Tag: review
Backlog Reviews – Dark Souls – You’ll Die and You’ll Like it… Mostly.
Miss a game the first time around? So did we. Find out which games are worth going back for with Backlog Reviews when the newest releases squeeze your wallet too tight.
This review was done on Xbox 360.
With news that Dark Souls II is on the horizon for the many gamers that enjoy being abused, now is the perfect time to ask yourself if you should pick up the first one. As a player who never played From Software’s Demon’s Souls and grew up with turned based RPGs (most heavily based on Dungeons & Dragons), Dark Souls comes as a breath of fresh air, if inhaled through the blood filling your mouth from the game punching you in the face for the dozenth time.
The Short Verdict:
An excellent if challenging and sometimes frustrating single player fantasy RPG. A deep but vague story stands as a puzzle for players to assemble for themselves should they choose. The graphics are impressive and only suffer from minor problems. All in all, an excellent game offline marred only for its poorly implemented integrated online features and the occasional frame rate problem.
Story:
You are dead. This is how Dark Souls begins. You might even be able to recognize the character you built in the creation screen moments before underneath all the shrunken decay that currently makes up your face (don’t worry, you’ll be pretty again soon enough). The walking undead are banished to an asylum in the north to “await the end of the world.” Given that you still seem to have your mind intact, at least more so then the shambling legions walking into the walls outside your cell door, waiting might not seem like such a great prospect and so you make your escape. Before leaving, you’re told of the prophecy that one day an undead will leave the asylum on pilgrimage and learn the truth of the curse of the undead in the land of the gods. Guess where you’re getting whisked off to upon walking out the front door?
For a game so determined to not let its story get in the way of the game play experience, there is a surprising depth to it for those willing to dig. Dark Souls primarily practices environmental storytelling, letting players puzzle the tale out for themselves through rare voice overs, sparse and brief cinematics, and the moods infused into the environments themselves. Most characters encountered are either mad or on the verge of it, so long expository dialogue dumps are not something you have to brace for, though the corniness of a merchant’s maniacal laughter may grate after awhile. History tends to be gleaned through item descriptions, and your goals almost always begin vague only taking on more meaning as you progress.
Graphics:
With gorgeous landscapes, detailed armor and weapon models, well designed boss creatures, and a plethora of other pleasing sights, Dark Souls can be counted as a pretty game for this generation’s hardware. The monsters can be considered great because they actually behave in the manner their appearance implies. A giant big enough to pick your character up and toss you like a rag doll will have no qualms doing so if you come within reach. A dragon whose entire underside is made up of a gaping maw of rows of razor sharp teeth will rear up and try to grab you within that wide area, giving you far more then it’s swiping claws to worry about. The environments will also set the stage. A dank and crumbling trap laden fortress will set you on edge at every turn, whereas a remarkably well kept up city immediately following it will lure you into a false sense of security before its indifferent guardians try to cleave you in two because you strayed too close to them only to go back to passive guard duty if you flee.
The collision detection is also surprisingly accurate in most cases, though mostly to your disadvantage. Trying to use a broad swinging blade in a tight corridor will result in clanging off the walls and leaving you open to attack, making a thrusting weapon a better choice, feeding into strategic play. You can cut down swathes of enemies with those same broad weapons though in wider areas. There is some spotty clipping, particularly when using special attacks, and the hit detection can sometimes lag in PvP, but these issues are not frequent enough to hamper play. Bad frame rate drops in some of the larger areas can be a bigger problem though. The area Blighttown is cited as the largeest problem child given it’s an expansive zone with a lot of verticality and a perilous design that revels in chucking you off rickety platforms into poisonous waters.
Sound:
Bang on sound design adds to the immersion well. The variations on each sound based on material are fabulous, with subtle changes depending on what materials are striking each other: metal, stone, wood, leather, decaying flesh, explosive magic, and more. The soundtrack has the occasional sweeping score moments but is mostly atmospheric and this is in no way a bad thing. The arrangement is what you’d expect from a fantasy game, but is appropriate and classic. Sadly, the frequency with which the music is played is low.
Playability:
Dark Souls features live combat rather than turn based. This is where its vaunted difficulty lies. Part of the trick of survival is learning the timing and range of each weapon and enemy. Combat is surprisingly methodical, but satisfying. Death is handled as a respawn rather then a reload, and encourages players to learn. Boss battles revolve around studying tells and learning weaknesses rather then grinding levels. It makes the fights feel surprisingly fair. The few cheap shots it takes are spaced just far enough apart to keep you from feeling invulnerable and keep you paranoid.
