| 1 | [[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sims1_3591.png]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ''The Sims 2'' is the second standalone game in ''VideoGame/TheSims'' series, released in 2004, with a total of eight expansion packs. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | In contrast to ''Videogame/TheSims1'', the game introduced three interconnected concepts: aging, Wants and Fears, and Aspiration. Sims now age through various stages--infant, toddler, child, teen, adult, elder --and could be created in any stage except the first. (College-aged Young Adults were added in the first expansion pack, ''University''.) |
| 6 | |
| 7 | They also came with an "Aspiration," an overall goal for their life: [[BabiesEverAfter Family]], [[ReallyGetsAround Romance]], [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Wealth]], [[PopularityPower Popularity]], [[FreakyIsCool Knowledge]], and (eventually) [[TheHedonist Pleasure]]. Starting with the first expansion pack, this would assign the Sim a ([[RandomNumberGod randomly-generated]]) Lifetime Wish, which keeps them happy for the rest of their lives if they achieved it. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | In the meanwhile, it also controlled what Wants and Fears would pop up; these were general life events, from "Have FirstKiss" to "Eat TrademarkFavoriteFood". These would contribute not only to a Lifetime Aspiration Score, which could be used to purchase various [[RuleOfFun loosely realistic]] in-game objects (the most basic of which being a literal Money Tree), but also to the Sim's real-time Aspiration meter. This corresponded roughly to self-esteem or general mood, and could override a Sim's physical-needs total if it was high enough. Of course, it also lost XXX points every few hours, and if it hit bottom the Sim would have a HeroicBSOD (PlayedForLaughs). |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Fulfilling the Sim's lifetime wish would fill their Aspiration bar to the max for the rest of their lives, but (of course) you get a certain amount of time to do this before they croak. Meanwhile, personalities continued to be calculated on the five scales/star sign model, but gradually more features were added through expansion packs, such as the ability to gain or lose personality points under certain circumstances and the introduction of memories, turn-ons, turn-offs, attraction/chemistry, interests and hobbies. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | The game would receive a series of eight [[ExpansionPack Expansion Packs]] across its life, plus nine "Stuff Packs", small add-ons that add themed collections of new items with the very occasional new feature. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | [[folder:List of Expansion and Stuff Packs]] |
| 16 | !Expansion Packs |
| 17 | * '''''University''''': Allows Sims to attend college within a new life stage, Young Adult. |
| 18 | * '''''Nightlife''''': Allows Sims to visit Downtown, with an emphasis on new leisure activities and dating mechanics. Also includes Vampires, ownable cars and the Pleasure aspiration. |
| 19 | * '''''Open For Business''''': Includes the ability for Sims to own and manage their own businesses, with a system robust enough to allow you to sell just about every item or service in the game. Also re-introduces Servos, and introduces Talents, a new type of Skill that emphasises a Sim's growing proficiency with crafting and other business skills. |
| 20 | * '''''Pets''''': Allows Sims to own cats and dogs, who now have their own genetic system and the ability to be trained and get jobs. Also introduces Werewolves as a new life state. |
| 21 | * '''''Seasons''''': An expansion focused on the outdoors, with new seasonal, weather and temperature mechanics along with new fishing and gardening activities. Includes the [=PlantSim=] as a new life state. |
| 22 | * '''''Bon Voyage''''': Sims can go on vacation to the Asia-themed Takemizu Village, tropical Twikkii Island, or alpine Three Lakes. Adds the ability to stay in hotels, visit beaches, and befriend Bigfoot. |
| 23 | * '''''[=FreeTime=]''''': Introduces many new hobbies, and includes Lifetime Aspirations for Sims to work towards. The Genie appears as |
| 24 | * '''''Apartment Life''''': Allows Sims to live in communal apartment buildings, along with introducing a system of social reputation. Also reintroduces magic to the series, allowing Sims to become Witches and Warlocks to learn spells on a morality axis. |
| 25 | !Stuff Packs |
| 26 | * '''''Family Fun Stuff''''': Focusing on items for themed children's bedrooms and costumes. |
| 27 | * '''''Glamour Life Stuff''''': Adds new items and clothing options themed around high society. |
| 28 | * '''''Happy Holiday Stuff''''': Adds several new Christmas, Hanukah and general winter holiday-themed items. Also adds the ability for Santa Claus to visit your household if you own the right combination of items. |
| 29 | * '''''Celebration! Stuff''''': Includes new items and clothing for formal parties, with a focus on weddings. |
| 30 | * '''''H&M Fashion Stuff''''': The first licenced add-on for ''The Sims'', adding in clothing from H&M's catalogue, as well as items that allow you to build H&M stores. |
| 31 | * '''''Teen Style Stuff''''': Adds new items and clothing for teenagers, around the themes of Socialites, Sports and Goths. |
| 32 | * '''''Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff''''': Contains items and decorations for kitchens and bathrooms, themed as Romantic or Stylish. |
| 33 | * '''''IKEA Home Stuff''''': The second licenced add-on, featuring home decor from IKEA. |
| 34 | * '''''Mansion & Garden Stuff''''': Focuses on exterior decoration, with a theme of mansions in the style of Art Deco, Moroccan or Victorian architecture. Also includes improved customisation for roofs, and the ability to build solar panels and wind turbines to offset your energy use. |
| 35 | [[/folder]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | A package including all the expansions and stuff packs, ''The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection'', was offered to Origin users who had registered ''The Sims 2'' on July 15, 2014 under the pretense that their current version of the game would lose support on July 22 and that the ''Ultimate Edition'' would be the only supported version. The offer was extended to all Origin users from July 23 to 31, where redeeming the product code I-LOVE-THE-SIMS would add ''Ultimate Edition'' to their game library. While the offer ended on August 1, 2014, the package could still be obtained long after that date by contacting EA customer support and providing a physical copy of a ''Sims 2'' product, but EA put a stop on that on October 11, 2018. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | ---- |
