Here are my tips about The Sims 2:
- Don't worry about heat in the summer and cold in the winter. Sims cannot die by them (starvation can). However, there is a very rare chance (0,1%) that sim may catch on fire when they have a heatstroke.
- Needs in The Sims 2 tend to fall quicker than in The Sims 3. If the needs are too low, you can use maxMotives cheat.
- After pressing Control+Shift+C, you can type in a letter and press Tab key to scroll through the cheats that start with the same letter. However, not all the cheats appear that way, especially those that start with BoolProp. Testing cheats is almost never required.
- If a sim gets an illness, don't worry too much about it. Sims need some rest, and that rest they get every day is enough.
- Before you have your sim become a zombie, think twice. You cannot cure them without mods.
- Frequently check the inventory/rewards tab. Aspiration rewards also inculde Aspiration benefits that can slow your sim's needs down, give career benefits and benefits based on your sim's primary aspiration (chosen in CAS). You can also get a secondary aspiration for your sim.
- Try out rotational play. Otherwise other sims aren't going to age, progresss in careers, skills and pregnancy and change.
- Always add sub-neighborhoods (located in the upper left corner in the neighborhood view). There are 4 types of sub-neighborhoods: College, downtown, shopping district and vacation destination.
- Always send your sim to college. College can give your sim either a head start in existing careers or give your sim access to college graduate exclusive careers. These career rewards include cowplant, old photo camera, plastic surgery machine and Resurrect-O-Nomitron.
- Beware! Adult stage lasts for 29 days while baby to teen stages in total last for 30 days. You can only age up a sim when they have 1 day left. However, if you have created a college neighborhood, you can send teen there at any time so they can become a young adult there. Teens that don't go to college become adults instead.
- If there are any annoying or boring music in the game, you can turn it off from options.
That's it.
I agree, I like The Sims 2 music. However, one build mode music is actually boring for me (but I can turn it off at anytime I want). The Sims 2 even allows the player to create their own music stations that can be played by stereos. Unfortunately, there aren't any community lot speakers for the custom stations.