The Sims 2 was my first Sims game. I loved it dearly. Then I got The Sims 3 over a year ago, and I've been playing that instead. It was fun, but last night, something weird happened.

I had a little glitch (something The Sims 3 has a lot of), and decided to just simply reinstall it. I reinstalled it, and then my laptop wouldn't even start up! It would only start up in safe mode! I uninstalled TS3 and my laptop was able to start up again.

Anyways, I didn't want to risk reinstalling again, so I decided to blow the dust off of my Sims 2 Double Deluxe, and install it.

I have to admit, I forgot how amazing it is, and realized how much I've missed it.

Everything about it gives me memories, even just the graphics and the music. I LOVE the graphics, and I LOVE the music, and I LOVE how it runs so smoothly with little amount of lag and glitches. I don't even mind the loading screens. I just love everything about it! TS3 is a good game, and I do love and will miss the new features like the full-customization and the open-world, but TS2 just feels like home.

Anyways, sorry for my long little story, but has anyone else played TS3 and ended up going back to TS2 instead? Or have you stuck to TS2 throughout the whole thing and never even thought about buying TS3?

I'm going to stick with TS2 for a while. And instead of getting Late Night for Christmas, I think I'll get a few TS2 expansions (since they're really cheap now, YAY!) And for now I'll play the game without any CC until I just can't take it anymore. If anyone can lead me to a place with TONS of recolours, hairstyles, and clothes, that'd be great.

This has happened to me! I got The Sims 3 a little over a year ago and last month I decided to un-install The Sims 3 and re-install The Sims 2 an my expansions again. I love The Sims 2 and sadly I really can't see myself going back to The Sims 3 again.

Playing without any lag or glitches just feel so good compared to The Sims 3 which was for me, full of lag and had horrible Graphics (Something to do with my Graphics card). I just wish they would bring out one last Expansion for TS2 players.

Personally, I absolutely love TS2. I've been playing it for years now and have every EP and SP. I play it custom content free, and have so much more fun with it than I did when I was playing with a bunch of CC. However, for the holiday season I plan on finally trying out TS3. I went out and bought a graphics card for it and everything. The graphics card makes TS2 look AMAZING but I've been reading up about all the lags and the trouble with TS3 and I'm really worrying that it's not going to be good enough for the game. It meets minimum requirements but I have a feeling I'll be playing TS2 more than TS3 when I do get it. But I really do want to try out the game.

With TS2 I really love the graphics, the way the sims look. The only thing I really hate is loading screens and not being able to visit a friends house unless they are a neighbor on an apartment lot. So with TS3 I am really looking forward to being able to walk around town. The sims don't look too bad. I think most people are overreacting with the way they look. I've seen a lot of good looking sims people have made and I like that they don't look just like the sims from the previous games. I just hope that by time I do buy the game all the bugs will be fixed and all the patches work.

I'm a bit different here. I was playing TS2 from the time it came out, but I really didn't get fully into it. When TS3 came around, I liked it a lot more than TS2- perhaps in part because I was playing it on a new computer. However, a few months ago, I installed TS2 and all the EP's on my new, super-beefy computer, and I'm still playing it and loving it today- it hasn't worn on me yet. Now I find TS3 rather bland- I just can't get into it as I have with TS2. And TS2's graphics hold their own against TS3's. I suppose in some technical aspects of gameplay, TS3 is an improvement- CAST and the traits system, for example- but TS2 is just so much more fun. And being able to play the whole neighborhood in TS2 is a big plus for me.

Don't have much time for playing sims lately, but a few days ago I was going through my old Sims2 neighbourhood pictures folder and was amazed at how lively everything appeared. I loved the community gameplay in Sims2 and had a lot of shops and venues my sims could visit and relationships between the sims were better defined. Plus I knew the story of all my sims. In Sims3 there's not much to do once you leave the house, or sims refuse to talk to you, or there's no one to talk to because everyone's at work, or reads the story of raymundo. CAST is nice. Sims2 with CAST and body sliders and extra ages would have made the perfect game.

