quote:The Sims 2 By Adam R. Holz Calloused hands are usually a sign of hard work. Not for me and Joe. We were teens experiencing the first wave of home video games, and we made the most of it. After convincing my parents we needed the coveted Atari 2600 (I could play Asteroids at home! Imagine!), I made a last-minute switch to Mattel’s brand-new IntelliVision console. We played until we had blisters.
Today’s games would’ve staggered our imaginations. One that has captured the hearts of modern PC gamers is The Sims. Since 2000, Electronic Arts has sold 13 million copies, plus 23 million expansion packs—exceeding $500 million in sales. Now The Sims 2 has arrived, selling over a million copies in its first 10 days. Why is this game so captivating? I immersed myself in The Sims 2 to find out. After hours of play (no blisters yet) I merely scratched the surface, but got a strong feel for what the game is about.
The Sims 2 offers players the chance to guide virtual characters (“sims”) living in a virtual town. Game play centers on two tasks: achieving the sims’ lifetime aspirations (financial success, romance, gaining knowledge, having a family), and meeting eight basic needs: hunger, comfort, bladder, energy, fun, social, hygiene and environment.
Whereas most games are about winning, The Sims 2 is about experiencing sim-life. Every element of the game is customizable, from what your sims look like to their homes, clothes, meals, furniture, toys and hobbies. If you had to condense the American dream into a digital format, it might look like The Sims 2.
The result feels surprisingly true to life. Sims can’t do whatever they want without consequences. They must work to pay bills, buy groceries and interact with others to meet social needs. Staying up late depletes energy and undermines their ability to achieve goals. The Sims 2 mirrors many important lessons from the “real world.”
However, the game also gives characters the freedom to indulge unwholesome sexual appetites. Sims can spend the night with each other, have premarital sex, cohabitate, bed multiple partners, commit adultery, get divorced and enter into same-sex romances. Uninhibited sims will hop into any available hot tub—in the nude. (Players see no nudity, just pixelated bodies similar to today’s reality TV shows.) On the other hand, sims can choose to get married before having sex and/or children.
Some young players will make good choices for their sims. Others might be tempted to “try on” behaviors they have not yet chosen in real life. Thus, the game gives players a chance to practice immorality, albeit in a virtual world.
These problems are significant, but I wonder if a bigger issue isn’t how the sims’ world encroaches on the real one. I spent hours trying to satisfy my characters needs and wants. My wake-up call—literally—came when I found myself annoyed by a friend who phoned while I was playing. I struggled to disengage from the game long enough to listen, a sure sign I’d spent enough time playing.
Likewise, teenagers may lose themselves in this virtual world and grow impatient with reality. After all, the next round of simulated gratification (making money, buying new things, expanding your house, etc.) is only a click away. Sims’ choices are rewarded quickly, whereas we often persevere for years in real life before seeing a comparable payoff. Teens passionate about Christ may even begin to expect God to operate on a similar timetable with a measurable and predictable system of rewards. We know He doesn’t work that way.
It’s not hard to see how The Sims 2 hooks players. Its alternate reality is compelling, especially when real life is hard. Just as sims are driven by their aspirations and needs, teens long for a satisfying life and significant relationships. As a parent, you have the ultimate opportunity to engage with their hopes, dreams and struggles—so they won’t want to exchange vibrant reality for a virtual counterfeit.
posted
I know you were over-simplifying yourself, but I wouldn't count the above as religious fanaticism. Perhaps Christians are getting a particularly bad press these days, being blamed for Bush's Bible-belt re-election corps: I think it could be argued that the review I cited makes some valid points.
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: IPerhaps Christians are getting a particularly bad press these days, being blamed for Bush's Bible-belt re-election corps
so apart from the moral majority, the rich and the predjudiced, who did vote for bush?
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quote:Originally posted by kovacs: . Perhaps Christians are getting a particularly bad press these days, being blamed for Bush's Bible-belt re-election corps:
i really haven't been one to ignore your post kovacs. but mostly they are beyond my small-town american southern baptist upbringing and understanding. i hav'a hard time with long sentences sprinkled with large words and confusing tangents. but thats just me. i would really appreciate your view on the 'bad press' the bible belt re-election corps are getting.
