to move the Sim, use the touch screen controls with the stylus AND constantly rotate the camera left and right. It's not exactly intuitive or comfortable, but it works. Sorry lefties, but there's no option for you.
Luckily, on-screen controls are usually fat and sensitive enough for the fingertip. And, the developers incorporate a clever action button control for many of the touch-screen elements if you don't want to smear up your screen. But for those elements that require the stylus, like the paint program and furniture layout modes, most of all that simply needs the touch screen to maneuver.
And, because of the all the customization and the little quests that characters give you on your cellphone, the game has legs well after the main quest is over. To add to the extended replayability, Sims 2 owners can link up wirelessly and trade furniture as well as play a couple of the card games against each other. It would have been great if there were some single cartridge link modes included as well, but what was included here works to keep the game going for as long as it can.
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