While it is possible to build your character badly and spread your attribute points too thin while leveling, it’s actually pretty difficult. You can’t be a jack of all trades unless you’re an obsessive grinder (there is a HIGH level cap), but you are not nailed down to your starting class. Allotting enough points to do low level spells won’t hurt you at all as a fighter, but you will reach a point late game where specialization will give the most benefits. In other words, don’t split yourself between the three different types of magic, or suddenly decide as a melee fighter that you want to hit as hard with a bow as you do with that gigantic 40 strength requirement sword and be able to sprint in heavy armor. Get a feel for your preferences, then focus.
So why after all this praise is there a brutally, “meh,” score? As a single player game I’d give it a 4.5, but when taking the entirety of the game into account, Dark Souls is marred by its interestingly conceived but poorly executed online play.
The game automatically launches in online mode, and there is no visible option to turn it off or toggle it. You need to either not be connected to your account or to the internet. Oddly, being in party chat also bars you from online mode (which by all accounts was foolishly purposeful and not a glitch), though I cannot attest to this also being the case on Playstation 3.
Each player has their own instance of the world to play in, but can choose to try and “invade” other players for competitive combat. While level caps were added in an attempt to stop trolling, a serious glitch destroyed this aspect of the game for vulnerable low level players. There are no restrictions on what armor you can wear in the game, the only thing holding you back being if you’ve progressed far enough to discover the better gear. Likewise, there are no level caps on weapons though there are stat requirements. It is possible through a glitch to duplicate all of one’s fully upgraded end game armor and weapons from one character onto a brand new one. Thus the newest players are the most likely to have to deal with impervious trolls looking only to be a pain in your backside. This glitch was eventually patched, but characters already created with it are not removed, and its existence in the first build means that a character could still be made offline with the game un-patched then brought online later.
Covenants are an interesting idea, adding a depth to the multiplayer by giving a motivation, but also suffer from poor implementation. For example, the “Forest Hunters” are set to protect a zone and any player not of the covenant can be invaded by these players when they trespass on that area. The problem arises when you take into account that passage is necessary for completion of the game, and should you log on during a busy time of day you’ll have two to three invaders dumped on you within a few step every time. Even the helpful “Warriors of Sunlight” break the game, a covenant dedicated to helping other players by encouraging you to summon them as co-op “phantoms.” The world doesn’t scale to the number of players though and the most challenging and rewarding fights can become piffling matters, sometimes even more so with a Warrior of Sunlight due to their covenant bonus being the allowance of a wider level gap between themselves and the hosting player. The last thing you want is for the last battle of the entire game to be over in less then a minute after five sword swings and be left wondering at how anticlimactic the whole experience was.
There’s also no way to separate the co-operative and competitive play. You must be “Human” (fully fleshed, and receiving bonuses for going through the effort to maintain that state) as opposed to “Hollow” (fully undead and lacking bonuses) in order to participate in both co-op and PvP. No one can invade you while you are Hollow, but you won’t be able to summon your friends. In addition, the same penalties for dying at the hands on a creature apply for dying at the hands of an Invader and can actually be worse depending on their covenant. Everything from rare dragon scales to other things like your hard fought humanity bonus can be stolen, whereas the instigating player actually suffers surprisingly few consequences. Couple this with the trolling of low level players and the fact that some people out and out detest PvP in all games, and you have a recipe to drive new players away from the game entirely at worst.
Speaking of summoning your friends, best of luck doing so. There is no party system, no ability to join a session in progress, no way to send an invitation, or target a particular player at all. Players are summoned by placing a “sign” that then shows up in the game worlds of the others on a whole server. If someone needs help, they activate the sign and summon the player. If you want to play with a friend, you’ll have to pre-arrange a location for one of you to inscribe your sign and then proceed to spam it until the other can see it: not too fast though or you may pull it away before it has even had a chance to fully load into their world, but not too slow or you’ll be wasting all your time with it potentially sitting on a different server and lying out where another well meaning player may call you for help and interrupt your plans. Some days I was able to find my preferred co-op partner near instantaneously, others we wasted 45 minutes on our attempts until one of us had to give up and go to work.