Agree with that 100%. The interesting thing is whenever I play Sims 3 hoods, if I have to reset the hood and start afresh I don't really mind (I save copies of my favorite sims and put them back in the game). However it would be fate worse than death to restart my Sims 2 hood. I would be in serious mourning for all those lost sims/families/relationships, not just between families but between everyone in the town.

It's different gameplay styles really, I can't say I have a preference for one or the other.

I've been seriously considering ditching TS3 for a bit since LN jacked up most of my game and going back to TS2. Sadly, this means purchasing the base game again since I gave mine to my sister and the brat lost it. Sigh. BUT, it would mean buying the two EPs that I wasn't able to buy due to my computer not being able to handle them. Since I bought my new computer I know it would zoom thru all the EPs for TS2! I miss Seasons and going to college! But I will miss the customization and being able to walk around town.

I honestly go through phases where I can't get enough of TS2... I play it with all my free time, and then go through phases where I am so bored of it I don't touch it for a month or so. But I purchased TS3 and honestly I couldn't get into it at all. I haven't tried any of the expansion packs they have come out with recently, but all I know is... TS2 definitely is where I belong. I love it so much... infact I just spent 2 whole days doing nothing but playing one family I just created, and now ideas are popping through my head like crazy about things I can do with this family! I love The Sims games in general.. but when I started to play TS3 I felt like it was a major step down.. almost as if I was back at TS1... which I loved when it was the only thing out there, but TS3 is a demotion to TS2 I feel.

I've played TS2 the week it first came out, back in 04. So I spent the majority of these 6 years playing it more than any other games. Of course, I took breaks here and there. Before TS3 was about to release, I had taken 5+ months break from TS2, mainly because of boredom and I thought after all these years, I may be done with the game.

TS3 came out.. but my computer couldnt handle it, so I went back to playin TS2 for a short period of time. After months and a brand new computer, I installed TS3 right away and was addicted to it for about a month, and i got bored of it probably after 3 months (even with WA & Ambitions). I couldnt stand it anymore, so I installed TS2 on my new computer. Best idea ever. TS3 had made me miss and love TS2 so much more. Even now, while I play TS2, i'll be like "god, why is this game so frakin awesome?!" I'll admit, I find TS2 to be the best game and totally worth the money I spent on all the packs. Plus, since its not recent, you have a bajillion of hacks and downloads to make the game so much more enjoyable

I was one of those players who started with TS2, tried TS3 but just couldn't get into the game and uninstalled it, returned to TS2 and never looked back. The thing I loved most about TS2 was having/making all different families and hopping back and forth between them, and seeing how all of the different sims reacted and interacted with one another, which, due to the forced legacy-style playing of TS3, is completely absent from the new game. Plus, for some reason, even with the new personality system, the TS3 sims just seemed more bland and less life-like, despite the new system being all about customization.
The first two TS3 sims I made were a pair of batchelor roommates who were polar opposites. Sim A (not his real name of course) was "Loner, Neat-Freak, Nice, Good Cook (or Liked To Cook, or whatever it was--it's been a good year since I uninstalled the thing after all), and Bookworm (or whatever)," while Sim B was "Daredevil, Evil, Kleptomaniac, Insane, and Party Animal," and yet they both acted exactly the same with the only exception being that Sim A tended to clean things more. >:/

As for TS2 sites for recolors and the like, I go to Garden of Shadows (aka GOS) a lot.
http://gardenofshadows.digitalperversion.net/
Other good ones are le-plat-du-jour ( http://le-plat-du-jour.livejournal.com/ ) and dhearest
( http://dhearest.livejournal.com/ ) , because of all of the defaults they make. Defaults let you get lots of CC into your game without a lot of extra lag, since there are less files involved in them, plus you get to replace Maxis fug with things you actually use. Plus, le-plat-du-jour also has a link on her page to her default database, which has pics of all the different outfits (to keep track of what you're replacing) and links for dozens of other defaults pages (when you click on a picture of the outfit you want to replace).

Agreed (even if it takes me forever to get everything perfect with CAST XP).

For me, Sims 3 is more of a game I load up, play for a couple of hours, and then won't touch it for a couple of weeks. I made a couple of characters from a TV show and sent them to Egypt, but I haven't touched them since I made them. I like the traits, but I always forget about the open neighbourhood until my sims get the 'stir crazy' moodlet from not going out...

