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For the past week I have been severely neglecting confoozled.com and most of my other responsibilities (and probably my friends and family too). Why? Because The Sims 2 is out!
I am by no means a professional game reviewer, but I thought I'd write a little about my impressions of the game so far... bugs I've discovered, workarounds I've found, things I like and dislike.
The biggest issue for me right now is video card compatibility. My nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440 is on the list of compatible cards, but it turns out it's just barely compatible... meaning it will run the game, but only with some bugs and missing functionality. The first noticeable bug is that the game will not remember my screen resolution preference. It always starts at 800x600, even if I use the command line switch to force it into my desired resolution (1280x960). However, once I am in the game, I can switch it via the options screen with no problems. I'm not even 100% sure this is an issue with my video card, but since the only answer I can seem to get from Maxis/EA is that it is "not normal", it's my best guess.
The second video-related bug is that anti-aliasing and cutscenes (the "Special Event Camera" that zooms in on events such as a first kiss, birth of a baby, etc.) don't work. Both options are set to disabled, and greyed out so they cannot be turned on. Based on what I've read at the Sims 2 forums, this has been all but confirmed to be an issue with this specific video card. Some people have had some luck with turning on forced anti-aliasing at the driver level, but this tends to slow the game way down so is not really recommended. Since there's no way I can afford a new video card right now, I'm going to have to just live with these issues for now... thankfully they are only minor annoyances and don't really detract from gameplay.
Surprisingly, unlike the original The Sims, I haven't encountered many actual gameplay bugs... only one that I can recall, and once I identified the problem it was pretty easy to work around. I had my sim Jan order groceries one night while she was up with her newborn baby, and when the delivery truck arrived, the driver got out of the truck and just stood there - never took anything out of the truck, never came to the door. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that the truck was parked on the very edge of the lot, and when the delivery person tried to walk to the back of the truck to take out the groceries, he was running into a sort of invisible wall in the form of the lot boundary. As soon as I figured this out, I turned on the "move objects" cheat (Ctrl+Shift+C to open the cheat console, then type "moveObjects on" - case sensitive and without the quotes - and hit Enter) and moved the truck forward a few tiles. A few seconds later, the driver stopped scratching his butt and proceeded to retrieve the groceries and bring them to the door. Problem solved! If you find yourself needing to use this workaround, remember to turn the cheat back off afterwards so you don't accidentally delete something you shouldn't.
There were a few features promised in The Sims 2 that didn't make it into the game. The biggest is weather. Early teaser videos showed rain, and Sims getting struck by lightning... but, it's still the same constant clear blue sky and perfect temperature comfortable in any type of clothing, that got so boring in the original. I also could swear there was talk about being able to go to work with your Sims and help them do their jobs, but maybe I was just dreaming. Hopefully, these and lots of other cool features will be coming in the six planned expansion packs.
What I do like: gameplay is so much more realistic and entertaining! Obviously I am enjoying it immensely, or I wouldn't have disappeared for a week, right? The game is full of comical moments that still keep catching me by surprise - moments which I won't spoil for you... you'll have to buy it and see for yourself!
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