back when i played ts2 i played it despite the things that i didn't like, like the rotational play only stuff but now there's not really a reason to go back since ts3 suits my tastes a lot better. ts2 is a great game, but i'm leaving my memories with it in the past.

Does the ultimate colection include all eps?

Yes all but the sims store.

I find this hilarious seeing as they gave the game and all its expansion & stuff packs away for free but leave out the core of their "marketing strategy" out.

Oh wait...

How could they give out TS2 Store content away when they wiped out the TS2 store content two years ago :P

I just tried playing again and this time I made it a whole hour before I turned it off and booted up Sims 3.

I decided that if I had a goal, maybe I could play longer. So I have the goal of making a Plant Sim (because I remember really liking Plant Sims.) But then in the process of researching online how to make a Plant Sim (because it's been 6 years since I made one) I found out that Sims 3 University comes with Plant Sims. So now all I can think about is that I should probably try to buy University.

Another thing I quite like about the Sims 2 is the lack of pauses between actions. For example, the roller rick in the Sims 2 vs the Sims 3. Usually in the Sims 3, there's a wait until your sim gets on their roller blades- but in the Sims 2, it's usually instantaneous, nice and smooth.

I love both games and downloading TS2 UC was great because I never had all the EP's and SP's so its a huge bonus for me. I can play it but I find myself looking for CASt when I'm decorating a house and find out I can't change anything. That and I miss my open world and universal aging (hated rotational play), and being able to save individual games. Still, I can play it and just walk down memory lane. I miss the little things that it had like shopping. I took my sim out shopping last night for clothes because she only had like 2 outfits That was nostalgic for me. I miss that, I wish they would have put that in TS3. I miss proper family meals in TS3.

As someone said lots of pros and cons with both games and like most of us, wished that EA put everything of TS2 in TS3 so my happy medium is playing both. Although, I think the novelty will wear off after awhile and I'll be strictly playing TS3 again.

The no selling, that's not a mod. It's just me not selling the items and putting them into the family inventory. Then I use my Mod of randomness to ship the family inventory to the household that runs the recycling center. I have not played this household yet but so how I play it is still open but the great plan is that I'd play it the way I played my TS2 recycling center. I blow up the stuff I don't want to sell, and sell the stuff that I think other sims could find usefull. So I would have a small store in the recycling place where I sell stuff to other sims.

The link to the mod of randomness is in my signarutre (none MTS mods), it also has the option for the harder jobs in it so you don't need to download the old version I have here on MTS.

I went back and I don't find it too difficult... except for the stupid bladder and some other needs that feel like they're decreasing too fast or that food doesn't fill me up all the way anymore. (Sims 3, feels like everything filled the hunger up to the top)

C-A

The OFB EP is the main reason I enjoy TS2. If TS3 had a similar EP, or if the Store items that were supposed to add these functionalities didn't glitch themselves to hell, I would've had almost no reason to play TS2 over a modded TS3.

Not saying it's the only reason I enjoy TS2, but the main reason. Other reasons would be the aspiration system and the overall harder gameplay.

I miss them too, but I don't miss meals that drag on forever. It felt like every meal was Thanksgiving dinner.

(edit: Thanksgiving dinner in terms of how long it took to eat. Certainly not in terms of how full the Sims where when they finished dinner.)

There is one thing TS2 does better than TS3 though. The Store, TS2's store only had recolors, re-worked meshes & no essential Premium content that should have been made available with the base game &/or its expansion packs like Premium Worlds, venues/lots and items whose coding are even hard wired on the Premium content item itself.

Now that I can finally play sims 2 again, I just may never go back to 3. Even vanilla at this point, sims 2 was more fun than I have had in a long time. All sims 3 did was aggravate the piss out of me. Create a style or the open world wasnt enough to make me overlook what was shitty about 3. Bad animations, horrible story progression feature, being forced to focus on one household, sims not getting into their cars, crashing, bugs, long ass loading of everything, terrible camera, bad lighting that made even my lovely sims turn into dumpy, textureless faces that were entirely too similar. Headache inducing build mode. I never want to have to stare at the screen begging my sim to fucking move already, just standing around with their goddamned thumbs up their asses while the baby is screaming, or the car pool is waiting, or about to die from starvation. Seriously, fuck 3. Sims 2 forever.