| 40 | !!''The Sims 2'' provides examples of: |
| 41 | |
| 42 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 43 | |
| 44 | [[folder:A-C]] |
| 45 | * AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: |
| 46 | ** Fans have noticed Brandi Broke was 22 days from becoming an Elder, which would suggest her as a teenage mother (even though her memories tell otherwise). |
| 47 | ** Bella Goth, if you manage to get her back, will actually be younger than her daughter Cassandra unless you use [=SimPE=] to fix their respective ages. (This is because dead Sims and [=NPCs=] are always on the first day of their respective age stage.) Even if you adjust it so that Cassandra is near the beginning of the adult stage and Bella is nearing the end, they'll still look like they're around the same age until Bella ages up, since there's no gradual ageing within the stages. The fact that a mother and daughter are in the same age group to begin with is unusual enough in ''[=TS2=]'', and couldn't be achieved in-game without the use of cheats, the Elixir of Life or a well-timed conception. |
| 48 | ** Using the Inteenimeter mod, it is possible for a teen to have all adult privileges and interactions, including the ability to marry, Woohoo and have children. |
| 49 | * AcquaintedWithEmergencyServices: You can engage in relationships with cops, firefighters, or other emergency staff. You can befriend them, or even marry them and have them move in your household, making them a playable sim. |
| 50 | * AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler: Vidcund Curious]] in the PSP version. |
| 51 | * AerithAndBob: You can have a household with names like Bob and Chris alongside Ignotius and Aife. This also happens a lot with the Veronaville premades, as some of the Sims there have normal-sounding names and others have very old-fashioned ones. |
| 52 | * AffablyEvil: |
| 53 | ** In game terms, ultimately even the nastiest, most evil sims are this, because no matter how mean they are, you'll probably catch them playing poker on a community lot with some townies, smustle on the dance floor, tell jokes to other sims... Despite the nasty implications of the character of some pre-made sims story-wise (such as Olive Specter), [[GameplayAndStorySegregation in the game itself they won't really live up to it.]] Doesn't help that sims can't literally kill each other; the worst they can do is poke, slap, have a non-lethal brawl,... [[HarmlessVillain Or prank each other with water balloons and ventrilo farts.]] |
| 54 | ** In the PSP version, when you move to Paradise Place you encounter neighbors who range from "a bit creepy" (Isaac Rossum) to "dismissive, rude, and quite probably kidnapped the garbage man" (Loki Beaker) to "definitely going to be the BigBad of the whole game" (Dominic Newlow). Your fourth neighbor is the lovely Hazel Dente, who gives you an enthusiastic welcome to the neighborhood, offers to help you out financially in return for you taking on a few token household chores, and tells you to visit her ''every day'' if you like... [[spoiler:and is a serial killer who's offed four husbands already, and is working on marrying and killing #5.]] |
| 55 | * AllAnimalsAreDogs: |
| 56 | ** Wolves introduced in the ''Pets'' expansion pack behave exactly like dogs, doing unwolfish things like barking and wagging their tails. |
| 57 | ** Cats can be trained using the same techniques as dogs. While real-life cats ''can'' be taught to do tricks, they usually need a bigger incentive than just "Master wants me to do it." |
| 58 | ** Similarly, pets can get jobs, and both cats and dogs have the exact same career paths. While some fall under TruthInTelevision, the second highest position in the service career is "seeing eye pet", something that cats definitely aren't used for in real life. |
| 59 | ** [[ArtisticLicenseOrnithology All Birds Are Parrots]]: There are five possible bird "species" to stock your birdcage with. Four do, in fact, resemble species of parrot. One, however, resembles a falcon. Yet it's still possible to "Teach Birdname to Talk" and "Play With Birdname" although in real life you would not play with a falcon without protective equipment, nor can you teach one to talk. |
| 60 | * AllDrummersAreAnimals: Drum players in an apartment will always draw in noise complaints from neighbors even if they have max creativity skill. This isn't a problem with the piano, bass and guitar, who will only get complaints if they're at [[DreadfulMusician low creativity skill]]. |
| 61 | * AllLoveIsUnrequited: Many of the pre-made female students at Sim State University have crushes on [[CluelessChickMagnet Castor Nova]], though he doesn't seem to be aware of this, and he doesn't have romantic feelings for any of them. It's up to the player to decide which direction his love life will go. |
| 62 | * AllWitchesHaveCats: All witches and warlocks eventually gain the ability to summon a cat {{familiar}}. Not only that, witches/warlocks are able to befriend cats much easier than every other sim; each interaction that ends positively will provide an extra increase in relations with a cat, much higher than normal. This applies to both normal cats they interact with and spectral cats (familiars). |
| 63 | * AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: It's possible to give your cats and dogs unnatural fur colors in addition to the usual real-life shades. |
| 64 | * AnalProbing: The (actually light green) [[TheGreys Greys]] in ''The Sims 2'' have pollination technicians, who abduct, probe, and impregnate [[MisterSeahorse Sim men]]. |
| 65 | * AndYourRewardIsClothes: Work uniforms gained on promotions can be worn as regular clothes. |
| 66 | * {{Animesque}}: Due to art evolution, the Sims in Sims 2 are prominently featured with huge eyes and short, pointy noses. |
| 67 | * ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: |
| 68 | ** Each household can have up to eight Sims and up to six pets for a maximum of ten members. There are however cheats and player-created mods to allow more, and they ''don't'' induce a GameBreakingBug, though they may increase the already onerous [[LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading load times]] and the household portrait will not show all the sims in it if it's above 8. The game [[HandWave handwaves]] this by saying it's a [=SimCity=] regulation to limit carbon emissions that cause GlobalWarming. |
| 69 | ** The number of Sims you can invite to a party was initially limited to two to four sims even if you had decent computer specs. Later expansions increased the limit, and you could always use the "[=intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims=]" cheat to increase it manually. |
