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[David]

Kinda of a disapointing expansion, I always expected the last expansion pack would be the most amazing one.

[Sita]

Greg I think I've heard you say this before... isn't the Sims about consumerist society? as in 1950s Western culture? that's how it looks to me - you know, buy it, throw it away, buy a better one, break it, buy it - money makes the world go round. And yes SIms 2 brought in some rather wretched motives. Sims 1, which I am playing at the moment, is PURE consumerism ) while Sims 2 for me is closer to a model of "real" people, but still a VERY long way away. Mind you, psychologists and sociologists can't agree on a model so how can we expect EA to find it?

Oh, and I hear that the Japanese and other Far Eastern players love the "potty" emphasis of Sims. (But I too am relieved they left menstruation out of it!)

I still dream of someone making a better model. But I'm sorry to say all the "games" I've seen that try to, make a far worse job of it than Sims 2, even with large expenditure of $$$. Somehow, amazingly, EA have got something nobody else has.

Originally Posted by Greg

It's a matter of what you find to be amusing, of course. I see the Maxis model as focused on the sleaziest, most undesirable characteristics of human psychology while demonstrating outright hostility to nearly all that is noble. Their only creed is self-centered, sociopathic hedonistic greed. I could (and have) gone on about that for hours so I'll spare you the essay.

They seem to have a dedication to the inconveniences of human life as well. I suspect that the only thing that kept Maxis from including menstral cycles in the game was the risk of losing their T rating.

For me, what it adds up to is that it's a pretty good tool for building houses and characters to live in them but, as I've said before, it's a toy, not a game. If EA were to stick with building simulations and leave it to others to build games around them, they might not be so vulnerable to competition. As it is, though, anyone with $20 million in capital to invest could blow them out of the water in just a few months.

[Greg]

Sita, naw, human society has never been either as bad as The Sims 2 or even a hint of the media-hyped notion of a "consumerist" society. That's just a strawman that people invented so they would have something they could feel superior to.

Hey, maybe that's the real value of The Sims! No matter how nutty you are, you'd have to totally out the window to be as bad off as a sim!