I remember loving Sims 2, cause I had a ton of mods and stuff, skin, eyes, clothes, furnitures, everything in different styles. Medieval, historical, etc. and hiders, for ingame stuff.
But as you mention visiting wasn't easy in other n-hoods, I tested three or four versions, including UBER-hood om MTS2 with all 3 n-hoods in one big thing. And you were able too add the others as shoppingdistrikts. But my game broke down when I tried to play them.
I want to do the medieval/historical thing again, searching my old sims 2 DLs as we speak. but I will not have a DL-folder bigger then 7 gig, it all lag a lot then. I downloaded a lot of fixes, and used simblender at simbology too. the rotational play was doable if you play legacys.
Sims3 came with the design-tool. I love it, still do. The open world is great too, bigger worlds lags more, but I build more then play, cause I want everything to match... off course I downloaded many beautifull things to Sims 3 too, and mods and fixes.
Sims 4 is fun too, I started play daily when the toddlers came, before that it was boring... Cause I love toddlers in Sims! so the new life stage before toddler is a great thing according to me at least. the CAS I love, I can make the form of my sim that I like.
In all sims games there are to little variations in hairstyles, I often download different hairstyles, clothes, skintones and eyes. And makeup.