| 70 | * {{Arcadia}}: Riverblossom Hills, the neighborhood introduced in ''Seasons'', is the most rural of all Maxis hoods, and is focused on new game mechanics like seasons and gardening. |
| 71 | * ArtificialBrilliance / DevelopersForesight: You know when one of your sims is preparing a meal for everyone, then one of your other hungry sims, instead of waiting for it to be ready, plunges into the fridge and prepares something themselves? Well in later expansions a small AI feature was added so that a sim will occasionally "wait for food" on free will, if they notice another sim is already in the middle of preparing food. |
| 72 | * ArtificialLimbs: The outfit for the top of the Science career, the MadScientist, features a prosthetic left hand. It's purely cosmetic and the Sims still has their organic left hand. |
| 73 | * ArtificialStupidity: |
| 74 | ** Hoo boy... There's a lot of examples of this found in The Sims 2, and you're guaranteed to witness a moment of artificial stupidity every other minute. At least it's entertaining, when it isn't utterly frustrating. |
| 75 | ** The most common one is things getting in the way between your sim and their destination. Sometimes a sim will do their best to find some alternative route, or wait, but the more common and most frustrating outcome is them waving/shrugging and simply canceling the action. |
| 76 | ** But Sims can sometimes act like something is "in the way" of their path ''even when there isn't''. |
| 77 | ** The tendency of Sims, when there's a bunch of them on a lot, to clog up somewhere, such as during a party or on a community lot. Heavens help you if sims are magically drawn to the smallest room (such as a small bathroom) in your house and have their little party there, frustrating sims who wish to enter/leave the room, since they probably can't get through. |
| 78 | ** Now take the stupidity of sims, doing things they aren't supposed to do, ignoring orders, doing something that conflicts with their own needs being met... then apply all of it to vampires. A vampire sim will have to be babysat by the player lest they suffer death at the hands of sunlight, since they seem to have the tendency to leave their coffin at broad daylight on a whim. Sometimes they'll stay in the coffin like good little vampires, other times they'll bug out and refuse to remain dormant because their energy bar is full. If a vampire sim is hungry during day and they go eat, it's pointless, because since all their needs keep dropping as long as it's day, their hunger bar will drop faster than it goes up ''while they're eating''. |
| 79 | ** The first thing a butler does in the morning might be preparing breakfast because some of your Sims are hungry (never mind that they might be about to leave for school and work and will get food there), without cleaning up last night's dishes first. They might also go prepare a meal ''even though they have already prepared a meal a short time earlier and nobody has touched it yet''. They will not notice that there's no room on the counters until they have taken the unprepared food out of the fridge, whereupon they will simply put it on the floor and go do something else, leaving it there to rot unless you have a controllable Sim cook it themselves (there is no way to put it back into the fridge). |
| 80 | * ArtisticLicenseBiology: |
| 81 | ** [[MisterSeahorse Male pregnancies]] most definitely invoke this, when you think about what the nearest orifice is, or the lack of an uterus. |
| 82 | ** All physical exercise is the same, lifting weights with your legs, lifting weights with your arms, punching a punching bag, running on a treadmill, swimming or riding a stationary bike will all burn fat and build muscle at roughly the same rate. |
| 83 | *** Similarly, fitness is effectively cosmetic only, though can factor in how attractive the Sim is. It doesn't affect a Sims' health, stamina or longevity. A sim with a Body skill of 10 can still be obese, effectively making them {{Acrofatic}}. |
| 84 | ** It doesn't matter what Sims eat, as long as they don't eat while their hunger bar is full, since that will build bodyfat. A Sim can survive on a diet of gelatin desserts, grilled cheese and pizzas and never gain weight or suffer ill health effects. Higher quality foods (those that require higher cooking skills or are made with freshly-caught fish or harvestable fruits and veggies) will fill hunger more quickly but are not otherwise "healthier". |
| 85 | * ArtisticLicenseMilitary: |
| 86 | ** The "[[DrillSergeantNasty Drill Instructor]]" job in the military career outright says that the Base Commander "[[GotVolunteered volunteered]]" the Sim in question. In pretty much every military (but especially the US military, since Maxis is a US-based company) the job of Drill Instructor is a voluntary career path that requires going to a specific Drill Instructor school, with specific bases dedicated to training new recruits. It's not something any base commander can just ask of someone to perform at any kind of base. |
| 87 | ** See MildlyMilitary down below. |
| 88 | * ArtistsAreAttractive: You can choose "creative" (5+ creativity skill) as one of your sim's turn-ons. |
| 89 | * ArtShift: |
| 90 | ** Not the art style of the game itself, but the quality of the Neighborhood photo albums takes a turn for the worse after ''Seasons''. Whereas with the base game you had well-edited, high quality photos of all pre-made Sim families with [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/8/85/PleasantFamillyPhoto.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090217231946 each Sim edited into the shot with thought bubbles and doing something indicative of personality]], neighborhoods shipped with later expansions do away with this entirely, [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sims/images/2/2b/AspirFamilyPhoto.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090604024514 showing simpler, lower quality photos with the Sims all bunched up together in one shot]]. The stories of the later neighborhoods and the families living in them also become far less complex and less scripted. |
| 91 | ** It's subtle, but... while the textures on the game were always very high-quality, the object models veered on the simple side, specially in Build Mode assets. Each Expansion Pack had progressively complex and layered models. |
| 92 | ** The buildings of the base game tended to be realistic --with the byproduct they had really narrow corridors and small rooms, a ''very'' dangerous thing given the limited AI and pathfinding of the characters. Starting with the very first Expansion Pack, they did away with corridors, and each of them offered progressively elaborate and fantastic (more like "quirky") floorplans. The last EP, ''Apartment Life'', apparently had buildings based on real-life apartment blocks, so it was more of a mix of both styles. |
