EA Games has officially announced The Sims 2! At the website of EA Games there's a press release telling us about the main new features of The Sims 2:

"For the first time, players control their Sims over an entire lifetime. Every choice that is made has a relevant and dramatic effect on the life of a Sim. More life-like Sims, all-new gameplay, and the ground-breaking addition of genetics, with the DNA of Sims passed down through generations gives players a more vivid, realistic, and in-depth Sims experience. All of this takes place in a new amazingly life-like 3-D world."

The Sims 2 will also have a Create-A-Sim feature like The Sims Deluxe and the console editions of The Sims. Your Sim will become older, and if they get children they'll have similar characteristics as their parents. If there will be a feature like the "Get-A-Life" mode like the console versions is not mentioned, but we can hope for that. There will also be more than 2 stories, so you can build higher than ever before in The Sims. The sub-title of The Sims 2 appears to be "The Next Generation", although that's not specifically mentioned. However, every caption in the press release starts with "Next Generation". The Sims 2 will be shown at the E3 at 13 May (the E3 takes place 13-16 May), so we can expect the first big load of screenshots and info then (perhaps we'll see the very first things Thursday between the SimDay events). To read the whole announcement, have a look right here. The Sims 2 is expected early 2004, which means only 14 people (14%) got it right in poll held 3 weeks ago.