Happy Birthday dear Sims.
I've think I have started 2004 with Sims 2, but my laptop hadn't enough power, the game crashed with the intro. But a year later I've started with playing Sims 1 and the addons which were bought a few days later. It helped me through a rough time, being alone in a foreign Country several thousand miles away from home, with a mean boss and a torn ligament.
Best memory, hands down, was seeing a little toddler, named Mandy, climbing out of her crib in Sims 2. Unforgettable.