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quote:Originally posted by kovacs: . Perhaps Christians are getting a particularly bad press these days, being blamed for Bush's Bible-belt re-election corps:
i really haven't been one to ignore your post kovacs. but mostly they are beyond my small-town american southern baptist upbringing and understanding. i hav'a hard time with long sentences sprinkled with large words and confusing tangents. but thats just me. i would really appreciate your view on the 'bad press' the bible belt re-election corps are getting.
I'm surprised if you had any difficulty understanding what I wrote above -- it is your imagination if you think there are long sentences, large words or confusing tangents in there.
The bad press the American "Bible belt", which I understand to be the Christian right-wingers who voted for Bush because of his policies on emotive moral issues like abortion and gay marriage, are getting a "bad press" because, obviously, a lot of liberals resent the fact that Bush may have been voted back to power largely due to, or with significant help from, this powerful swathe of the electorate.
But that's not what I actually said: anyway, what I meant was that American Christians in general may be regarded with more than the usual contempt and suspicion by American liberals because people who wanted to see Kerry in power feel that Bush got in, largely, on a Christian vote. I might propose teen movie Saved!, produced I think by noted anti-Bush campaigner Michael Stipe, as an example of the way Christianity is currently, frequently mocked and condemned in mainstream US culture.
I don't think treating Christianity as ludicrous or as an enemy to liberal democracy is useful -- you could be Christian and not anti-abortion or opposed to gay marriage, and indeed be Christian and Democrat. I also feel some of the opinions I encounter on the several Christian media and film review sites I look at are worth taking on board to some extent.
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posted
I think it's a shame that at a time when liberals are all about understanding and respecting Islam, there's such hostility towards the "home" religion of Christianity.
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Christianity is currently, frequently mocked and condemned in mainstream US culture.
Quite. But there are some of us, me included, who might argue that mainstream "US culture" isn't actually American at all. Well the moneybags behind it sure ain't. None dare call it conspiracy, but it all adds up.
I am sure the Tofu-munching liberal elite are seriously pissed off at Bush getting in again. It will make them no doubt step up their anti-Christian agenda, that's for certain. Cue the likes of Messrs Moore and Stipe rolling out more of their trash. Hell, they might even get Rob Black involved too - if he can escape the wrath of a certain Mr. Ashcroft, of course.
quote:...and indeed be Christian and Democrat.
Jimmy Carter was of course a Southern Baptist, so it is possible to be a Christian and a Democrat. Nothing really new there.
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quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I am sure the Tofu-munching liberal elite are seriously pissed off at Bush getting in again. It will make them no doubt step up their anti-Christian agenda, that's for certain.
As you say, Jimmy Carter was a Christian. As are many Democrats. The primary difference, especially on social issues like abortion, is that the conservative, evangelical base whose support Bush, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson enjoy, is they feel completely and utterly morally justified in the imposition of their religiously-based belief system on others.
Christian progressives, such as Carter, and (arguably) Kerry, tend to draw a distinction between the beliefs they hold and the public policy they espouse. Using the issue of abortion as a case in point, this approach allows for personal opposition to the practice with the acceptance that no one person has the God-given authority to wield the laws of a Republic in order to control the actions of others.
In the U.S., the Supreme Court is handed the responsibility to judge what is and what is not within the scope of the Constitution (rooster can speak to the mechanics of this with more authority than I). The court has ruled, though controvercially, to uphold a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. The proper channel, should those who oppose abortion wish to outlaw the practice, is to pursue a constitutional amendment - not, as the American right wing would have it, to attempt to circumvent the Constitutional process by passing laws which illegitimately seek to abridge rights the Court has ruled exist.
There are many things that happen in this country and this world which I disagree with. But I'm not arrogant enough to force the rest of the world to bend to the whim of my opinion - and that is the difference between the evangelical Christians I refer to loosely as "fanatics" and other people, religious or not.
posted
That's a strong post, Froopyscot, and it suggests that the key opposition isn't between faith in God or the non-existence of God, but belief that
quote: one person has the God-given authority to wield the laws of a Republic in order to control the actions of others.