The issue I must judge most harshly for however is the fact that online mode has the potential to wipe out all your progress. We are all familiar with the, “Do not turn off your console during an auto save, or you may lose some progress,” messages, but I suffered a glitch in which some ended up meaning all. A power outage occurred just as I was being invaded by another player. I expected I’d be reset to my last autosave, lose a bit of accrued experience, and maybe be missing a piece of gear I’d recently picked up. I was not expecting my save file to be corrupted to the point where even trying to view its details from the menu would cause my Xbox to crash and require me to delete it from the console system menu. The plus side is that Dark Souls is such a learning experience that redoing any portion of it is much easier once you know what’s what, but it still stung to lose 22 hours of gameplay, even if I made it up in 8 (with a liberal application of cooperative assistance). This issue is supposedly rare, though a friend’s save file suffered the same fate about two weeks later due to accepting a party chat invite and not realizing it would unceremoniously boot him from the game with force.
Any other complaints are piffling next to those. Like many games these days, it flirts occasionally with the idea of platforming and fails to do it well. The upgrade system has no integrated walkthrough, but experimentation is not too costly. “Parameter bonuses” are not explained, so some players don’t understand how to get the most out of their gear and skill point distribution. It’s not a game in which there is any shame in consulting a wiki.
Entertainment:
Dark Souls stands as an entertaining hack and slash for those willing to pace themselves and not button mash. Its abusive nature and high degree of challenge make it a game I would not recommend to an easily frustrated friend, but would pass on to anyone looking for a sense of accomplishment in overcoming its trials. The journey may be important, but that sweet sense of victory is a pretty nice destination to enjoy.
Replay:
High. “New Game Plus” features are included, with progressively increasing difficulty and experience rewards as well as a high level cap accessible no matter how many play throughs you are in to the game. Just don’t let the ending get you down.
Revolution and Revelations: Assassin’s Creed III Review
No matter what anyone says, I still hold that every Assassin’s Creed title is better than the last. The franchise as a whole has shown immense growth over the years, from the second title’s greater focus on a single laid-out story, to the city renovation gameplay of Brotherhood and Revelations, the third and fourth releases in the series. Assassin’s Creed III continues the trend with a ton of new features, while improving on the existing ones, and an inspiring story of rising from oppression and fighting for one’s freedom.
Assassin’s Creed III picks up right where the last one left off. Desmond Miles, now knowing fully that humanity is doomed if he doesn’t act, sets off to find the mysterious remnants of Those Who Came Before. In his travels, he and his cadre of assistants come to a temple that may hold the answer to saving the world – and its key lies in Desmond’s ancestral memories.
Like the previous games in the series, the vast majority of the game involves the player entering the Animus, a device designed to allow its user to traverse the memories and experiences of their previous ancestors. This time around, Desmond is thrown in the middle of the American Revolutionary War as Ratonhnhaké:ton (known by his given American name, Connor Kenway) a Native American whose people are threatened by British and, more specifically, the Knights Templar. Believing in freedom, justice, and the American way, Connor systematically hunts down the six Templar agents who seek to end the American Revolution – and in doing so, reveals to Desmond the location of the key to the salvation of mankind.
As intense as that sounds, however, this is the one place where Ubisoft doesn’t really deliver. As an American myself, the story hits really close to home, centered as it is around our own Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, the focus seems to be entirely on giving the player a taste of the major battles of the Revolution, and nothing more. Events are played out fairly sporadically, jumping from one major point of the war to another. Interspersed between the battles are portions of Connor hunting down the enemy Templar agents, with Connor only occasionally dropping in on the American war effort when he sees an opportunity to assassinate one of his enemies. What I’m driving at is that there’s very little focus on the actual Revolution, and entirely too much on the battle between Connor and the Templars.
Along that same vein, Ubisoft’s character development was lackluster at best for Assassin’s Creed III. There are definitely some great characters in there – Israel Putnam is very entertaining, and the fictional Haytham Kenway could be described as a gentlemanly asshole; but aside from that, there aren’t very many truly memorable people. Though a number of them have great potential to be interesting, so little time is dedicated to them that you don’t get to enjoy their company before moving on to the next piece of history. Even Israel Putnam only enjoys two brief scenes before being forgotten. The same can be said for the Templar villains of the game – aside from the two people at the top, the group is mostly forgettable, and there’s no real connection made with them, no real reason to want them dead. I’m reminded of Brotherhood, because Ubisoft went out of their way to describe just how the game’s villains, Cesare and Lucretia Borgia, were terrible human beings that deserved to die. By the end of Assassin’s Creed III, however, I felt a far better connection with the characters who showed up during one of the side-missions, rather than those who Connor had purportedly fought with – and against – for years.
