Sunday 19 September 2004

Pic of the day: Norman Vrimoen, a "shy" and serious Sim whose ambition is to gain knowledge, and perhaps one day write the Great Norwegian Novel. Or something.

More Sim than ever?

The strategy game Civilization III sold with the slogan "More Civ than ever!". This was doubly true: There was MORE Civ, as the game was just bigger in almost any way, from more detailed graphics to more units and more wonders of the world. But it was also more CIV, because of the added cultural dimension. Now there was a good reason to civilize your people as much as possible, because higher culture expanded your borders and could even convert enemy cities to your cause.

It may be a bit early to ask, perhaps, but is Sims2 "more Sim than ever"?

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The game is certainly larger (it comes on 4 CDs) and more detailed. I covered that in my first review. Whether there are actually more Sims ... Probably not, if you have all the expansion packs for the original. There is no downtown, no Vacation Island, no Studio Town, no Magic Town. But the neighborhoods are expanded to a similar size as in Unleashed, and intriguingly there is now communication among them. I discovered this by accident:

I had made this Sim woman (since you all need to know, she is basically me, only gender-reversed; the rest of the genes are as close as I can get, including personality). There was this guy that was getting very interested, and the Sims are not getting any younger (except with the very rare youth elixir available late in your career). So I decided to pop over to his house and find out what kind of guy he really was. (Because you cannot know that from seeing how a man behaves around a single woman.) Also there was a female acquaintance with the same last name, and I wanted to know whether she was his sister (they looked a bit similar) or his wife. No woohoo with another's spouse! Anyway, they were nowhere to be found. I searched all over the neighborhood, repeatedly. It's a mystery, a mystery!

My next clue came when I created a new neighborhood, placed one house there, and moved in a childless married couple. No clingy neighbors to ruin the honeymoon! I could always make more Sims later, or move them to a more populated neighborhood. Well, the first day went by, reading and making food and caressing and kissing. (We're taking this a bit slowly, OK?) Then the next day a lonely teen girl stood outside. Furthermore, I recognized her. But I'm not sure I've seen her house either.

I still don't know whether the Sims visit other neighborhoods or whether there is a "gene pool" of nomadic Sims traveling around, looking for friendship, love and woohoo. Kinda like the Townies from Hot Date, but more mobile ... In that case there may well be more Sims than ever, though I doubt it.

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But are they more SIMilar than ever? To us? Yeah, I'd say so. They are a lot more aware than before. Not only of the present but of the past. They write a diary. They remember events such as job advancement or burning the dinner. (You can look at their string of memories.) They remember who their relatives are. (So even if kids grow up eventually, there will be no woohoo with Mom or Sis, not even after moving out and coming to visit. I like to think this is SIMilar at least to the people I know.)

There's a myriad small ways in which the new Sims are more realistic. For instance, remember Newsie, the paper girl from The Sims? I know some lolicons had a thing for her, but she just passed by and delivered newspapers. Now, you can talk to her. She won't stay all day, but you can distract her for a while. In fact, another of my female Sims, Cutie, struck up so much of a friendship that when Cutie was invited over to a friend she brought the newspaper girl along, and they played chess till late in the evening!

Speaking of visitors ... In The Sims, guests would expect dinner to be on the table when they arrived, and if not they would stand in your way pestering you with questions while you made it. Then when it was served, everyone would make a beeline for the food, and later for the bathroom. The new Sims have a more sensible attitude. They are quite happy to wait in the sofa for a while, talking with each other quietly if there are more than one. Once there is food, they make a decision: If the food is good and there's a table with adjoining chairs, they are likely to move in for a shared meal. If it's just lunch meat sandwich and there's no dining room, they are in no hurry. From time to time one of them will get up, grab a sandwich and take it back to the sofa or even the chair by the chess board. (Once they start actually playing chess, however, they forget food and everything else. You must talk to them to make them come eat.)

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If we look away from the actual Sims and look at some of their everyday objects, we'll see that these too have been augmented. For instance, the bed can now be used to relax and daydream. As your Sim daydreams, fun and social scores slowly drift upward as images of their friends pop up above their head, just like in real life. A sim-ilar effect can be achieved with a bookshelf, which now has the added option "Write diary". Shy, serious Sims can benefit greatly from this; they may even do it on their own, although it never seems to arrive on their wish list.

The humble home computer (at §1000) now has several options only found in user-made objects before.
--You can now send e-mail in the middle of the night, when calling would not been appreciated. This will improve your social meter immediately and may cause the friendship rating to improve. I've even seen it cause a Sim to come over for a visit, looking exceedingly happy. I wish I knew what my Sim wrote...
--You can also chat with a random Sim that is online; the available Sim varies for each click, and is likely to be a total stranger, at least from my limited experience. You can meet them in the flesh later, though.
--You can even order groceries online, instead of using the phone. (The fridge is no longer bottomless, but holds §400 worth of food. Realism strikes again.) You have to take the food from the door to the fridge yourself, so don't order just before you go to work!
--Finally, you can now "Write novel" on your computer, and improve your creativity. There is however no option for "Online journal" ... The Similarity stops here!