To be honest, I've always maintained that each iteration of The Sims has its own special thing. The Sims was an excellent, and sometimes very challenging, life simulator where you were hard pressed to just have your sim(s) live. I loved it dearly. The Sims 2 felt like an expansion of life. Opening up all the different pathways that a sim's life could take and giving true meaning to "life simulator" for me. I loved how relationships worked and how everything fit seamlessly together to create a great gaming experience. The Sims 3 was all about adventure and exploration. If I wanted to explore and go on an adventure with my sims, for discovery's sake, The Sims 3 was my jam... I used to say The Sims 4 was all about feelings, and the sim themselves, but I'm struggling these days, even with all the cool content, to compare The Sims 4 with The Sims 2.
I'm going to use the word "Mature" but I don't mean it in a... an adult hub sort of way. I mean it in a, humor and metaphor sort of way.
The Sims 2 had a more mature nature. It felt less like being treated as if I were 12 and more like I'm being addressed, as an adult player. There were little easter eggs and bits of innuendo that would have been lost on me as a 12 year old child that I've grown to really miss. The humor, both dark and light, is what I miss the most about The Sims 2 that is sadly, lacking from the Sims 4 game on the whole. I loved that you could actually die during pregnancy if your player wasn't paying enough attention. I think there was just the right amount of attention paid to life states and systems and none of it felt bogged down or over-wrought in the way that some of the new life states do for the Sims 4. I actually find myself avoiding some of my most beloved life states because they are just too focused on ...whatever it is EA decided they should be. Sims 2 was more open ended and left it to the player to design the fate of them. I miss that. I miss making a witch and allowing my story to unfold my way instead of being forced into Harry Potter via The Magicians .TM
I miss being an alien and having the freedom to live my life without sims shying away from me and being jerks, all the while accepting the evil jerk next door...
It (The Sims 2) Was just over-all, a better game in my opinion and I'd L.O.V.E a graphically updated version of it some day. Digital remastery or whatever you might call it.