I have been playing Sims 2 all week and really had a good time although I had to do lots of research on how to play with the EPs assets and how to set up Apartments properly because I haven't touched Sims 2 since Sims 3 came out. It was hard to get through because those pesky needs being a major part of the game, not much time to do anything else and wanting so bad to have CASt. The 2 body types was a bit of a let down as I love making my sims thick, remembered how much extra stuff I had to download for the Brazilian and Urban bodytypes in Sims 2.

This week I will be playing Sims 3 because I mainly missed Relativity and having the game clock slow down. Get more done in a day.

Missed my water activities and the open world. :lovestruc

Yeah, I have to concur that there were some positive aspects to TS2, I can't give up my open world and CAST. I'm back in TS3 and happy with it, despite its flaws.

Which actually softens the blow about not jumping on the TS4 bandwagon. Because after a little while in a closed, non-CASTable world, I won't feel like I'm missing anything sitting out this next go around.

I had to look up cheats so that I could reno the apartments I put my new family into I miss real apartments in TS3. I was struggling with no CASt and the closed world. And since we're not going to be getting TS4 anytime soon, I went and splurged and bought Island Paradise for us (it was hubby's birthday yesterday) so I'm discovering the water activities!! :lovestruc Having loads of fun Can't wait to take my toddlers to the beach now :lovestruc

I was always the one constantly defending Sims 2 and telling people why I considered it better than Sims 3, but I had lost the games for a time so when I downloaded the Ultimate Collection, I was excited and having a chance to once again play my all time favorite game.

Honestly, I really still do love Sims 2 dearly, maybe it's my bias, but it's a great game.
I absolutely love the neighborhoods, I love basically everything about it,

But this time when I played there was something different about it. It just felt kind of weird after having come back from playing Sims 3 instead,
I don't quite know how to describe it, it was just really weird.

I've still been playing it a lot but I found myself kind of wanting to play Sims 3 instead.

I'm torn between the two games. They both have things I love. I like TS3 just a bit more for better graphics and CAST, however. For me, a perfect Sims game would consist of a mix of things from both games. Example:

Open world or at least the ability to visit any lot in the map, including other sims houses.
CAST (or at the very least a color wheel)
The ability to place lots like in TS2 (much easier)
The genetics of TS2

I have both games. Yet, I still play The Sims 2. Why? Well, there's something that irritates me very much in The Sims 3, and I just can't stand playing this game, when it comes ub (however, I don't know what it is?). On the other hand, when I start playing The Sims 3 it's hard for me to go banc and play The Sims 2 again, because it starts to bore me and it seems to poor to be worth playing :/

I've been playing TS2 since I got the Ultimate Collection and I've been really enjoying it! Even changed my avi to my new sim I've been playing with

I'm one of the people that moved on when TS3 came out and never went back but I figured I'd give it a go again, it was free after all. Each game has its pros and cons. As I've been playing TS2 I've been missing things like CASt, open world, more CAS sliders, my slew of mods with no TS2 equivalent and simple things like being able to move your sim and your lot into a new neighborhood easily without fear of corrupting your neighborhood.

But there are a lot of things that TS2 has going for it that TS3 doesn't. One of the big ones for me is the fast loading and saving times, loading up TS3 is an ordeal for me, as is saving and even shutting the thing down - it takes ages and puts me off playing altogether sometimes. Game play is better in my opinion, absolutely no contest. Animations are generally better and more detailed, even the little things like your sim actually opening the cupboard to pull out a pot while cooking rather than them pulling it out of their ass. It's nice to have busy community lots even if it comes at the expense of a closed world. And everything is so much smoother. It's a joy to have your sims easily move from one task/interaction to the next without standing around, everything flows and it's much more natural. This was the thing that hit me the most when I started playing again. Oh also apartments are awesome, THIS is how apartments should have been in TS3.