Sims 2 on the other hand, I've built up entire 'hoods of my sims, especially through challenges. I love seeing recessives turn up on my sims, and back-tracking to see who they got them from (especially when I go 3 or more generations with black or brown hair, decide to add in some recessive genes for the next generation and I suddenly get a blond or red-haired baby). Maybe I'm more attached to my Sims 2 sims because I've built up the 'hoods and can (without a mod) control and play all the households, something which I've not yet tried in Sims 3.

I've never given up with S2, but now that I got a new laptop with ability to run all sims-games I installed S3 too. It's still somewhat interesting to me, since I haven't been able to play it much before (my older pc can't run it very well) but it's never going to be as much fun as S2. I feel that sims in S3 doesn't have that 'thing', it's like they are soulless puddings with fancy traits. But S2... It makes me smile and feel like I'm home. When I need a break from S2, it's nice to play S1 and S3. And believe me, I don't have to play them long untill I start to miss my sims in the S2.

I never abandoned TS2, although I experimented with TS3 last summer, and from time to time I have a couple of short playing sessions. The main reasons, gameplay-wise, I prefer TS2 is that after all these years I have created a neighbourhood entirely populated with my Sims, but mostly, the fact I can control everything and *know* the reason behind my Sims' behaviour. TS3 is too vague when it comes to Sims' moodlets, especially to incidents occuring during your absence, a.k.a. actively playing another household. I don't like this aspect of the game at all. Call me obsessed with micro-management, but having absolute control over my Sims and be aware of what's going on in their lives, or why they like Sim X but not Sim Y is very important to me.

I have spent countless hours in creating my Sims and the neighbourhood they live in, in getting in touch one with another and building friendships for them, that I am not willing to throw away. Plus, TS2 are fun to play with. Hardly do they fail to entertain me or give me a good laugh. As I have said before, although memories is what can screw your game, if you are reckless, it remains the aspect of TS2 I love most -- I always find sweet how some Sims seem unable to forget their past and, after years of living with, or be married to someone else, they will often roll the wish to fall --again-- in love with their first love.

I honestly don't know what it is that makes TS2 so much more addicting than TS3. With TS3, I'd play it for a few hours during the day and I'd stop because I was starting to get bored. But with TS2, I was playing that all evening yesterday until I finally forced myself to go to sleep at midnight!

You'd think that TS2 would be so boring compared to TS3, what with the loading screens, not able to visit houses, no customization, etc, but TS2 is actually quite amazing even without those features. I just can't explain it, but I love it.

Anyways, I'm off to school, and I'll be waiting through all my classes to finally get home to play some more TS2.

I've never completely abandoned TS2, but did try TS3 and have now uninstalled. I'm going to sound like a total geek here but I don't care..there is just something about TS2 that makes it stand out from every other game and TS3 just lacks the soul it had. I would be devastated if I lost some of my TS2 families because I care about them so much..but not that bothered about the ones from TS3. And no, it's not just because I've played them longer either. I do feel like I'm home when I load up TS2 and you can hear that music, and it just fills me with the same excitement that I had when I first got the game. I never get bored with it.
I can honestly see myself playing Sims 2 for years to come, despite how 'old' it is. I don't think it'll ever actually get old for me, there's tons of ways to be creative with it.

Last edited by pinimon162 : 25th Nov 2010 at 6:15 PM. Reason: spelling mistake!

This resonates with me so much. When I start up TS2, I know I am going to play for hours. I don't have enough free time to do everything I want to with the game. I can't pull myself away from my Prosperity hood long enough to play my Megahood or start up a new War challenge with Prosperity rules mixed in.

When I start up TS3, I frequently play for 15-20 minutes before I get bored and do something else...and I can't explain WHY, which is so frustrating because until I know why I don't like it, I have to keep trying to like it.

This also reminds me- originally when I was playing TS2 and then with TS3, I would also play other games, including SimCity 4 and Civ III (when I was playing TS2) or IV (when I was playing TS3). Since I installed TS2 on my new computer, I haven't even touched either of those games- it's just been TS2 non-stop for me. I'll play it for hours on end.

