already got madden - great game. can't wait til sept. 20 - nhl 2005 is out on x-box. october 5, nba live 2005 for xbox. tis a great time of the year.
just some word of advice, don't give into the EA marketing machine. I mean it's your personal preference but... ESPN NHL 2K5 blows EA's NHL Game, and it's been destroying it for years... http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/sports/espnnhl2005/index.html?q=espn+nhl+2k5
i'll never buy any other sports game - mostly cuz of home-pride. EA always has canucks announcers (used to have Grizzlies ones) and their head studios are about 5 minutes away from where i live. i've played the ESPN games and honestly didn't care for them a whole lot - probably cuz i tried them while already having the bias that i have.
I have the first sims and a couple of the expansion packs. I will have to investigate to see how the second is different. If it is different enough than the first one i will probably get it, later on down the line.
What difficulty were you playing on? Put in on All Madden and the defense actually puts up a pretty good fight; i've had the ps2 version since it was released and still find it difficult to score on teams like Baltimore and New England.
When I get my Radeon 9700 back and finish Doom 3, I think Sims 2 might be next. I always had a heck of a time with the original Sim. I'd completely run him into the ground. I'd keep losing my job, or passing out, or being depressed, or hungry, or um, being unhygenic, and so on. I was awful at that game!!!
From what I have read, being unhygenic and hungry will be a thing of the past. The AI is supposed to do a better job of taking care of those types of tasks. One of the complaints was that you spent so much time micromanaging your sim to eat and pee that you couldn't enjoy doing other things. The new version supposedly focuses on letting you spend your time trying to get your sim developed the way you want them. I am considering picking this game up sometimes in the next couple of weeks. I really wanted to wait and see some reviews before I buy it.
I am thinking of picking it up too. Doesn't it come out today? I might get it this weekend. One game that I am really looking forward to getting my sticky fingers on is GTA San Andreas....I can't wait to throw my $50 their way.
I picked up Sims 2 yesterday. So far I am realy liking it. If you liekd 1 you will definitely like 2. If you didn't like 1 you still may like 2. It has a really nice graphics upgrade and ther are some additions to the game play. The interface is very similar to the first one. The best improvement IMO is the addition of very clear goals. ther is something for your sim to work towards. There are 5 aspirations to choose from. Currently I am aspiring to gain fortune (the others are family, romance, popularity, and knowledge). in addition with each aspiration set you have wants and fears. The goal is to accomplish the wants and avoid the fears. Some of my current wants are to get a promotion, buy certain expensive items and invite over my love interest. My fears are death of a love interest, missing my carpool and having something stolen. In this version I have found it much easier to manage tasks for my sim. They have added a reward system for this also, so that when you complete goals you can get items to help your sim. You won't have to spend most of your time showering going to the bathroonm and eating (if you have a job, your hunger bar increases to coincide with a lunch break). And they have even gone so far as to add several skill categories to help out. You learn cooking and cleaning by doing both. As your sim gets more proficient at them he will begin to do them without being told. You still have to do these things sometimes, but in the first version it seemed like everytime you turned around you were having to do a routine task and couldn't develope relationships properly. Speaking of relationships, there are a ton of new animations added. You can also develop friendships with phone conversations. The only problem I have had so far is that my sleep patterns are all messed up. It is hard to keep a mormal day night cycle going. My sim seems to tire pretty fast and I find him low on energy around 8 pm. Then he sleeps until 2 am and gets up. The only positiv eis that you can't have people over that late so all he has to do is work on skills for his job as an all-star athlete. The game also shipped with a skin editor, but the instructions for it are not good. I had to play with it for a little bit before I figured it out. Basically you export a clothes item then you have to edit it in a seperate graphics progam and then import it back into the game. I was able to make my own Rockets T-shirt for my sim. So far I have enjoyed playing. It is fresh and the changes from the original have really suited me. They have tweaked the parts of the game play that I disliked the most with the original and really made it a fun game to play.