Anyway I think I'll happily be rotating between both games for the foreseeable future..

I am playing TS2 atm. It feels so fast and makes my computer seem very powerful I have everything maxed out, except for shadows, because they show up black if I do that. So it is nice to have a fast running Sims for once. But I am already missing CASt. I tried to start downloading recolours, but I just give up everytime. It feels like a waste of time trying to find the right colours.
It is also weird not to have an open neighbourhood. The loading times for going to other lots are not that long, but just having the loading screen already makes it feel so detached. The way it messes with the time when you go back home doesn't help either. Because of this I don't leave the lot as often as in TS3. I guess I forgot about these things.

So yeah, back to TS3 I guess For me this is the best version. Even with the annoying routing issues. Anyway, I find CASt and an open world very important.

I exactly know what you mean xD

Can i just say how much i enjoyed reading this thread? It's great to see so many positive things said about TS3! It mostly gets trashed on this site so it's been wonderful to see some nice things said about it for a change.

I finally got the game downloaded and installed on Monday and have played the Broke household in Pleasantview the past couple of nights. It took a little while to get my widescreen monitor to work and to add more detailed graphics. I couldn't even remember where all my mods should go, which I copied from the old laptop I used when I last played the game, but got that figured out eventually. And like many of you, I forget how to play this game which is funny, considering how many hours I played it before TS3 came out.

It's been fun; I love how active they are, always moving around, chatting with someone, etc., all the detailed animations are just fantastic, I was blown away by the cooking animations and loved how fast cooking was in the game, and being able to bathe babies and toddlers again is great. :lovestruc Also loved that the toddlers could "dance" to the radio, I completely forgot about that one. I don't think I realized just how many animations from TS2 they reused in TS3 until I saw them again. Too bad they didn't use even more of them! And also, the voices are so wonderful! Even the little cooing noises the babies make. I think the voices are one of the things that make TS2 sims so endearing. Kudos to whoever did the sounds on this game.

There are some cons too, of course. I think you've all mentioned them. The needs go down way too fast and they are sloppy as all get out, throwing those bottles and diapers on the floor. Lol! But the old gypsy brought Brandi a Genie and she wished for wealth. So the next time I play I'm going to move them to another house. If I can figure out how to do that.

What amazing detail in every corner of this game. But it still can't replace what I love about TS3. I've got lots of scenarios and things to try in TS3 so I'll go back to it soon. Maybe I'll switch back and forth more often in the future. If they would ever make a game that combined the best things about 2 and 3 I would be ecstatic. If only!

Edit: I tried to install a lot and now my game is totally messed up. I feel like such a newbie, I don't know whether to laugh or cry! Maybe I should just go back to TS3.

Messed up how?

I can't agree more.

I recently got the new UC and spent two nights re-familiarizing all the TS2 features. I remember why I loved TS2 so much at the time. The animation was just so well done compared to TS3:
- Slow dancing is very cute with the Dance Close option
- Proper booth seating animations
- Functional restaurant with host/waiter/chef
- Many social options for dining (Toast, Surprise Engagement)
- That couch making out is still HAWT :lovestruc
- More varied adult-child interactions
- Chinese food order
- Meal are served by cook automatically (with mod: able to determine number of meals served depending on number of people home)
- Better relationship system (allow for one-sided crush/unrequited love)
- 100% better loading in CAS, neighborhood and saving time.
- Lovely music (more stations, better loading music)
- Bring coworker/classmates home from work

However, having played TS3 for so long I found myself struggling with
- Motives (omg why do they need to pee bathe eat all the time)
- Lack of CASt (this was partly very liberating, as building and creating families could be done quickly)
- Lacklustre cooking & gardening
- Poor career system/no self-employment
- Unrealistic lighting/shadow
- For some reasons the routing seems to be more problematic, but I could be wrong
- Limited sliders/skills

All in all TS2 seems to be more stable, well-produced and coherent than TS3. If the original TS2 production crew took on TS3, we probably wouldn't even have to think of TS4 now cuz the fictional TS3 would be more than enough.