More New Features

Undoubtedly, the Sims team has been flooded with player suggestions for four years now, and it shows in all the added elements in the new game. Here's a collection of intriguing new features:

• Mix-and-match outfits: You're not limited to a particular set of outfits -- weekend fashion designers can get creative mixing tops and bottoms to create original ensembles. The developers said they spent many days perusing catalogs to create a range of suitably hip clothes.
• Make up: Finish off the outfit with the right make-up.
• Advances in architecture: Thanks to the improved graphics, the construction toolbox has expanded significantly in the new game. You can build a four-story tower, sitting on an incline, with curved walls, if you want.
• Love and marriage: In "The Sims 2," sims can have weddings, extramarital affairs, and, if their relationship score is low enough, divorces. The game AI is designed to make logical matches -- attraction and successful relationships largely hinge on personal compatibility.

• Aging objects: It's not just the sims in the house that get old and gray. Keep the same furniture around generation after generation, and the heirloom will start to show some wear and tear.
• Inheritance: If a sim is good to its elders, its elders will be good to it.
• Short Missions: The game will have a number of short missions. For example, a sim may need to invite its boss over for dinner, and make a good impression to advance in its career.
• Visible fitness: If your sim sits around all day playing video games and eating pizza, you'll see him put on a gut. You'll have to get him on the exercise machine to make him fit again.

Photo courtesy EA Games

• Body language: The graphics engine allowed the developers to give the sims very expressive body language. For example, they hunch when they're sad or shy and they strut when they're feeling confident.
• Cameraman mode: The game camera lets you look at the 3-D world from just about every angle. The cameraman mode even lets you look around your world from the perspective of a sim.
• Movie recorder: This feature lets you record the game to create short movies of your sims in action.
• Painting: Sims can paint what they see around them, then sell their masterpieces.
• Spying telescope: Sims can get a telescope to help them spy on their neighbors.
• Days of the week: Unlike the original game, "The Sims 2" will have distinct weekdays and weekends.
• Weather: This sims world will now deal with thunderstorms and the like.
• Joys of parenthood: Sims with kids will have to change diapers and help with potty training.
• Juggling: A fun-loving sim may start juggling various objects, including drinking glasses.