| 93 | ** It's been noted by players that sims on later EP were created with more realistic proportions on their faces. Unfortunately, genetics were designed with the "big forehead" model in mind, so those sims spawned really... ''interesting'' children. |
| 94 | ** Several icons for simple wishes in the earlier expansion packs are simply pictures of in-game objects or simplistic icons. Later expansion packs would make more stylized icons instead. |
| 95 | ** Many wooden objects in the base game or early expansions come in several colours, some of which look... weird. By the time of ''Freetime'' and ''Apartment Life'' most wood textures fell down to a light beige, medium brown and dark brown. |
| 96 | * AshesToCrashes: A Sim who has a dead enemy can grab their urn and violently smash it on the floor. Don't swipe the ashes and put them in the trash though, [[GameBreakingBug as that will cause neighborhood corruption]]. |
| 97 | * AttentionWhore: In ''University'', Drama professors will follow your sims back to the dorm, harass them for attention, and [[{{Yandere}} act heartbroken if anybody has a romantic interaction with anybody other than them]]. Mascots and cheerleaders do it to a lesser degree; llama mascots and cheerleaders mostly just show up to perform the school cheer, while cow mascots are there to cause trouble in your dorm. Then there's the odd [[NakedPeopleAreFunny streaker]]. While all of them are safe to move in, they will keep those behaviors even as playable characters. |
| 98 | * AutoErotica: Cars are a potential spot for [=WooHoo=]. |
| 99 | * BabiesEverAfter: |
| 100 | ** Riley's story in the ''Life Stories'' spin-off concludes this way: having her give birth to her first child is the final story mode step before you can unlock free play. |
| 101 | ** The ending of Best in Show in ''Pet Stories'' has Thomas Jones' pet Lucy giving birth to a litter of puppies. |
| 102 | ** A few of the other story-based console versions, notably ''Bustin' Out'', require your Sims to have a baby near the end of the game to fulfill all the quest objectives. |
| 103 | ** In the main version of ''The Sims 2'', this is pretty much the life's goal of any Sim with the Family aspiration. They'll keep rolling wishes/wants to have more and more children, with no apparent cap (whereas Sims without this aspiration usually start to actively fear having more children after three or four). Most of their lifetime wants will require them to get HappilyMarried before having a minimum of three children (sometimes as many as ten!) and raising them up to adulthood. Then they'll start to [[IWantGrandkids want grandchildren]]... |
| 104 | * BabyDollBaby: A Family Sim who falls into Aspiration Desperation will draw a face on a sack of flour and start cradling it/talking to it like it's a baby. |
| 105 | * BackFromTheDead: |
| 106 | ** You can plead with the Grim Reaper if your RelationshipValues are high enough. In the ''University'' EP you can earn a career reward that will allow you to buy back the dead. |
| 107 | ** In the Platform/PlayStation2 and Platform/NintendoGameCube versions of ''The Sims 2'', it is very easy to kill your Sims. But a dead Sim is fully playable as a ghost Sim, and can barter for their life back from the Grim Reaper who hangs around a dead Sim's house. The contest of choice? [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext A fiddle duel]]. |
| 108 | * BagOfHolding: Sims can place any buyable object in their personal inventory and carry it around with them. This includes pianos and ''cars''. While this is a necessary mechanic to ensure that Sims can take their belongings with them when moving house, it's nevertheless amusing to picture a Sim strolling around with a mid-size sedan in her backpack. |
| 109 | * BarbieDollAnatomy: |
| 110 | ** What goes on underneath the pixelation, if you use a hack to remove it. Leading to a situation where men have nipples, yet women do not. |
| 111 | ** So, of course, the Internet being [[TheInternetIsForPorn For Porn]], people developed custom content to avert [[{{Fanservice}} that]], too. |
| 112 | * TheBardOnBoard: Pre-made neighborhood [[{{Premiseville}} Veronaville]] has characters based on Shakespeare's ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' and ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream''. |
| 113 | * BigBad: [[AvertedTrope Not for the PC version]], [[NoAntagonist obviously]], but a player can invoke this depending on how they want to play. The spin-off and console ports are more concise. |
| 114 | ** The PSP version has Dominic Newlow, [[spoiler:AKA [[EvilGenius Dr. Dominion]]]], as the main villain. |
| 115 | ** ''The Sims Stories'' series feature two different storylines per game, each with their own villain. In both ''Life Stories'' storylines, there are [[BigBadDuumvirate villain duos]] as the antagonists. |
| 116 | *** ''Riley's Story'' has Agora Tchotchke and Dylan Kincaid as the main antagonists, [[spoiler: who are responsible for kidnapping Riley's aunt Sharon in an attempt to claim the Foss' fortune.]] |
| 117 | *** ''Vincent's Story'' has [[PsychoExGirlfriend Samantha Hayden]] and Johnny Cullen as the antagonists. Unlike the former story, Samantha's intentions on antagonizing Vincent Moore is because he [[DisproportionateRetribution rejected her plans to elope]]. |
| 118 | ** ''Pet Stories'' again features a villain in each of the two stories. |
| 119 | *** ''Best in Show'' has [[SmallTownTyrant Diana DeBore]] as the main antagonist, with Reece Mustella and Brock Thornton serving as CoDragons. |
| 120 | *** ''Midnight Masquerade'' has [[ConMan Gordon Fletching]] [[spoiler:AKA Gordon Schickel]] as the main antagonist. |
| 121 | ** The main villain of ''Castaway Stories'' is Winford Rhinehart, [[spoiler:who plans to make himself an [[AGodAmI immortal volcano god]] by drinking from the Chalice of Youth and using the Weathernaught 57X to cause havoc on Felicity Island.]] |
| 122 | * BilingualBonus: Probably not intentional but the vampires say "bluh" which sounds like "blø", which means "Bleed" in Norwegian, which does fit something a vampire would want to say. |
| 123 | * BizarreAlienBiology: Averted with HalfHumanHybrid aliens; they reproduce with humans or other creatures without any issues. It should be mentioned though that full-blooded aliens only kidnap [[MisterSeahorse males]] to impregnate (females can get abducted, they just can't get pregnant without the help of alien equality mods), so this particular oddity is played straight. |
