Some people already received the Sims 2 strategy guide from Prima. It has some useful information in it, but be warned: this info goes quite in-depth and may spoil the fun for you exploring the game yourself. The info includes some cheats (including money and camera cheats), some details about the career tracks and how to do basements. If you haven't already ordered it yet, you can order the strategy guide from our shop. Read on at your own risk for the details...
Note that this information was posted by a user of the BBS, and we're not responsible for it. Correctness cannot be guaranteed.Cheats:
The 'aging -off' or 'aging -on' cheat was already published by EA yesterday. Today the following cheats have been added:
- Kaching: Get ยง1,000
- Autopatch [on/off]: Turn on/off auto updating of the game. If on, you will be informed if there are updates to the game.
- moveobjects [on/off]: Similar to move_objects in The Sims 1, this allows you to move or sell any object on the lot. This can cause problems in the game!
- Vsync [on/off]: Improves the visual quality of the game by doing Vertical Synchronizing. It's on by default, turning it off will make the game faster but with graphical errors.
- deleteallcharacters: In the neighborhood, this will instantly kill all the Sims in the neighborhood.
- terraintype [temperate/desert]: Allows you to change the look of the neighborhood to temperate (like Pleasantville and Veronaville) or desert (like Strangetown).
- Slowmotion 0-8: For filmmaking, slows down the game (0 being normal speed, 8 being the slowest)
- boolprop enablepostprocessing [true/false] Enable post-processing of the movie you're making, required for all filmic cheats (all the next ones) to work. Your computer graphics card must also be able to handle pixel shaders for those cheats (recent cards will support this, just try out once the game is out to see if it works)
- bloom [R G B X] Creates a filmic look in which everythings so bright it blurs together (a la sitcom flashbacks) "R", "G" and "B" are color values (0-255) and "X" is the amount of blooming from 0 to 255.
- vignette [CenterX CenterY X] Creates a filmic look in which a focal point is clear but everything around it is blurry. CenterX and CenterY probably define the size, and X the intensity, but that's not said.
- filmgrain [0-1] Creates a film graininess.
- letterbox [0.0-0.4] Creates a letterbox view of size specified.
Careers:
Not entirely new is the exact list of careers in the game:
- Atheletic
- Business
- Criminal
- Culinary
- Law Enforcement
- Medical
- Military
- Politics
- Science
- Slacker
- Mailroom Technician: No Requirements.
- Executive Assistant: 1 Charisma.
- Field Sales Rep you need 2 Charisma.
- Junior Executive: 1 Creativity, 2 Charisma, 1 Friend.
- Executive: 2 Logic, 1 Creativity, 4 in Charisma, 1 Friend.
- Senior Management: 3 Logic, 3 Creativity, 4 Charisma, 2 Friends.
- Vice President: 4 Logic, 3 Creativity, 5 Charisma, 1 Friend.
- President: 6 Logic, 4 Creativity, 5 Charisma, 1 Friend.
- CEO: 7 Logic, 6 Creativity, 6 Charisma, 1 Friend.
- Business Tycoon: 9 Logic, 7 Creativity, 8 Charisma, 1 Friend.
Building:
You can have up to 5 floors without, or 4 floors with foundation. If you build a tall roof, you can also get an attic and place objects there, provided that the base is wide enough. As said above, there is also some information about how to build basements. Although the actual book has pictures, this is what's been posted so far:
"One of the most interesting things you can with foundations is make a basement. Though it's not difficult, it's far from obvious how to do it. The good news is you can learn it right here. [...]Sickness and Death: Sims can die in several ways. There are several illnesses, including colds, flu, pneumonia, food poisoning, morning sickness and a virus. A swarm of flies can also kill your Sim, if they aren't very neat. The key to curing your Sim is giving them a lot of rest, about 12 hours of rest (comfort and energy will have to be high). A Biotech Station (Reward object) can also cure Sims. A cold or morning sickness won't kill a sim, but a cold can turn into pneumonia which can result into death. Of course there are also some of the well-known deaths, like burning or drowning. Dead Sims return as ghosts, and if such ghosts scare a living Sim well enough, dropping their mood far in the red, the living Sim might join the dead. Finally, when gazing through the telescope or watching the clouds, a satellite dish might crash down on the Sim, of course killing him."*Note You can decorate and wallpaper your basement walls. You can even install ceiling lights."
- "Build a standard foundation.
- "Stillin the foundation and deck tool and holding Ctrl, drag to erase the center of the foundation.
- "Going down to the lowest leverl (page down), it looks something like this.
- "Lower the terrain inside the inner wall of the foundation using the lower terrain tool.
- "Switch tot he level terrain tool. Then, click and hold on a tile the seems to be the right depth. This levels out any included tiles tot he same level as the first square. Kepp leveling until the basement floor is flat.
- "Return to the ground floor (page up) and select a connectingstair. Point to the floor adjacent tot he hole. Astaircase draws automatically down the basement floor. Release the mouse button.
- "Apply flooring to the ground level and put a railing around the opening with the fence tool.
- "Cover the floor in the basement too and, if you feel like it, cover the walls.
With thanks to Rollup24 in this thread of the BBS for the details.
[Update 9 September, 18:45] More info has been posted by Rollup24, or at least something I missed initially. They're a few cheats for purposes other than filmmaking. The list above has been updated.
Written at 21:06 on Wednesday, 8 September 2004 by ChEeTaH.