You could quite easily be an atheist and still have this evangelical drive to impose your own moral structure, through a national legal system, onto everybody else.
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I think it's a shame that at a time when liberals are all about understanding and respecting Islam, there's such hostility towards the "home" religion of Christianity.
am i correct in thinking you're suggesting here that islam's roots are in christianity?
if so, then you're mistaken. both christianity and islam trace their ancestry back to judaism and the prophets and the torah and talmud which make up the christian "old testament" and a substantial amount of the qur'an.
all three religions recognise jewish prophets like isiah etc, although each has a different interpretation of their message. islam also sees jesus as a prohpet, although obviously its views on how things shaped up after the beginning of the common era differ somewhat form the christian messianic interpretation.
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posted
Think Kovacs was commenting more on a not-uncommon western liberal stance of preaching tolerance and respect for Islam while indulging in savage mockery of Christianity (ie. their own 'home religion' - not a very useful term imo fwiw).
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posted
I must admit that I find the constant abuse of Christianity somewhat disturbing. No, not disturbing, more vulgar, uncivilized, bigoted. It is of course hilarious that the British lib left rail against the Christian evangelicals in the US whilst holding hands with islamic fundamentalists in the UK.
Anyway, am not supposed to be posting! It's just that the smug attitude of atheists, the patronising jibes aganist believers, that there is nothing of worth in religion, that all the great advancements in civilization would have happened without faith anyway, and that religion is teh sole cause of hatred and war, it strikes me as a fundamentally uncharitable and unsympathetic view of humanity, of our hopes and dreams - which is what faith is after all - condemning the very human need for belief with a tyranny of rationalism.
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posted
Yes, I meant "home religion" as in "home team" -- a quick bit of shorthand intended to convey the sense that Britain is more a Christian country than a Muslim.
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I think it's a shame that at a time when liberals are all about understanding and respecting Islam, there's such hostility towards the "home" religion of Christianity.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not picking on Christianity alone... All Gods/religions are rubbish.
I don't discriminate... I hate everyone!
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If you play The Sims, you will become irrevocably ensnared on a path that leads to eternal damnation!
Religious fanatics are so cute when they oversimplify!
Not really, according to the CCGR (Christian Centered Gaming Review), it isn't so bad!
quote:ESRB Rating - T for Teen (13+) My Rating - T for Teen (13+) Crude Humor, Sexual Themes, and Violence
Graphics - A+
The Sims 2 has completely redefined the graphics in The Sims genre. The Sims are now in 3D! Every object within your Sims world is completely in 3D and fluently in place. To describe the look of The Sims 2’s new graphics engine, hmmm, stunningly amazing. There’s no more pixilated arms, houses, or objects. With the new 3D engine comes a new character customization interface. The many different ways you can create a unique look for your Sims is endless, infinite customization on facial features and body looks are just a few of the new features. With the new looks comes new gameplay options which look a million times more fluent then in the original Sims. For a die-hard Sims fan, The Sims 2 will rock your world when you see its 3D greatness.
Sound - A+
Now we get to the masterpiece in coalition with the graphics. Every single object in The Sims 2 has a sound that it makes, unique to its specific function. The shower waters just like a normal shower and steam floats out of the bathroom. Doors close with a slight knock, and older doors creak shut. A loud clap rings off as you cannon bomb into the pool, and the microwave rings off when your instant dinner is ready. The burglar alarm, along with the fire alarm goes crazy when something is happening in your house that corresponds with their uses. Start a fire and hear crackling and burning as whatever you lit up starts burning down. The sound portion of The Sims 2 is WELL developed and reigns as the best part of the package, aside from the gameplay of course.
Story - A-
There are 3 neighborhoods in The Sims 2, and each neighborhood comes with its own past and present story. Depending on the neighborhood you choose to live in you can either play along with the beginning story or wreak havoc on it, and screw up everything. You can also create your own neighborhood which will harbor your own story for the neighborhood. The 3 neighborhoods are Pleasantview, Strangetown, and Veronaville. After the beginning story you read from clicking on the neighborhoods, the rest you will make up on your own.
