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Thursday 6 March, 2008
Entry #2
Gameplay: I am not going to lie, as each hour passes playing this game, the more I feel myself becoming hooked on this game. There seem to be infinite features to explore. To go through all the possible combinations of furniture and houses and rooms would take more time than I have in college I think. For two hours of straight play, the second was much more meticulous than the first. Each piece of furniture had to be placed just so...and I started color coordinating. It made me hope I was very rich in the future so I could do this to my house. I started getting fancier too, not just adding furniture, but buidling onto the house and changing the floors, doors, and windows. Luckily its all perfect and you do not have to build technically. You just click, and bam, new door. I love it.
I really am addicted to building though. The point of the game is to play as the Sim and with the other members of family and community, however 2 hours is not enough to even start the game. Without amenities such as showers, toilets, kitchen appliances, and beds, the Sims will get sick and start to complain. Without TV or entertainment, they will get bored and start to be destructive. So, even in two hours, I was only able to create a family, build a new house, start to furnish it, and barely start to learn how my Sims will act in this environment.
Design:
Like I said previously, the most fascinating feature is this God-like status you are given. Sort of like a scientist doing a social experiment on people living in a bubble.
The controls are made so you can rotate 360 around the house and neighborhood. You can zoom in and out as well. However, I would have made them a bit differently, because not only are they sometimes hard to use because of the restrictions, but I would like a "Sim's eye view" of the house. Playing as the Sim would give a whole new dimension to the game. Just looking at the house and watching the Sims intereact is a bit boring at times.
As far as computer game design goes, this is not the most advanced looking game by far. The people are shaped like people and move mostly like people do, however, sometimes they appear rather flat and disinterested looking. Their faces do not hold much character. As for the neighborhoods, from a distance, it looks a lot like the original Sims game, and up close not much different, except maybe slightly more detailed. With all the feel of advancedness that eminates from this game's goal and mode of gameplay, the art design leaves a bit to be desired. It is no Doom '95 but it is not that interesting to look at for a game released in 2004, almost 10 years later. Though by no means would I call the design "simple" it does make the player focus more on the goal of the game rather than the outward facade the game offers.
The 4 discs included in the Sims 2 set offer tons and tons of gameplay and my hours spent (now totally around 8) have not been enough to scratch the surface of the game. It is hard to sit around playing for hours on end because its all about perfection and, being a perfectionist myself, if you do not stop in a timely fashion, you could end up playing for hours on end a night.
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