| 124 | * BlindDate: In Nightlife, it's possible to ask a matchmaker to hook your Sim up on a blind date, for a small fee of course. The more cash you offer, the more compatible the partner she selects, based on personality, interests, and turn-on/turn-off traits. |
| 125 | * BlindIdiotTranslation: |
| 126 | ** In early versions of the Finnish translation of the game, the command to "fire" a nanny was apparently translated without any knowledge of the context the word was in. The word the translation used was "ammu", which means "to fire [a weapon/fireworks/etc.]", but unfortunately also means ''[[TriggerHappy "shoot"]]''. Later versions fixed the error and replaced "ammu" with the appropriate "erota", "fire [somebody from their job]". |
| 127 | ** Similarly, the Spanish translation gave us "fuego" ("fire", but the element), as a command available with all service sims. This was never addressed. |
| 128 | ** Due to an oversight in the Brazilian Portuguese translation of the Bon Voyage EP, "Woohoo in the Tent" was translated as "Voodoo in the Tent" for some reason, even though the translation of the base game and of the previous [=EPs=] adapted the term "woohoo" correctly. It was probably because Bon Voyage introduced a voodoo doll and the similar sounding of the terms in English got the translator confused. |
| 129 | ** In the French translation of ''Apartment Life'', the interaction "Give a tip" with the human statue is translated as "''Donner un conseil''" (give an ''advice'' tip) instead of the correct in context "''Donner un pourboire''" (give a ''monetary'' tip). |
| 130 | * BoldlyComing: Zig-zagged. Human Sims can have romantic and sexual relationships with alien sims. However, most of the alien sims are actually half-human hybrids. |
| 131 | * BotanicalAbomination: The [[ManEatingPlant Cowplant]] (''[[CanisLatinicus Laganaphyllis simnovorii]]'') is this but PlayedForLaughs. It's an eyeless cow head with leaves on its heads and an udder on its chin, mounted on a stem and planted in a flowerpot. It eats people (after luring them with its tongue, [[RuleOfFunny which is a slice]] of birthday cake with a lit candle on it) and can then be milked for a lifespan-extending beverage. An ancient stone tablet from the ''Bon Voyage'' expansion shows ancient Sims [[HumanSacrifice sacrificing]] other Sims to one, implying it's an ancient, naturally-occuring species and not something made in a laboratory. |
| 132 | * {{Bowdlerise}}: Music/{{Robyn}}'s song [[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch "Konichiwa Bitches"]] is listed in the soundtrack as the simlish "Bonichita Kitcha". |
| 133 | ** Similarly, in the Simlish version of Music/KatyPerry's "Hot n' Cold", "bitch" is now "britch". |
| 134 | * BraggingRightsReward: Collecting Vacation Mementos in ''Bon Voyage'' doesn't offer any real benefit. |
| 135 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: |
| 136 | ** Sims with low needs will sometimes complain while looking straight at the player. |
| 137 | ** In University, one of the class titles of the Philosophy major is "Who Controls the Pie Menu and Why?". |
| 138 | * BrickJoke: |
| 139 | ** The chance card for the level 2 Athletic career level involves the player Sim being asked by the assistant coach to help move a piano from a senior player on the team. When the Sim reaches level 8 of the Athletic career and is now assistant coach, they have a player who is moving out and needs a piano moved and can ask one of the rookies to do it, or pay professional movers. |
| 140 | ** The chance card for the level 1 Culinary career level mentions the French chef Lefromage. He's mentioned again in the chance card for the level 10 of the same career, with the game [[LampshadedTrope lampshading]] that this name is familiar... |
| 141 | * BubblePipe: The ''University'' expansion of ''The Sims 2'' introduces colorful bubble blowers that raise the Sims' fun meter at record speed and make them giggle a lot and [[StealthPun eventually float in the air]]. |
| 142 | * BugCatching: Becomes a hobby for Sims with the Nature interest in the Free Time expansion. You even get to see the Sim's bug collection in a frame. |
| 143 | * ButThouMust: |
| 144 | ** The game storyline "suggests" that Tank Grunt would like to get a job in the military track in an effort to [[WellDoneSonGuy please his father]]. Players will soon find that the career search is rigged for him to ''only'' display and choose that career track. If a player wants to give him another job, they have to use cheats. |
| 145 | ** Also, in a similar example, when you're playing the first tutorial in the game featuring Tutorial Joe, when you're giving Joe a job the only job in the career search is in the athletic career. |
| 146 | * BuzzingTheTower: The chance card for the level 6 job of the military career (Flight Officer) mentions the Sim complaining because regulations make it illegal to do so now. |
| 147 | * CanisLatinicus: The magic spells introduced in ''Apartment Life'' are named like this. |
| 148 | * CatapultNightmare: Sims can do this if they fall asleep in a bad mood or with low aspiration. |
| 149 | * CeilingBanger: A gameplay mechanic of ''Apartment Life'', walls that connect to another apartment can spawn ([[RuleOfPerception visible]]) noise, that drastically lowers the "environment" score of a room and make it impossible to fall asleep. Sims can bang on the wall to hopefully get the neighbor to quiet down. Since this "noise" is technically an object, one way of preventing noise is to put furniture against the wall. |
| 150 | * ChildByRape: By default, male sims can be forcibly impregnated by aliens and have alien babies. No sim will want this encounter except a Knowledge sim who has witnessed an abduction (and then, the desire is to "meet aliens" rather than to [[BoldlyComing Woohoo them]]). |
| 151 | ** Fortunately, [[https://episims.tumblr.com/post/667129092617961472/aliens-ask-about-pollination a mod]] has been created to address this, with a popup asking the abductee for permission to pollinate them. |
| 152 | * ChildhoodFriendRomance: |
| 153 | ** Alice and Thomas in ''The Sims Pet Stories''. Depending on the player's choices, Thomas can either become the Victorious or Unlucky variations on this trope. |
| 154 | ** ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' reveals Mortimer and Bella's relationship to have been this; Bob and Betty Newbie are revealed to have been HighSchoolSweethearts at the same time. Of course, the player can then chose to subvert it by getting them married to other people. |