Now, with all that said, I really had to be kind of impressed with Connor’s character in the end. Throughout the game, he’s a very childish, naïve person who honestly believes that killing the Templar agents (and aiding the American Revolution) will both keep his people safe, and promote freedom and equality for all. Even his own father, at one point, calls him out on acting like a child despite being in his mid-20s. By the end of it, however, Connor begins to see just how he was wrong, and that maybe the Templars weren’t quite as evil as he thought. On that note, I might also remind readers that Ezio Auditore, hero of the Assassin’s Creed II trilogy, started out in much the same way, but became a wise and powerful mentor to the Assassins’ Guild.
So overall, the story and characters were sort of meh, which is understandable considering that the highly-praised Ezio trilogy had just come to a close. But the meat of a game is its gameplay, not its story, and that is where this one shines.
The basic formula is still there, same as always. Players move around a vast, open world with a myriad of collectibles and side-missions to find (all of which have kept me playing this for a week straight) while utilizing stealth and swordplay to further their goals. Stealth is done by smoothly blending into the crowd, quietly ducking into a bush, or leaping into a haystack, for which the series has become famous. Though it’s still kind of ridiculous at times, the game now adds a more realistic element – if a guard is investigating you, you can no longer hide. That alone makes Assassin’s Creed III far more challenging and honestly a little frenzied at times.
The swordplay, on the other hand, is something that still gets me a little giddy. Never before in the series has the combat been so graceful, so beautiful to watch. It’s almost identical to the system that made Batman: Arkham Asylum famous; rather than pulling off any specific moves, you essentially just aim in the general direction, and Connor will perform an appropriate move. What makes it so great is that there are a wide variety of maneuvers for each and every weapon (of which there are numerous), and all it takes is the press of a button to pull each one off. Plus, gone are the days of the blocking circles from previous games, where enemies would stand in a circle around you holding up their swords in a defensive gesture. Instead, enemies will freely attack you, sometimes even two or three at a time. As defense against this, you no longer have to hold down a block button; there’s now just a single “counter” button that can be used at any time, even during a combo, to deflect an incoming enemy attack. It all results in a gorgeous, free-flowing combat that’s immensely fun to fight.
One last thing that needs to be touched on is another new feature of Assassin’s Creed III: the ship-to-ship combat. Yes, with the fifth title in the series, Ubisoft added in a whole extra game mode to play with, a sort of mini-campaign where you take control of the Aquila to play a role in some of the naval battles of the Revolution. I can’t stress enough how excellent this gameplay is – on the surface, it looks pretty easy, with fairly simple controls (turn left/right, switch between no/half/full sails, and two types of cannons to fire on each side) but with a whole level of complexity that turns it into a whole game of itself. Combat requires absolute precision in sailing up at full speed, then rapidly dropping to half speed in order to turn and unleash a broadside while diving for cover to avoid the enemy’s return fire. Then there are the swivel guns, which can fire at a pinpoint but do less damage – vital for taking down the smaller gunboat ships. And just to throw you for another loop, the game throws in random rogue winds and waves, just as you might face on a real ship. If I had to ask for one thing from Ubisoft, it would be an entire game centered around this, because it’s just a beautiful system.
Overall, I find I have very little to complain about with Assassin’s Creed III. There’s a metric ton of things to do compared to previous ones (I totaled it up to a massive twenty-four things to do on the side, plus a twelve or so hour storyline), and all kinds of Easter eggs and collectibles to discover. I normally take a staunch stance against paying full price for games, especially ones that have only a ten-hour storyline, but Assassin’s Creed III was worth every penny. The fact that it had a tremendously strong ending, when it could have gone the way of Mass Effect 3 is a great bonus.
Even if it’s your first foray into the series (and if so, why are you playing the third game in the series first?), I strongly recommend it. Few other games will give you your money’s worth as well as Assassin’s Creed III.
Android Game: Cupcake Stand
The game is free to play, and is a nice game to just casually play when you have nothing else to do. It has a addicting side to it where you try to go as far as you can in the endless mode. When you open the game you have to unlock the 3rd and 4th mode of the game. That is done by passing the first two. Here are the modes:
Park Dash ~ Easy
Paris Dash ~ Medium
Candyland Dash ~ Hard
Cake Frenzy ~ Continuous
In Cake Frenzy, it’s not like Tetris or Diner Dash, where it is endless but you continue the level until the day is over. The goal is to earn enough money to continue to the next stage.
