The Sims 2 – ‘Sequel to the best selling PC game of all time’ as EA keeps screaming at us from the box art, and it’s not hard to see how it earned the title. The original was more addictive as smack and twice as bloody expensive, and its little brother takes after it with an alarming degree of accuracy.
Hi. I’m Voni Harper and I’m a Sims addict. I can’t help myself. I’ve whiled away many a precious hour by happily prodding little digital people about to do my bidding. Ok, so they can’t make me a cup of tea or take over the world, but they’re thoroughly entertaining nonetheless.
I suppose because of this I will never be able to be objective about the game. Somehow, EA have cranked out the ‘base’ game, eight expansion packs and eight stuff packs. Stuff packs! Only EA could get away with calling them that and charging us £10 for the sodding privilege!
What is wrong with us, exactly? I own seven EPs and 7 Stuff packs, and I fully intend on grabbing Apartment Life and Ikea Stuff as soon as I possibly can. I will do so fully aware that they will offer me a few more objects and building options, a limited expansion on game play and a gnawing suspicion that I’ve just wasted my money yet again. Again, what is wrong with us?
We can’t blame EA, like a lot of people seem to do. ‘They’re just a money grabbing corporate giant, they don’t care about quality, they just want our cash’. That argument doesn’t really hold water. They’re not an evil corporation; the fact is that like any business, their bottom line is that they have to make money to survive. They made The Sims and it became an absolutely massive success, thanks to the startlingly original game play and excellent design. Then due to popular demand, they started making the expansion packs because, well, they’re not stupid! If your customers are asking for more, you don’t around and go, ‘NO! That’s your lot, now do one!’
So, if it’s not EA’s fault, whose is it? I’ll tell you – it’s ours! Now stop getting your knickers in a twist and let me explain. Like I just said, if you lot didn’t keep buying the games, the developers a) charge less for them, or b) stop making them. It’s not rocket science, isn’t it?
But as any addict can tell you, to stop using smack or buying Sims EPs, you have to admit that you have a problem (The problem that you keep going consistently overdrawn for said EPs). Can we ever admit that to ourselves? If all the EPs had been constantly awful, we could have said, ‘Enough’s enough, I’m off to rejoin the real world and mow the lawn or raise my neglected child or something’. But the problem was, some of them were good. Seasons, for example, was excellent. Bon Voyage was alright. Open for Business sucked, but I borrowed it from a friend so my cash was safe.
Anyway, my point was that we’re not entirely safe from the threat Sims 2 is to our livelihoods and social lives, not until The Sims 3 comes out next year, anyway. Then we’ll all get suckered back in, probably apart from me. With all the Sims content on my PC, I live in constant fear that it’ll eventually implode, so trying to install The Sims 3 would probably bring about nuclear war or something.
Voni
