Sims 2

Ok, release date was sept 17th and Anj was away on buisness, so i figured, what better way to kill the time while he's gone then to pick up my copy? Well, my damn computer took a shit on me, and it didn't want to install right. So, I had to wait until Anj came back anyway to fix it. He had to do a complete wipe of my hard drive, and re-install windows, just to install the pos.
But- now that its running, everything is better.. o sooooo much better! The camera views in the game can be quite frustrateing to get used to, since the first one, as many of you know was more of a top down sort of view. This one is much prettier, as everything is more 3D now. You don't feel as if you're navigateing a bunch of ants. The camera view when entering community lots are a bit odd though. They once again return to this top down camera angle look, and u have to zoom in to see them up close. But still, the angle is then slightly slanted, and not as crisp as the 3D third person view you get when on your regular lot.
Plus, a bunch of new elements, but one in particular while on the subject of cameras- they now have a story mode, where you can take vid and stills (pix) of your sims in order to make a customized story, a movie, photo album, & blog... about your sims. The only thing I've seen as a downer is that once you add pix to the story, some seem to have disappeared if you have taken a lot of pix. All of your pix and captions will remain in the "blog" section though. So i don't know, it's just weird to me. It seems selective on certain pix that remain in the album (ie-baby's first steps, potty training, etc) I also didn't have much luck w the vid capture part, but i didn't get the sims2 deluxe edition w/ the dvd showing you the functions (frankly i think its a waste, to my knowledge, there aren't bonus items in there anyway)
And the customization capabilites!!... O they're marvelous! I haven't even begun to tap into them yet! But now, you can make them look like you! I, as you've already read from previous posts, have made my family on there. I was thinking that I would eventually make a customized neighborhood and put me and my friends in there, but I don't know. Its hard to watch yourself age. I have to admit that I've turned it off and on just so I could watch the kids grow up (especially after a fiasco w/ a social worker taking away one of my kids- I made the mistake of starting out w/ 2 toddlers, and even with not having either me or Anj working, it was STILL hard to keep up with)
The damn things are so independant now!
They have dreams and fears. You get points for accomplishing dreams, which add up points that you can use to redeem items that you cant buy; that will help them accomplish other things- and lose points if the sim experiences a fear. O and some of the fears are annoying. Try having 2 infants on there and someone having a fear of changing a diaper!)
Fuck, they even have memories; which will consequently lead to them living long lives or not!
There are options on there, that are just... well, lets just say you can have your sims "woo hoo" or "make a baby"...
I feel like a typical girl now- but I love it and I'm hooked even more than I was before. There are already expansions in the works I'm sure, and I'm going to get in on that- at least to bide my time before EQ2 launches.
So that's my review of it for now.. more as it progresses-- plus I still have Fable coming (I got a free copy and strat guide from Anj's conference courtesy of Microsoft and Prima- gotta love em;)
See everyone at launch.
-just a girl gamer productions (copywright-me)