Uinstalled TS2 when TS3 came out and haven't looked back. Once I saw the open world in TS3 I knew there was no going back to TS2

kenny, I don't doubt that you prefer TS3 to TS2 (and I am glad there are players that do!), but if I remember the history of your posts correctly, you also tend to get bored with the Sims in general between expansion packs. You seem to be interested in discovering what's new, then moving on to something else. Obviously TS2 isn't going to work for you, because there's no new to look forward to.

Oh, I agree with everyone here. I spent a year trying to like Sims 3 but recently decided to give myself a great gift: I gave myself permission to return to Sims 2.

What a homecoming! For all the reasons everyone else on this thread has so well articulated, the Sims 2 is just the perfect game for me. I play a heavily modded Sims 2 with a lot of CC and adult content and I feel this gives me the range and scope to create the complex stories I like, with Sims I make from scratch. None of my Sims marry townies; I personally create a mate for them (love the genetics aspect of this game). Not one is an underachiever; all go to university and most to private school. AND they have woohoo lives one can only envy (well, I envy them!).

Yesterday I played Sims 2 for five hours and only reluctantly shut it down. The longest I ever played Sims 3 was perhaps for an hour (WA) and felt like on onlooker and emotionally uninvolved while playing. Dang, I know they're just pixels but I WANT to feel involved if I'm squandering five hours of my finite lifespan to gaming.

So, yes, I'm back and I'm thrilled about Sims 2 all over again!

Not really, it depends on the expansion pack. I got bored with WA real fast, but I haven't stopped playing TS3 daily since Ambitions came out.

I think the expansion packs are making a big difference with S3. Ambitions added so much! And Late Night is very different and interesting in its own way, there is still much to explore in it, with it being so new. I really do wish they'd add weather though, geez.

That being said, I also go back and play S2 somewhat frequently. And I still prefer the look of the S2 Sims. There are just so many options in that game when you have all the expansions. And custom content that will keep working because they won't make you get a new patch to mess it up.

They're both such great games. And I want to give a shoutout for Castaways on the PC. I loved that game!

Welcome back home ! If you left Sims 3 to return to Sims 2 when it first came out a friend and I play Sims 3 I knew right away I could never be happy with it. I do not care about the screen at times being slow to load up, or the fact that when my sims go out to shop or to enjoy the NightLife that I have to wait for the screen to load up all you need is a bit of just being patience.

Beside I could never just leave all my sims family and the sims I made in body shop. Have can you not "Love" it when your sims for some strange reason look at you in the eyes directly on your computer. Like they are telling you "Now why did you direct me to do that ? Or who is the sims here you or me? I have to live in this world not you. Sims 2 live forever on my computer and if my computer stop working as it should, then I will trade it in for a new one if I have to, and once again play my beloved Sims 2 forever.

Right now I consider myself playing both games though at the moment TS2 is far more compelling. I don't like the character design used in the sims 3. In both S1 and S2 you get the feeling that they photographed actual faces of people and put them into the game. Not all of the faces were hot or gorge' but you can make a number of attractive and even hot faces with a little effort- not so much with sims 3. In sims 3 they look like after photographing real people they had an artist render them into campbell kids and since they all seem to have been rendered by the same artist there seems to be little variety.

My other chief problem with S3 is the number of things that I am excluded from. My sim goes to the hospital to give birth and I'm outside, that is not cool. I play sims, I want to be attached and sims 2 to gives me the feeling of participating. Leaving me outside while my sim gave birth is not what I play for.

Like most people I love the lack of loading screens and the fact that I can add traits. Having a brave sim tackle a burglar rather than wait idly for the police to arrive was most gratifying, but a the moment its not a enough for me. I do plan to explore TS3 more as I only have the base game(borrowed from my sis), right now I can't justify the cost of the TS3 expansion packs. I like to hope that the things added to TS3 makes up for what is missing.

But it sims to me that sims 2 is actually the more ambitous of the two games, but with it they discovered their limits. So while sims 3 looks more advanced overall it feels far more limited.

I got TS3 as soon as it came out, played it now and then for a couple of months, and then never looked at it again. I just found the Sims so ugly and their personalities so similar that I couldn't relate to them as characters, kwim? I recently uninstalled everything and reinstalled TS2, and I like it so much more.