How to play?
The concept of the game is simple. Look at what your customer wants, then choose the corresponding cupcake, then choose the frosting then finally the toppings. When you have completed the order, click on the customer to give them what they want.
One thing I found out is that once you apply toppings, you can’t put add any frosting. Topping can go on in any order. If by any chance you make a mistake, you can dump out the cupcake. To be honest, you have better luck and save on time by just giving the customer the wrong cupcake. They will pay you less, but you will have the time to go onto another customer.
There are reaction chains that can be done, resulting in getting several cupcakes in a row correct, and in a timely manner. Each customer starts off with three hearts on top of their head, if you can keep three hearts semi filled then you’re golden. A tricky part is the android guy. He comes with a platter, and ask you to make several cupcakes. Choose a corner and start from there.
Final thoughts
This is a well worth casual game. Some of the players who’ve commented on the game only reference the first two levels, and well of course they are going disappointed be they didn’t complete them. Like any casual game the endless mode is what makes the game worth it.
A Look at Heart of the Swarm: Mothership Core
Heart of the Swarm is hitting full beta mode, and with it we are now getting a good look at the new design for the game. It’s too soon to tell where the metagame will be, but we can take a guess where multiplayer is set to go with the new units. Each week, I will invite you to take a closer look at a new unit in the Heart of the Swarm beta and keep you up to date on the changes as the Starcraft 2 development team tweaks the balance.
Our first review is perhaps the first you’ll see on the field in a match with a Protoss: the Mothership Core. The future of the Mothership in Starcraft 2 was tenuous for a large time of pre-beta. However, as the only viable answer for PvZ endgame and the only hero unit in multiplayer, many fans dissented against removing it. Instead of taking the ultimate ship off of the playing field, Blizzard made it even more critical to the Protoss strategy.
Slotomania: Facebook to the IOS to Android
Currently I am working on rebuilding my computer so I can play Starcraft 2 but in the meantime my coworker got me hooked on a game called Slotomania, simple game of slots. What’s intriguing about this game is the fact you can level up, unlock additional games, each game has it’s own unique bonus round and you can interact with friends. One of the nice things about the game is that it syncs up your game with your facebook, IOS (if you have an iphone) or Android phone. This makes it easier to play on the go.
To encourage to play more every four hours you get a bonus, which depends on your level. After collecting 4 bonus you can spin for a mega bonus, which is a lot more money. If your friends get 5 in a row or reach bonus round they can post to their Facebook page and you can click on it to receive between 200 and 500 dollars towards your game. If you get scatter you can not only get free spins but you can share them with friends too.
My First Impressions Video
A Few Weeks Later
What I have discovered worked for me is to change your bets. Bet low for awhile then bet high then low again. Usually that helped keep me ahead of my friends and level faster. It’s all probability in the game but the graphics are really nice. Final opinion is that the game on facebook works a lot better than on my android phone. Bonus games run much smoother and same with just the slots in general.
NCG League of Legends Review: Diana, Scorn of the Moon
Talk about a cool introduction to the League! Diana, Scorn of the Moon, has perhaps the best login music to League of Legends I have heard in a while. Don’t believe me? Enable that login music again and check it out. They didn’t just stop there: Diana is a welcome addition to many five-man groups. She performs as an absolute monster at ganking and has amazing skills in the jungle. However, Diana is perhaps not as horribly overpowered as Zyra, who recently found herself on the nerf end of a hotfix after she was too good at, well, everything. How does Diana do it? And if you’re on the opposite side of her, how can you stop her?
Diaper Dash Review
Of the several games available on the Dozen Dash game I chose as one of the games to try was Diaper Dash. It seemed like a silly title and maybe very much a game for casual players, particularly mothers.
The story line is about a scientist who works at a kid’s toy company. He gets fired because he picks up a child and they are not suppose to pick up “test subjects”. He ends up going to see Flo, main character from the Diner Dash series. He decides to start up a Daycare.
His daycare includes several inventions and as you try to earn enough money to finish them as well as help him grow his daycare business.
Just like the Diner Dash games there are color coding on customers. There are only 2 colors for this game, pink for girls and blue for boys. The babies don’t like staying in one place too long. They either need to get th
eir diaper changed, get fed, play in the play area, sleep or go see their parents. If the baby is upset because you don’t give them attention they will cry.