| 155 | ** Quite likely to occur a lot in-game, whether with EA/Maxis or player-created Sims. Since a lot of characters are created with love interests in mind, and since handling multiple relationships over a Sim's lifetime (unless they're TheCasanova, in which case they don't want this kind of serious romance) makes for good storytelling but has little pay-off in terms of game-play, it's usually easier to have them become best friends in childhood, date as teenagers and marry in adulthood. This exact process can be seen in the memories of nearly all pre-created married couples in ''The Sims 2''. |
| 156 | * ChristmasEpisode: The Holiday expansion and packs add holiday-themed items to the game. |
| 157 | * CleanPrettyChildbirth: Births are streamlined both to [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality simplify gameplay]] and preserve the T-rating. There's no waters breaking, blood or placenta to take care off, all births are homebirths and the mother ([[MisterSeahorse or father]]) will just casually change back to their normal everyday clothes with no hint they were ever pregnant. They don't even need to take their pants off! |
| 158 | * ComicBookTime: |
| 159 | ** You can play for 20 generations but the game still retains [[MundaneFantastic (mostly)]] early 21st century technology and aesthetics. [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality Of course]], it'd be impossible for the programmer to program a detailed technological progression for the game. |
| 160 | ** [=NPCs=] don't age. When you make one controllable, they always start out at the very beginning of their current life stage. An expansion adds a feature where you can move townies to the next life stage along with one of your own characters, but it's limited and buggy. Testing cheats can be used to forcefully change their age and make them die, but they didn't take pets into account. |
| 161 | * CompanionCube: Sims with certain aspirations will interact with specific inanimate objects (such as a volleyball wearing a mortarboard cap for Knowledge Sims) if they slip into [[SanitySlippage Desperation mode]]. |
| 162 | * TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Some of the premade neighborhoods from the base game have pre-programmed events and those will force certain outcomes that are either random or rare otherwise. For instance, Mary-Sue Pleasant in Pleasantview will always get a chance card the first time she goes to work and, unless you ignore it, it will always result in a bad outcome that forces her to go home earlier. Likewise, in Strangetown, the first time Vidcund Curious looks through a telescope will always result in him being abducted by aliens, even though alien abductions are [[LuckBasedMission very hard to happen]] in normal gameplay. |
| 163 | * ConvectionSchmonvection: Putting soap in the giant monkey fountain that comes with Bon Voyage will apparently anger the deity it represents, causing the monkey to start spewing molten lava rather than water. Sims can still sit on the edge of the fountain as usual with no ill effect, and will even absent-mindedly dip their hand in the "water". |
| 164 | * CostumeEvolution: The work outfits for both Captain Hero and Criminal Mastermind are now given an updated look; the former trades their UnderwearOfPower and cape in favor of a modernized superhero uniform, while the latter goes from being a leader of the mob to having a getup that gives them the look of a supervillain. |
| 165 | * CradleToGraveCharacter: This game introduces aging, and Sims that are played from infancy to adulthood tend to develop better skills than those that were made as an adult. |
| 166 | * CulturalTranslation: The ''Bon Voyage'' expansion pack logo contains a globe. North America is displayed in all releases except for the Chinese release—instead, mainland China and Australia are shown. |
| 167 | * CursedWithAwesome: The Grilled Cheese Aspiration. You can rack up aspiration points really quickly by doing various very simple tasks involving grilled cheese sandwiches. With Free Time you can get a benefit that allows your Sim to conjure grilled cheese out of thin air, meaning you never have to worry about cooking again and you'll achieve the Lifetime Want (Eat 200 Grilled Cheese Sandwiches) in no time. |
| 168 | [[/folder]] |
| 169 | |
| 170 | [[folder:D-G]] |
| 171 | * DarkIsNotEvil[=/=]LightIsNotGood: |
| 172 | ** Angela and Lilith Pleasant are pretty much the same, only different because of their uneven treatment by their parents. Angela's described as "patient and dutiful", and even her name means "angel", while Lilith's name means "demon from the night" and she's a rebellious teenager who wears dark clothes and spike bands. Despite that, Lilith is seen as a [[TheWoobie woobie]] by most players while Angela's seen as an annoying MarySue ([[{{Pun}} just like her mother!]]) |
| 173 | ** The Goth family, including the members that show up here, an elder Mortimer and an adult Cassandra, are usually very nice despite their [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gothic]] appearance. |
| 174 | ** Also, it is possible to make a grouchy good witch (or, on the flip side of that, a nice evil witch), though grouchy witches sometimes roll fears of casting good spells. |
| 175 | * DeadArtistsAreBetter: Paintings increase in value after the painter dies. |
| 176 | * DeathFromAbove: If a Sim spends too much time Stargazing without a Telescope, they might get crushed by a satellite. Which can then be sold for §1,000. This is heavily implied to be the fate of Darleen Dreamer. |
| 177 | * ADegreeInUseless: In the University EP, the final class of the Philosophy major is titled "Senior Project: Preparing for the Fast Food Industry". |
| 178 | ** And accordingly, once graduated, the main career option for the sim in question is on the Slacker track. |
| 179 | * DentedIron: {{Implied|Trope}} in the Athletic career track: Upon reaching the Superstar level, the job description mentions that it's taking longer for the Sim to recover from injuries. [[InformedAttribute Not that it has any effect on gameplay.]] |
| 180 | * DepartmentOfChildDisservices: The Social Worker will take away a child for a number of legitimate reasons, such as them being starved to near-death or being orphaned. They will also take the child if they get an F on their report card, get too hot or cold, or even if they're a latchkey kid whose parents don't get home fast enough. Luckily, the social workers in later games become more sensible. |
| 181 | * DevelopersForesight: If you order a pizza but are unable to pay for it, the delivery person will take a piece of furniture as payment instead. If you don't have any furniture ''or'' money, which is very difficult to do unless you sell the phone and set your funds to zero with cheats, you will get a unique message where they chew you out and tell you to get a job. |
| 182 | * DiegeticSoundtrackUsage: Sims with Music & Dance enthusiasm in Free Time will whistle the game's theme tune and the Buy Mode music from ''The Sims''. |
