A new designer diary has arrived at GameSpot. Although it's been Lucy Bradshaw talking about the game in those diaries before, this time it's producer Jonathan Knight. The article is all about the aspirations (wants and fears) of the Sims in the sequel. Here's a little bit of the article:

"You might not think that potty training the sims sounds like a real job, but in a strange way, that's exactly what our team has been up to for the last several months as we put the finishing touches on the new gameplay innovation in The Sims 2. With a new interface, a new simulator, and the same old Maxis humor, we've had a blast taking "that people game" to the next level. Here's a sneak peek into how we arrived at our revolutionary new game design..."

It comes with several new screenshots, including a couple of the in-game Create-A-Sim. The interface for that has been improved a lot since November. Finally four little movies of a begging sim, sims looking at sims of the other sex (twice), and a scientific experiment, of which 2 screenshots have also been posted. For all the juicy details, go to the GameSpot article, screenshots page or the movies page (the "Official Movies" 2, 3, 4 and 5 are new).

[Update 20:30] The Sims 2 GameCentrum has posted snapshots of the 4 movies. See this page for those. Thanks to Laku for this tip.