The game ends up being pretty entertaining. I tried the endless mode.
Worms! Holy Hand Grenades and Sheep!
Oh the many nights that I have spend blasting little cartoon worms to bits and giggling in glee as I throw a Holy Hand Grenade and get the warm satisfaction when I hear, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” and am greeted with the awesome results of a massive crater.
Now you can relive the good’ol days with this classic port for Android mobile. Many of the great old school weapons return like:
- Jet pack
- teleport
- Fire Fist
- Uzi
- Holy Hand Grenade
- Sheep
- Air Strike
- Ninja Rope
- Girder
- AND MORE!
Not only can you just play by yourself, but you can easily play with a friend the old fashioned way of passing the controller, err… I mean phone between the two of you!
Many of the familiar game mechanics have made a come back including, my favorite, dropping a stick of dynamite next to someone and hopping away.
My biggest gripe about the game is that the controls take a little bit to get used to, and the feature of being able to zoom in and out on the map is a little cumbersome. Lastly, I don’t really think that the difficulty level scales very well from easy to medium, but such is life if you are aiming to blow up little worms.
I would give this game a 4/5 game score.
Samurai’s VS Zombies! That’s right, I said it.
Look at all those ads!
One thing that Glu Mobile does well is make tons of time consuming games that either have tons of in game ads, or that you are required to purchase items as the game progresses to get the full experience, or even to just make it to the end of the game in some instances.
This game, however is a little bit different than what I would have expected. Not only do you not need to buy items to successfully make it to wave 25, but you get free gifts for continuing to play just a little bit every day. (I’m pretty sure their trying to help feed your addiction)
Now with that being said here is a quick walk through of how to play, as well as how the game works!
After the title screen you will be greeted with your gift of the day for continuous play, after that screen you will see this. This screen, which is just like every other “upgrade” screen in most games will let you pick what you want to upgrade. The tabs on the left let you upgrade your hero, which is the main character, your trusty back up soldiers, and your special items for use during the game.
The next screen that you will see is where you can pick select your trusty minions to haplessly defend your village from the many baddies that are waiting to destroy you, as well as you can allocate charms, and even special skills.
As you can see, if you have ever played a side scrolling defender game, all of these items around the screen should look pretty standard. The only thing I really have to say is that the graphics are great, and the game play is flawless.
All in all for being a free game with the option of being able to buy extra items to make your life easier I think the game deserves a 7/10 score.
Dusting Off My Shelf for Sims 2 and the Expansions
The original Sims was pretty fun and I took the time to collect some of it. The issue was that your Sims never died unless you killed them on purpose. So there weren’t generations and so eventually you got tired of it. The sequel was the Sims 2, which is my favorite of the Sims series. It’s not too complicated and it’s more direct on what you’re able to do. That is why when I purchased the Sims 3 I felt overwhelmed.
It took me about 4 years to collect all of the Sims 2 Expansions and every once and awhile I will go into a phase where I play it. The purpose of the game is to control people aka Sims and their lives. You can raise a sim family, their pets and what they do with their life. Create a Utopia family or a rebel family. Your Sims can get married, have kids, age, die and go on to the next generation. With the expansions they’ve added different elements such as witches, vampires, werewolves and zombies. I never got to make a zombie or werewolf which I want to learn how to do in the future. You can create the homes they live in and also share your creations at sims2.com. Also you can customize hair, clothes or make your sims look like your favorite T.V. characters.
Here is a break down on all of the Sims 2 Expansions. It’s still a great game and I encourage everyone to try it out if you haven’t already.
The Sims 2 University
In order to get your Sims into college you must send them before they become an adult when they are a teenager. Never after that can your Sim go to college or if they drop out of college they can’t go back to college. This expansion adds on scholarships for your sim, so when they go to college they can use that money to get a dorm room or a house. As your Sims do well in school they qualify for additional scholarships. Before your senior year you must settle on a major. Now the benefits of this expansion includes progressing in your career faster, gaining an extra desire box and adding more life to your Sims.
College life is a separate generation from the original Sims 2. In your college life you can become sexually engaged with anyone your age or an adult. You can’t get married and can’t have kids in college. You can also increase your social experience by getting into a fraternity or sorority.