| 183 | * DinnerDeformation: After a Sim is eaten by a Cowplant, it will bulge in its throat. |
| 184 | * DinnerWithTheBoss: To get a family's children into private school, the parents must invite the school's headmaster over for dinner. The headmaster's visit is scored and 90 points are required to get an acceptation. To improve the score, the family must give the headmaster a guided tour of the house (better [read: more expensive] decor means more points), serve them food (better food means more points) and schmooze with them. A similar scenario involving the boss of an adult Sim (enough points would've given a §750 bonus, otherwise there would've been a job performance penalty) was cut during development. |
| 185 | * DistaffCounterpart: Blossom Moonbeam to Jared Starchild and Zoey Rosenfeld to Cyd Roseland are the two most obvious examples. |
| 186 | * DivorceRequiresDeath: Or rather, death instead of divorce in most cases in ''The Sims 2''. Mostly applies to couples with kids: weirdly, there are loads of single-parent families in ''The Sims 2'', but it's always the result of one parent dying, not relationship breakdown. The only exceptions are Lyla Grunt, who divorced the father of her three sons (but then died very soon after anyway), Armand [=DeBateau=], who adopted a daughter on his own after a childless divorce, and Gabe O'Mackey, whose wife Alexandra left him for her career and left him (assumed) full custody of their teenage daughter. For some reason EA really broke their backs in a bid not to show children of divorce in ''[=TS2=]'', to the point where it seemed quite improbable that so many kids had lost parents at such a young age. (Take Pleasantview: five pre-made families with kids, three of which had lost one parent!) |
| 187 | * DonutMessWithACop: The chance card for the "Desk Sergeant" job (level 4 in the Law Enforcement Career) gives you the choice between going on a donut run to resupply the precinct and boost morale, or helping with the large pile of paperwork that needs to be done today. |
| 188 | * DontFearTheReaper: He's a pretty amicable guy, offering discounts on children's resurrections, occasionally bringing back dead Sims as zombies if their loved ones lose the wager with him, and if your aspiration meter was high, showing that the afterlife is really more of an endless vacation to Hawaii. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGwTaYuRNzc&feature=related Literally]]. He's as much of a human as any other Sim; he can use your ''toilet'', and [[UrbanLegendOfZelda allegedly]] have sex with and impregnate a female Sim. Shenanigans reveal that Nervous Subject's mother only remembers [=WooHooing=] one Sim - the Grim Reaper himself. So there is, in theory, a way to do that, it probably just involves cheating.[[note]]Doing so will [[GameBreakingBug corrupt the entire game.]][[/note]] |
| 189 | * DontSplitUsUp: Mentioned in the family description of the Newsons, a pack of six minors that were adopted and share no blood with each other (aside from the toddlers, who are twins). Their options after their adoptive parents died were to either go back into foster care and possibly be separated, or to go on living together without any adult guidance. They chose the latter. |
| 190 | * DontTryThisAtHome: Public "[[GRatedSex WooHoo]]" may seem fun, but in real life it's an excellent way of getting in ''serious'' trouble, especially if a minor stumbles upon you. |
| 191 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 192 | ** Aliens in this game are basically regular Sims with green skin, lacking the PsychicPowers they'd get in later games. Also, it's the only time aliens are available in the base game. They are also mechanically the same as regular Sims, while subsequent "life states" [[note]]The name given to variants of Sims such as vampires or zombies[[/note]] would have their own quirks. |
| 193 | ** Several things were introduced in the base game and discontinued or changed afterwards: |
| 194 | *** Sims have set gender preference, but they will easily change it if they are interacted in a romantic way by a same-sex sim. Gender preference would play more of a defining role from ''Nightlife'' onwards. |
| 195 | *** Cinematic cutscenes would happen for great milestones in sim's life, such as growing up or [[ItMakesSenseInContext being abducted by aliens]]. From ''Nightlife'' onwards, no more cinematics were implemented at any point. |
| 196 | *** Sims would be attracted to one another based solely in Zodiac sign and interest (like in the first game). Since the introduction of Chemistry in ''Nightlife'', Aspiration and physical and mental traits also played a role in attraction, which became more difficult (two sims with negative chemistry would constantly reject romantic interactions). |
| 197 | *** Most notably, the three neighbourhoods introduced in the base game all included scripted events and text prompts in order to both act as tutorials and set the intended plots of the characters in motion. Those were never used again in any Expansion Pack. |
| 198 | *** Some interactions were replaced or disappeared after the base game, such as the "secret handshake" greeting that two Best Friends gave each other. A player made a mod to reinstate that one. |
| 199 | *** A minor but similar case, the "secret handshake" interaction for Sims in a secret society in ''University'' (the first expansion pack) falls under the "Play" category. A separate "Gesture" category for "special" greetings was added in ''Bon Voyage'' and ''Apartment Life'' but the secret handshake remained in "Play". |
| 200 | *** In the base game, teens can use "Irritate" and "Fight" on adult and elder sims and vice-versa. Starting with an expansion, this is no longer possible (outside of using the "Influence" option on them) and the only "Irritate" option to show up (with ''Nightlife'' installed) is the "Throw Drink" interaction. |
| 201 | ** Many of icons for wishes in the earlier expansion pack were basic pictures of the object in question (such as "tend a bar"). Starting with the ''Seasons'' expansion pack new wishes would generally include a custom icon. |
| 202 | * ElevatorFailure: The elevators introduced in ''Open For Business'' can break and fall down, potentially killing the unfortunate sims using them. |
| 203 | * ElevatorGoingDown: Elevators are a potential [=WooHoo=] spot. If they're on a community lot this counts as public [=WooHoo=] |
| 204 | * ElixirOfLife: The titular item appears as the most expensive Aspiration Reward in the game. It allows a sim to gain days to their life, or if they are unlucky, lose it. ''Pets'' introduces a animal counterpart called the Kibble of Life. Unlike the sim counterpart, this reward doesn't have drawbacks if the pet is in a bad mood. |
