IGN has had a look at The Sims 2, and are giving us a 2-page preview of the game, straight from the E3. It's a bit humorous, as the editor (I won't mention the name of Ivan Sulic) apparantly had his notes drowned in some "unidentifiable liquid" - he probably had a few drinks too many. Hence, all the quotes are from pretty nameless people. Anyway, the preview discusses the creation of skins, which is as follows: first you select an archetype. That can be a Caucasian, African American, Chinese, Persian, and even an Elf. You can then totally modify the archetype, using various sliders. They also mention the DNA, which is passed on to the Sims' kids, their kids and so forth. When another editor at IGN (PS2) commented raising kids isn't fun, this was Maxis' response:

"Sims producer: It is about domestic chaos. It's a chaos simulator. Children aren't the main focus. It's not made to be tedious. It's made to be a challenge. Kids have been added for fun."

I wonder who said that... Anyway, on the second page the life quality is discussed, and it seems it's determined by what the Sim desires to have, i.e. what he's done in the past. Although they only talk about having a good and happy life, they unfortunately don't mention if a Sim who hates all the goody-goody stuff can have a good life too, without having children, a career, etc. Maxis will also try to keep the system requirements down, but The Sims 2 won't run on low-end systems, mainly because of its detail. Maxis will also make the game as expandable as The Sims 1.0, and they will release tools to make archetypes for instance. If you want to read everything I mentioned here, and a few other things, in detail, then click here. Besides that, GameSpot has posted a direct-feed movie trailer from GameSpot Live. You can check it out from this page. Unfortunately I'm unable to check the movie out myself on the computer I'm at now, but perhaps someone will post their say about it in the comments.