XB The Sims 2 Description:

XB The Sims 2 review:
3 stars (Okay) - this game is okay and there are a few things missing:no babies or TODDLER!no aging,no 2 story house,and NO swimming pool!

some new features or something new:jackets,undershirt(sweet!)new clothes,diffrnt hair colors(kool!) a surf thingy.

i want EA games make the organial game on XBOX and have new items and new features!well i hope EA games will pay attention!
3 stars (A step back from Bustin' Out) - Instead of writing a complete review, I'll just add to what reviewer Nicholas J Verboon wrote and go from there. Since that review point out most of the good points for the game, I'll tell you what bothered me the most. First of all, I miss the "water tool" to create swimming pools, rivers, and all of those water bodies. The new two-player interface doesn't split your screen diagonally anymore, now it splits it horizontally. It doesn't take much to get use to it, but I feel that there is a little less field of view than before. Also, the tip bubbles that appear intermitently and perhaps too many times, obscure the time of day and other important information. Also, when a thief gets in your home and you were sleeping and in fast-forward time, the time doesn't slow down like before, now it keeps going and the thief most likely, even if you have your place filled with burglar alarms, would steal something. The police rarely arrives in time. More than once I found out that I was robbed the next morning after I couldn't find my refrigerator, even as I have 2 alarms outside, 2 inside, and one on each side of the lot next to the main neigborhood sidewalk. The items you can buy are of less appeal that those in previous games, it's almost as if EA just leave in mostly the essentials. You may know by now that unlike the way better PC version you can't build 2 stories houses. Also, you can't buy endless quantities of items since there is something called "the fire code" that limits you on this. So your dream house may be limited for what you are allowed to build, but then again, there isn't too much to buy and build in this version. The Artificial Intelligence doesn't even begin to compare to its PC cousin, it's very limited and you may feel that very soon when playing mostly because the story line gameplay (wich, by the way, it's only a catching name since it isn't a "real" story like previous versions, like Bustin' Out) and the Free Living gameplay would eventually get so tedious that nothing will be left to cover that striped down AI version of the PC game. By the way, the Free Living version is also very flat, there isn't much to do after you have opened all your items and are at the top of your career. What's left is changing careers, sell your stuff and buy other stuff (maybe of lesser quality, but just for a change or to do something different), rearange the furniture, maybe walls and decor, etc. In free living mode you cannot leave your house, you cannot visit other sims, and the connections and relationships with other sims are almost done mandatorily to step up on your career or fulfill your normal, gold, and platinum wishes. As it has said before, you can't grow older or have children like the PC version. It's basically a game of going from A to B to get C that eventually will grow tiresome since there isn't much left to obtain in it. As one reviewer someplace else said: if you are the obsessive type of gamer who simply enjoy unlocking and collecting items, may be this game is for you. If not, rent it first.
4 stars (Underwhelming but as addictive as ever.) - Let me clear a few things up. This is not just a straight port of the awesome PC title of the same name. We console owners gave a little and got a little. Missing is the groundbreaking aging and child-raising system of the PC version that let you play through whole generations of families in your own vitrual neighborhood. Also MIA are 2-story buildings and the aforementioned neighborhood dynamics. In fact, all the console version really is is an improved version of "Sims Bustin' Out". That is actually a compliment. As disappointed as I was that so many big features (and some little ones too) were missing, I quickly found myself re-immersed in the Sims lifestyle. The big selling point of this version is the direct control option which puts you in direct control of your Sim, making them much easier to direct about the house. Five stars on that feature. In addition, there is a new social interaction system that zooms in on the socially-engaged sims and allows you to hold your would-be friend's attention while you try out all your best social moves on them. There are several levels to each relationship that are indicated by both the sims' body language and the color of the screen. Red indicates a fight is about to break out, yellow is warm and friendly, and pink means love is in the air and someone's about to get biz-ay. I love this new feature as it makes interaction seem much more personal and stops other sims from running away while you cycle through your list of social options. Speaking of which, while there are lots of social options available for each level of the relationship, I'm really disappointed that I haven't found any unlockables in this area. You can only go through the old "talk-compliment-tell joke-impress-sock puppet-charm-hit on-etc." motions so many times before friendship and romance become a bit of a chore. And some sims are always so grumpy it really makes it a pain. Still, I love the improvements that were done in this area of the game. There's also a lot of extra cusomization in this game. Lots of tats, jewlery, hairstyles and colors, and highly customizable clothing to choose from. Hell, you can even choose sleeve-length and collar up or down, plus you can wear undershirts, overshirts AND a jacket together, all cusomizable in the aforementioned ways. That is sweet. Lots of unlockables here, tons in fact. Plus you get the usual plethora of gadgets and items to play with and unlock. Another very fun new feature is creating you own food. There are dozens of ingredients to be bought, grown, or otherwise obtained and combined in different ways (oven, blender, food processor, stove, etc.) to creat all kinds of food with different stats. Some food is really filling but tire you out, some give you energy but not very filling, and some makes you randy bay-bee. That's right, you can mix up a little culinary spanish fly for that girl or guy you had your eye on but wouldn't let you make the move. Also, ever sim has a list of wants and fears. You get to unlock much stuff and progress from location to location by fulfilling all of your sim's wishes and the wishes of other sims around them (make out with so-and-so, buy one of these, etc) while avoiding their fears (fire, death, getting caught cheating, etc.). Speaking of death, it's not final in this game. You get to haunt other sims in several ways, which is good for a laugh. When that gets old, you can challenge the grim reaper to a fiddlin' contest or pay cash to return to life. All of these things add up to all the fun of "Bustin' Out" but much, much more. I'm still ticked off about what's missing and I wish EA had just waited a month for the Xbox 360 to come out and included neighborhoods, children, aging and all that, but I'll be damned if this game didn't suck me back in to that existence we "Sims" fans know all to well; where sending your virtual person to cook, clean, eat, and shower is no probelm, but you simply can't leave the game long enough to do any of those things in real life.