Product Details
 | The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
| Price: | $16.29 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
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Product Description
The Sims 2 Seasons PCProduct Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #799 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- Model: 15621
- Released on: 2007-02-27
- ESRB Rating: Teen
- Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .53" h x 5.75" w x 7.75" l, .35 pounds
Features
- The Sims 2 Seasons is an Expansion Pack and requires The Sims 2, The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition, or The Sims 2 Holiday Edition for PC to play. Check to make sure you can run The Sims 2.
- Dramatic and Detailed Weather Effects - A brand-new visual experience has come to the world of The Sims 2. Now your Sims can experience snowstorms, thundershowers, lightning bolts, and deadly hailstones. All four seasons are spectacularly rendered to occur in every The Sims 2 neighborhood
- Benefit from Each Season - Seasons impact your Sims' relationships, moods, wants, and fears.
- Share New activities - New ways for your Sims, their families, and friends to have fun together! Build snowmen, splash in the pool, play catch, and go ice skating
- Reap the Fruits of Your Sims' Labors - Harvest fruits and veggies all year round and blend love potions, energy drinks, health boosters, and more
Customer Reviews
A Sims Fan's Must Have
Amazon priced this item just
shy of the $25 mark to entice us cheapos to add another item and get
free shipping. That is a good marketing strategy since this Seasons
expansion is such a worthwhile title.
That said, The Sims 2:
Seasons is what I would call a legitimate expansion pack for The Sims
series. Unlike the Stuff Packs or some other expansion packs, Seasons
really rounds out the series in my opinion.
Being a cheapo, I
like spending $15 on a DVD that is 123 minutes as opposed to 93 - I feel
I am getting my money's worth. Also, I like spending $25 for a Sims
expansion pack where new career paths (and rewards) are added, lots of
new items are included, and game concepts are added or upgraded.
The
Sims 2 Seasons is legitimate in my opinion because it does just that:
gives 6 more career paths (Adventure, Games, Law, Education, Music, and
Journalism); new clothes (for each season, all ages) and items (like the
Country decor theme); and new interactions, aspirations, and rewards.
Besides
all the busy micromanagement that so many of us Simmers love, I
mentioned that Seasons rounded out the series. What I meant was that now
you don't have to focus so much on the careers just to make money.
Nightlife and Open for Business are much like Seasons in that regard -
you can make money by being a DJ, bartender, lemonade salesman, or
garage saler.
In Seasons, it really expands what you can do
outside of the normal "grind for your boss" routine. And if you remember
the first The Sims where you make magical potions and cast spells
(Makin' Magic expansion pack), that also kind of ties in with Seasons.
Basically,
you can now grow fruits and vegetables, catch fish, and other hobbies,
then use them to make cash, health drinks, special potions, etc. Also,
gifting is introduced (when you don't want stuff but think your neighbor
might).
This slows down the game quite a bit because (A) now
you're interacting within the frame of each season and (B) you can still
be productive and working towards certain goals without the typical
bustle of The Sims 2 that we know and love. Now you can just be a farmer
and tell the rest to go to hell. I appreciate that.
The other
thing I'd like to point out is the basis of the game: the four seasons.
Living in San Diego, CA, we only have two seasons: Paradise and The Next
City's Best. In The Sims 2 Seasons, you have more control over the
weather than you might think.
First of all, you can determine
which neighborhood(s) have seasons and which seasons you'd like to have
occur (and when) - for example, one neighborhood can only have spring
and winter, if you want. Next, with the new neighborhood Maxis provided
("Riverblossom Hills"), they added some of their own content, but since
the seasons can be applied to any neighborhood, I just ripped off what I
liked and rarely played the new neighborhood.
Another thing I
love in particular about Seasons is the expansion of Wants and
Aspirations. I also love how this expansion pack ties into the other
expansion packs (Maxis tries to keep them all interwoven to maximize
their value - so we all buy every expansion!). You can get a fishing
badge (like the sales badge from Open for Business) or find new Wants
for each Aspiration (like Romance where the wants change during
Springtime).