I got it yesterday and I'm enjoying the heck out of this game too. I went with the political career track and I'm a state legislator right now. One problem I'm facing is that I'm engaged to one of the pre-made Sims in the game, Nina Caliente. It didn't occur to me that her character was so promiscuous. When I had her move in, I looked at her goals and fears. She wants to make "woohoo" with 3 different Sims and her fears include getting married to my character and being rejected if she tries to make "woohoo" in public.
That is hilarious. She has come over to my house a few times but we didn't mesh. One of my long-term goals is to marry someone rich. It would be nic eto know a little about the premade characters ahead of time. Especially since I started wooing a premade character named Brandi. After we fell in love I found out her last name was Broke. I just can't seem to seal the deal either. Part of that problem is that everytime I get close to a day off I get promoted and my off days change. I think I'll save up som evacation days and then get married.
Well I managed to marry her, but now her next fear is having a baby and my character's goal is having a baby. To advance in my political career, I need more family friends. I think you can adopt kids, I've seen that on the phone, and option is adoption agency, though I thought maybe it means that you give up you kids or something. Anyways, I'll have to look into that tonight as my Sim only has 10 days left before he becomes an old man. If you want to learn about the premade Sims, just click on the occupied houses. Brandi Broke's husband died in a freak pool ladder accident, leaving her with 2 kids.
Great, so not only am I trying to bone a poor woman, if I marry her I'll inherit her kids. Time to end this relationship.
Played the game the whole day yesterday. I'm at the top of my career in law enforcement. Funny thing, I married Nina's sister, Dina Caliente. We both have the same aspirations, getting rich. She was broke as hell when I married her, but she's a mad scientist and makes alot of money. Both of our goals are pretty simple now, buying expensive items, kissing, flirting, wahooing with each other. We both did have goal to have a baby, but we need to buy a bigger house first. I'm thinking about changing careers because this one doesnt pay as much. Also I love the different scenarios you encounter at work. I once got promoted for picking the right answer, and also had to pay a 10,000 fine for picking the wrong answer. My only complaint so far is that your adult age way too fast. Everything else has been good so far.
Career goal of being rich and being in law enforcement? Uh, oh I smell an officer on the take! Maybe you can just have your wife set up a meth lab in the basement!
Yeah, I faced a dilemma too. I was a lobbyist and I had to lobby a politician to not vote for a bill that would halt construction on a major freeway through an animal preserve. This was going against my conscience so I had to either do my job or secretly lobby for the politician to vote for the bill. I was actually trying to follow my conscience, but I misunderstood the choices and picked the other option. I ended up getting a 5,000 bonus and I was told that there were too many Sim Llamas anyways, so it wasn't a big deal to build the freeway.
My scenario in athletics was when I was a starter. It was about an endorsement for a company that was just starting up. It pretty much said that All-Stars normally get endorsement deals but this one was oofered to you. I turned it down and they gave it to an All-Star. Then the company made the guy dress up in a silly costume and say racially insensitive things. The company went bankrupt and the stars career went in the toilet. I also had one where i was a junior mascot and the head mascot quit. I had the choice of staying as is or stealing the spotlight. I chose stealing the spotlight the first time I got it and I was fired for doing stupid dance moves. The second time I got it I chose to keep a low profile and I got promoted to the head mascot.
The SIms 2 is soo damn addictive. I hope in their expansion pack you could adopt a pet(s) or buy one. My Sims is engaged but when I brought ask her over she asked if she could bring someone over and I said yes. So she came over with another guy and we greeted passionated and all the sudden the guy got p!ssed and slapped her. So I told him to get the hell out and he left. I haven't been to other neighbour's house yet so I don't know what her relationship to this guy is all about. My Sims fear is death and marriage I think. By the way my SIms is a female. LOL It's soo good to experiment! I'm thinking my next experiment would be acting out one of my favorite tv show The L Word! LOL! Ah how good to play GOD! Anyone is using an ATI video card? I'm using ATI Radeon X800 Pro is is lagging badly at time. Must be the driver even though I have the latest driver.
Is it possible to go to a neighboring house? If so how do you do it. I wouldn't mind going to another house and mooching some food from them since they do it to me.
