As she already told us, Lucy has been interviewed by IGN. The interview is now available for IGN Insiders. It's a huge download, 300 Mb in Quicktime or almost 150 Mb in Windows Media format, but I've downloaded it. It doesn't give much real new information about the game, though the in-game clips from it are nice to see. You can see some snapshots I've created at the end of this article (in the Read more bit). Most interesting from those videos is that it looks like Maxis has included some Superstar elements, as we can see a lady Sim on the red carpet, with body guards and flashing cameras around her. Other images show the building of the homes, but also Sims jumping on couches, kissing and wrestling. We can also see the creation of a Sim (in-game) for a bit. For more information about what Lucy and Steve Butts, Editor-in-Chief of IGN, had to discuss in those 20 minutes, read on... It's a nice summary of what The Sims 2 is all about again.
[Update 16:20] Some more pictures from the movie, not taken by me, can be found at Snooty Sims. They're posted along with some other shots from recently published movies. You can see them right here.
The interview starts with the usual thank you, after which Lucy's great job is discussed. It's a fun job, but hard work. The whole team is great according to Lucy, and they're full of ideas which weren't possible in The Sims 1. However, thanks to the new engine, they can now do a lot more. The game has to stay The Sims though, and thus Maxis has taken the best from The Sims 1 and put it in the Sims 2. But there are also some new things. The team considers the Sims 2 to be mostly about 3 things: "Dreams, Genes and Extremes."[Update 16:20] Some more pictures from the movie, not taken by me, can be found at Snooty Sims. They're posted along with some other shots from recently published movies. You can see them right here.
They first start talking about the genetics. You can, as we know, play with generations, and so make huge family trees. If you want, you can trace back the ancestors of your current Sim. Of course genetics, which are physical and some personality traits, are passed down to children of the Sims. These are quite advanced; you can guess a bit what the kid will look like as it'll resemble his parents. However, there's a bit of wildcard selection involved, and Maxis has even thought of recessive and dominant genes. But not only genes define the personality of a Sim - it also matters how you raise them. The parents have a lot of influence on their children, and by making them interact with each other, your Sim child can become really nice or really mean. Since you can fully control the Sims, you can influence the Sim's personality that way. That's also the key to The Sims: the player is in control.
The game is now also less focused on fulfilling the direct needs (motives) of your Sims to make them happy. Instead, they have dreams (or aspirations). You can choose the aspiration, for example romance, for your Sim. If you're used to Maxis' humour, you'll know romantic teens won't have enough with just one boy- or girlfriend. Instead, they're a bit lusty and prefer to have multiple boy- or girlfriends. When they grow up to become adults, they may want to get married, but they also may "want to play around a little bit on the side". Sims also have fears, like the fear for being rejected. They can even get nightmares from that. The better they do with their aspiration, the better their aspiration score (also known as life score). That score gives you some feedback about the quality of the Sim's life. Of course it's up to you whether you give your Sim a quality life or not. As known, the life's big moments define the aspiration score in a big way. They're quite cinematic, but with your Sim in the main role. Besides the first kiss, marriage, etc., there are also some less realistic moments like being abducted by aliens (and even getting a child from an alien!), or (for the lonely Sims) being visited by the imaginary social bunny. These are the kind of extremes.
With all those dreams to fulfill, together with keeping Sims happy and raising kids, you may think there's no free time for your Sims. However, the game's still all about time management. Also, if your Sim succeeds in their aspirational track, they will also live longer. Speaking of that, it may discourage players to get attached to their Sims. In the original Sims, every day was a bit like groundhog day, and players started doing some crazy things with the game. With the genetics passing on, you will still find a bit of your original Sims in the kid, which you can get attached to. Ultimately, you can still turn off time, which Lucy reckons is good for the story teller.
In the Sims 1 there was a photo album exchange. This has already resulted in 85,000 stories on the official website. This is taken even further with the Sims 2, as it's also possible to make your own videos. You're the director of your scene. Some cheats will be left in the game to help you create even crazier stories (think of stretching the skeleton, with which you can create giants in the game). You can also make the outer rim of the image to be a bit fuzzy, and make it look like a dream scene. Videos will be saved as uncompressed AVI, which you can process in movie editing software. Part of the success of a story is in the editing part - the way you cut apart the scenes may make a lot of difference, says Lucy.
There's also some talking about relationships. Instead of just making one Sim, you can create complete families. Grandparents may want to see the success of their children and grandchildren as part of their dreams. Relationships in general are a lot deeper now, and Sims are a lot more aware of their relationship with others. Memories also play a big part in this, and stories told through gossiping can influence relationships. The more families that move into the neighborhood, the more they can interact with each other. The game is also more focused on the neighborhood, and not so much on specific houses. The community areas are still focused on the neighborhood. Other areas will be made as the Sims 2 is further developed in expansion packs.
The game is nearing its "finaling" at the moment, but currently the fine-tuning takes a lot of time. The game needs to be tuned extremely well, so the play experience feels "really tight". Meanwhile things are polished too, to make the game easy to understand. The game will be released the latter half of 2004 (latest rumours say September), but the Body Shop will be out "as early as E3". That concludes the long interview. Click the thumbnails below for some snapshots from it.
Written at 04:19 on Tuesday, 11 May 2004 by ChEeTaH.