A lot to build on if you love the series. Of course,
as I always like to mention, if you wait another 5-10 years, all of
these will be included on The Sims 2: Complete Edition for about 1/3 the
total cost. :)
Adds Atmosphere
One of the nagging problems
of the Sims 2 series has been the lack of a strong feeling of time
passing. While you could watch your sims age, the only real impression
of time going by that I've ever gotten is my own frequent glances toward
the age bars to see how much time each sim would have left in their
current life phase.
Separate from the many wonderful features
that have been added to the game, the real golden improvement is the
immense amount of atmosphere that the weather provides. It hadn't
occurred to me before I started playing that something as simple as snow
on the ground would change the feeling of the game so much. There's a
distinct coziness in having your sims sit inside in front of the fire on
a snowy winter day that was never present in the previous eternal
summer. It also creates a feeling of time moving on for the entire lot
as a whole, without depending on any kind of nagging need to check
whether the teen is going to have to leave for college soon, or similar
things.
There are also a lot of functional additions. The sims
have new ways to die (heat stroke, struck by lightning, etc), their
progress in different areas of their life varies by season (for example,
it's easier to build family relationships during the winter), and the
sims can garden and make juices that boost their abilities or moods.
One
thing that you should certainly note is that it's an especially good
idea to backup your existing houses with this pack. With an expansion
like Nightlife, if you decided you didn't like the general feel of the
new content (largely a matter of going downtown and going on dates) you
could just not use those and your gameplay would be impacted very
little. With seasons, however, the closest you can get to turning the
features off would be to set up a neighborhood to be in summer
permanently. In most ways this would be a very close match for the game
prior to seasons, but you might find it aggravating to have to keep an
eye out for your sims getting heat stroke if they spend too much time
working outdoors, or get into an outdoor hottub on a warm day.
There's
a new "country" decorating collection that can be a bit annoying in
some ways (the roosters on the floor tiles I don't like a bit), but they
also have some very charming pieces as well. Additionally, a few of the
homes and families don't appear to have been QC'd very well. There's
one included family in which the mother Sim is already pregnant, and
once the babies aged enough that I looked at their family tree I found
that another woman was listed as the second parent rather than the
family's father. Sure, they do strange things with the family
backstories sometimes, but I couldn't find any mention of something to
explain this in any of the character descriptions. There are also homes
where they simply left small gaps in the (indoor) walls rather than
installing arches or doors as one would expect.
I'm extremely
pleased with the changes that Maxis has made. While there are some
remaining gameplay issues that could be addressed, overall I think that
this expansion has more positive impact on the game than any of the ones
that have come out previously.
The Sims
2 Seasons
The Sims 2 Seasons is
probably the best expansion pack so far. In this expansion pack, there
are many new features and activities such as gardening, fishing, ice
skating, roller skating, and of course; your sims now get to experience
all four seasons (winter, autumn, spring, summer). Each season lasts for
five sim days, and eventually progresses into the next season. The
expansion even allows you to design your own climate scheme. Basically,
if you want, you can have Spring all year long! (well, all twenty days
long). Or you can have spring for two seasons and winter for the other
two seasons. There is even a whole new country-themed furniture and
kitchen set which blends well with the feel that Seasons gives. I
personally don't like the rooster-country wallpaper the expansion
offers, but the kitchen sets are very nice.
-Gardening
One
of the great things that Seasons offers are the various activities.
Gardening is fun, but it's important to keep constant check on them or
they can die pretty quickly. The best thing about gardening is the
rewards. You can purchase orchard trees (orange, lemon, and apple) and
get fruit, or you can create plots and plant vegetables and fruits such
as cucumbers, tomatoes (fruit OR vegetable?), pole beans, strawberries,
etc. From growing these, you can harvest them and stock them into the
Main Squeezer 235X juicer from the catalog. Once you have enough
stocked, select the juicer you should be able to mix and match the
different produce to make tasty juices. If the produce is
"mouthwatering" then the juice will have special effects. To get your
produce to be mouthwatering, you have to make sure your plants are
thriving. You can improve your garden by adding lawn decorations and
even invite the Garden Club over and allow them to judge your garden.
And with enough gardening experience you can earn a gold gardening
badge.