Game play - A+
The game play in The Sims 2 is what makes this game, along with its predecessors, so addictive. You create your family, set your aspirations, build or buy your own house, and control their lives. The sims still speak in their own gibberish language, creatively named Simish. If your sim has to go to the bathroom, you’d best get him or her there in time or else bad things happen on your newly decorated kitchen floor. The same goes with the other needs that your sim has daily. Hygiene, hunger, social, bladder, fun, and comfort are some of the needs your sim has. Added onto these selections your sims now have Wants and Fears. The more that you make your sim face his or her fears the closer you drive them to insanity, also by realizing your sims fears you decrease their mood. The same goes for their wants, when a want is satisfied your sim’s mood will rise and he or she will gain aspiration points they can use to buy things from the catalog. Your sims have aspira! tions that range from building a family, earning money, seeking knowledge, experiencing romance, or being popular. Fulfill these and your Sims will achieve 3 different moods; green, gold, and platinum. Buying items out of the aspiration catalog is really cool, and the items rock, but using these items if your sim is not in gold mood could be hazardous to your sim’s health. Some of the items include a money tree that continuously grows money for you, granted that you keep it watered, a thinking cap to help you learn faster, and a sensual hot-tub where other sims can’t resist your charm. Control your sims, fulfill their wants, needs, fears, and dreams, watch them grow, and keep them out of trouble (or in it) and The Sims 2 will prove it addictiveness yet again with this amazing sequel.
Appropriateness - C
The Sims 2 is a great game for mostly all ages, but there are a few rough edges. If you decide to choose the Romance aspiration then your life goal will be to “woo hoo” with 3 different sims. You can fill in the blanks here on your own. When this act is started, a cutscene ensues showing two sims together in compromising circumstances. Nothing is actually shown, but noises are made. When a sim has to use the bathroom or take a shower, they are naked during the process but a VERY pixilated block covers their body sections which is good. While swimming or sitting in the hot tub, women and men wear their swimming trunks/bikinis which can be revealing on certain sims. Passionate kissing and making out is a selection that can be chosen during a relationship with another sim. Also, sims can be unfaithful to each other. I know this sounds a bit picky to speak of, but in case parents are letting their kids play this game they need to know that sims can cheat on each other with bad results. Sims will smack each other around if caught cheating, and they will also rumble if they are angry enough with each other. A burglar can rob your house if you have no alarms installed, and the police will rumble with the burglar if they get there in time. You can also kill your sims, but this is usually out of pure accident. You don’t clean the shower then try to fix the broken radio. When your sim dies, the Grim Reaper will show up to remove the dead sim. He will whip out a pink cell phone, call God, they talk a bit, and a bright light will shine down and take the sim to Heaven. If that’s not hilarious, then I don’t know what is. ESRB put violence in the T for Teen rating which I don’t agree with, because all of so-called violence is comic mischief, but some parents might like it stated what the violence actually is. Well there you go, that is all of the violence and sexual themes within The Sims 2. Other than thes! e points, mature kids 14-15+ should be able to play this game fine.
Overall - A+
The Sims 2 is an insanely addictive work of art. You will find yourself up at 3 in the morning still following your sim through his or her virtual life, its that addictive. The graphics are so well done, and a completely amazing improvement over the original graphics of The Sims. Sound and gameplay both correlate with each other in perfect harmony, and the gameplay is just so darn fun to play. Already nominated for PC Game of The Year, The Sims 2 will continue to reign just like its previous game, over and over again.
Final Ratings
Graphics - A+ (100%) Sound - A+ (100%) Story - A- (95%) Gameplay - A+ (100%) Appropriateness - C (75%)
Overall - A- (92%)
This score may not last though as it has been found out that the gayes are in the game and the score may be dropped to a C...
Doom3 and GTA:SA didn't fare so well though... They are not in God's plan appearently.
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