The Sims 2 Bon Voyage
This is the expansion that completed my Sims 2 Collection, a gift from my little brother. Now the purpose of this expansion is to let your Sims go on a vacation. You have several choices including camping, Asia or the tropics. While on vacation your Sims can learn some new skills such as being a ninja and teleporting. The nice thing about this expansions is that you don’t have to take your whole Sims family on vacation and you can invite a guest on vacation who isn’t part of your family. In the game your Sim family includes the Sims who live in your household. If your Sim wants to have an affair they can invite their mistress on vacation without the wife finding out.
While your Sim is on vacation everything back at home freezes in time. You can call your friends and family to keep in contact with them.
The Sims 2 Seasons
Add in the elements of the four seasons. Your Sims can have a SNOW DAY and not have to go to school. This also add some activities such as farming, snowman making, snow angels, raking leaves and snow ball fights. This expansion is more of a headache because there isn’t that many days between the different seasons. If you aren’t careful and leave your Sim outside too long they can get sunburn or freeze. If your Sim children gets to a freezing level and you don’t warm they up fast enough they will be taken away by the government.
The Sims 2 Apartment Life
As you add on my expansions the game gets increasingly more difficult because you have more going on. The Sims 2 Apartment Life increases it by a lot. The biggest problem is that even so you are playing a family in an apartment you still have your neighbors running around. Your neighbors can just show up and walk right into your apartment if you’re not careful. It can be to your benefit because only in the apartment can you ask your neighbor to watch your kids for you while you’re at work. Rent is due every Monday and if you don’t pay your landlord will show up at your house. A benefit though is that your landlord will come fix everything for you if you remember to call them.
Now since you have a apartment that mean you share walls so your neighbors can be loud and keep you up. So stop that you must either slam on the wall to tell them to stop or go to their apartment and confront them. This expansion is harder to multitask because you have so many people to try to get along with in the same building. Not everyone you see you can control.
The Sims 2 Open For Business
This is the one expansions that I have not mastered at all. It probably gets you really thinking about a real business. You can have a business in your own home or in a separate building in the city. There is an addition of activities you can do now including woodworking, florist, building toys, cooking and a salon. I can’t really give you any tips on this expansions because I haven’t really figured out how to successfully run a business in this game.
You have a meter for how happy your customers are but I have no idea how to keep them happy. Whatever you do, don’t have your business at home because people just walk in and won’t leave.
The Sims 2 Pets
You have an addition to the family which can be a cat, dog, bird or hamster. When you go to the pet store you can personalize your pet down to what color their eyes are or what shape they are. If you’re too lazy to go load a trip to the pet store you can just adopt a pet from the pounds. When you don’t good care of your pet and they are sad they can run away. Make sure to get them a collar or you will never see them again. Pets can mate, age and die. Took me awhile to figure out that you need to buy a dog house for your pets to mate and they must really like each other for you to suggest them to mate.
The nice addition is that your pet can learn skills and also get jobs. It’s a nice way to add a little to your Sims income. Also if you’re tired of a pet you can send them to the pound or you can sell them to a friend.
The Sims 2 Nightlife
Your teenagers can either ask permission or sneak out at night to go out with their friends. You can go out gambling, bowling, singing, dancing and so much more into the middle of the night. It does drain your Sims energy but a benefit is that when you can home again time has not passed. If you leave at 10 pm then go downtown when you get back it’s still 10 pm. So you have time to catch up on sleep and get ready for the next day.
The Sims 2 FreeTime
Out of all of the expansions this one is my favorite because it adds more that your Sims can do with their free time. They can have game nights, dance, work out, fix cars and create pottery goods. As they get better with everything they can make money from selling items or participating in contest. For all the gamers out there your Sims can participate in Gaming tournaments.
This is just a fun expansions to give your Sims more to do. If you were to just get one expansion I would say get this one.
Additional Item Expansions
This final list doesn’t need to be described separately. They are expansions that just add additional items to your game. This can include, furniture, wall paper, clothes and items in general. They don’t add onto your experience as far as interactions with your sims.
The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design
The Sims 2 Celebration Stuff !
The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff
The Sims 2 Teen Style Stuff
The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff
The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff
The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff
The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff
Review Of The Sims 2
This is one of those games that I can get in the mood to play for a few weeks then stop playing for a few months then play again. It’s nice because of the replay value in the game. My only issue is that it takes up so much memory in your computer. If you play too many generations then it will reset the whole game for you. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past the 7th or 8th generation of Sims which is a disappointment.
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