Magical Juices consist of:
Apple Juice, Beauty
Cocktail, Eggplant Juice, Lemonade, Orangeade, Orange Juice, Pureed Boot
(yum!), Pepper Punch (no comment), Tomato Juice, Strawberry Lemonade,
Strawberry Juice, and Vegetable Cocktail.
It's up to you to
figure out what the effects are. As for what the ingredients are, the
titles of the juices are pretty self-explanatory for what the juice will
consist of.
-Fishing
Wahoo, fishing! Even fishing has
it's own good effects. Sims can create ponds in front of their house and
fish. Depending on how much experience they have and the badge (bronze,
silver, or gold) sims can catch more or less fish. I have to say there
isn't a very large variety of fish, but there's just enough. Sims can
grill fish for a much more satisfying meal.
-Riverblossom
Hills
What could be better than all the features that Seasons
offers? A whole new neighborhood!
Riverblossom Hills a new
neighborhood that actually kind of focuses on the activities that
seasons offers. There are premade families in the neighborhood of
course, each with their own story. The first house I entered in
Riverblossom Hills was the McGreggor Household. I recommend going into
the McGreggor Household first because there is a barn and an orchard,
plus there's only one person living in the house, so it'd be easy to
familiarize with everything in seasons with overwhelming yourself,
although it doesn't really matter.
-PlantSim
In seasons,
sims can now become PlantSims. Your sim becomes a plantsim by
excessively using pesticides on plants. There is a premade family in
Riverblossom Hills with a plantsim (The Greenman Family) if you can't be
bothered to create your own PlantSim. To cure a PlantSim, invite one of
the members from the Garden Club over and buy a potion. Sims have new
aspirations; "Become PlantSim +2,000", "Be Cured of PlantSim +5,000"
(examples, I don't know if those are the exact aspiration points)
-Community
Lots
In Riverblossom Hills there are new community lots with
different activities. Sims can go iceskating during winter and
rollerskating during the summer. These also have new aspirations; "Go
Ice Skating +500". And I have to say, watching sims fall-- I mean, ice
skate is pretty entertaining.
-Outerwear
Of course sims
need the appropriate clothes if they want to last through those harsh
winters and brutally hot summers! Seasons offers a wide variety of
different summer and winter clothes, (coats, snowsuits) even for
toddlers! (Toddlers can eat snow, by the way. It actually increases
their hunger motive)
-Season Effects
Seasons effect your
sims (depending on the season). They may want to see snow or rain or
hail (aspiration: See Rain +500). Seasons also have effects on things
that your sims do everyday:
Winter is a time to stay at home,
drink hot chocolate, and bond with relatives.
Autumn is a time to
fast-track a sim's career and skills. Even rake autumn leaves and mess
them up all over again!
Summer is a time to relax and increase
relationships with friends.
Spring is a time to create a
wonderful romance.
So, seasons aren't just pretty, but they have
effects on your sims as well!
-Penguin
This is a mild
factor of seasons, but during the winter season a penguin actually will
visit your sim's home. I was disappointed to know that you couldn't tame
the penguin. :P
-Sim Actions
Sims have new actions.
During winter you can have snowball fights and during summer you can
have water balloon fights. Also during winter you can create devilish
snowmen and snowangels.
-Pool
Sim swimming pools used to
be pretty limited. But now you can add curved walls to your swimming
pools and different wallpapers. Spruce it up a bit and add in a fun
swimming slide. Add another sim and have a fun time playing marco polo.
-Leftovers
This
has to be one of my favorite things that Seasons offers: LEFTOVERS! I'm
sure most of you are tired from making lunches and dinners for seven
when you've only got a family of two. But now, leftovers! After your
small sim family is done eating, just click on the plate and it will say
"Put away Leftovers." and voila! Once leftovers are in the fridge they
will not spoil.(Thank goodness!)
Overall, The Sims 2 Seasons is
excellent. The graphics and gameplay are wonderful, althought they can
be glitchy at some points. The most dramatic and best season of the four
is probably Winter, and the I suppose the 'boring' one is probably
Summer. So yes, Seasons is well worth your time and money... And your
Summer!
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