| 205 | * EncounterBait: Added with the Freetime expansion is an aspiration reward for the Popularity aspiration that increases your odds of bringing home a colleague or classmate after returning from work or school, which can be befriended. Romance Sims can get a similar benefit that works with lot passerbys - they have a higher chance of having good romantic chemistry with your Sim. |
| 206 | * EnhancedInterrogationTechniques: A chance card for the Level 10 Intelligence career job mentions Repeated Llama Bleating as an [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything illegal interrogation method used by the Sim City Intelligence Agency]]. |
| 207 | * AnEntrepreneurIsYou: The ''Open for Business'' expansion allows your sims to open businesses of their own. |
| 208 | * EternalEquinox: Despite taking place over a fairly long time in in-game days, the game uses a fixed day/night cycle throughout. Even when in this expansion the seasons change --and player can choose the seasons desired-- with heat, rain, and snow, Earth's position doesn't seem to affect the fixed day/night cycle duration. |
| 209 | * EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: Sparkles, sparkles everywhere: |
| 210 | ** With the ''Seasons'' EP, this is taken literally: If you have fresh produce in your fridge, you'll make sparkly food that raises the food motive faster. |
| 211 | ** Played Straight and Subverted with the Witches, both the extremely good and extremely bad witches have a sparkly aura. |
| 212 | * EvilSorcerer: A "Witch/Wizard" character can become this by studying "dark" magic. (Though the "evil" spells tend to fall into the PokeThePoodle territory. Comical mischief more than anything else.) |
| 213 | * EyeOfNewt: Eccentric ingredients (one of which could be a literal eye of newt) are needed for witches to cast spells. |
| 214 | * FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: Alien abduction, which for adult males (like Pascal Curious) leads to MisterSeahorse. |
| 215 | * FaceplantingIntoFood: If your Sim has a low energy level while eating, they will fall asleep on their plate. |
| 216 | * FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Mary-Sue Pleasant is scripted to always get a chance card in her first day of work in the game, and it is similarly scripted to always have a bad result no matter the option you pick ([[TakeAThirdOption unless you choose to ignore the Chance Card]]). |
| 217 | * FakeLongevity: The DS version requires you to get your Mechanical skill up to five at a certain point. How do you do this? Find them around the hotel. On certain days of the week. And the game knows if you've altered your DS' clock to make it faster. |
| 218 | * FantasyKitchenSink: The second game takes this one even farther: your Sims can plead with TheGrimReaper for the life of a fellow Sim, get abducted by aliens (and become pregnant [[MisterSeahorse if they're male]]), become a werewolf, vampire, or zombie, get swallowed by a ManEatingPlant, find Bigfoot (and even ask him to move in with you), learn ninja teleportation, have wishes granted by a genie... |
| 219 | * FanDisservice: The coconut bra outfit on elders. |
| 220 | * FantasticRacism: |
| 221 | ** What other way is there to describe how normal non-knowledge Sims feel about the other life states? |
| 222 | ** In Strangetown stories, the Grunt-Smith rivalry is almost always portrayed as caused by General Buzz's racism (species-ism?) against aliens. |
| 223 | * Fiction500: Vincent Moore in ''Life Stories'' has the most simoleons of any Sim in the series outside of game modifications or cheating with over §2.8 million in funds. Vincent is the CEO of Jigantor Computing Networks, and has invested in major projects such as launching satelites. Sharon Foss from the same game comes a close second with exactly §1,000,000 to her name. Parodied in that Sharon is unemployed when she becomes playable at the start of Free Play in Riley's Story, as she mentions having obtained that fortune through the stock market. |
| 224 | * FireworksOfLove: [[UnusualEuphemism WooHooing]]'s animation includes fireworks going off over the bed. |
| 225 | * FirstKiss: Each sim has the opportunity to experience one, and even has a cutscene to emphasize its glory. If you have created an adult or elder from scratch then their first kiss will be a memory. |
| 226 | * FlavorText: Nearly every item. Some examples are: |
| 227 | ** London's Famous Birthday Cake |
| 228 | ---> No birthday celebration would be complete without this festive and lovingly baked confection. Make sure to invite family and friends to the party before it's all gone! |
| 229 | ** Celebration! Stuff: |
| 230 | *** The Limey[=/=]Buttery[=/=]Purpley [=CulinaryCounter=] (Age++) |
| 231 | ----> Your birthday, as a child, is the one day you look forward to more than any other, but as you age it acts as a reminder of just how old you really are. If it's not your friends heckling and teasing, it's that cake with one more candle squeeeeeeezed onto that little surface each year. The way we figure, if a cake is going to make you feel bad for being a year older, at least it will taste fantastic! |
| 232 | * FormFittingWardrobe: Some of the clothing mods fit like this. |
| 233 | * ForScience: Said at the end of the welcome speech to the science hobby secret lot. |
| 234 | * FountainOfYouth: The Chalice of Youth found at the House of Tuzu in ''Castaway Stories''. Elders who drink from it will revert to the beginning of the Adult Life stage. [[spoiler: An extreme variant is used by the protagonist as one of the ways to defeat Winford Rhinehart with the [[MagicStaff Staff of Tuzu]] by turning him into a toddler.]] This is the only official way to return a Sim to a previous life stage without cheating or game modifications. |
| 235 | * FranchiseCodifier: This game introduced aging (including the toddler, teen, and elder stages) and a system where fulfilling Sims' desires awards points that can be spent on various rewards, both of which would become mainstay features. |
| 236 | * FreakyIsCool: The core philosophy of a Knowledge Sim. Most Sims fear {{alien abduction}}s, encountering bigfoot, [[CameBackWrong having a relative resurrected]] [[OurZombiesAreDifferent as a zombie]], or getting turned into a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]], [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]], [[PlantPerson plantSim]], [[FunctionalMagic witch]], or any other non-standard state. Knowledge Sims utterly embrace all of the above, and [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie all combinations thereof]]. |
| 237 | * FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire: Vampire Sims, they do not require blood to survive and can continue their (un)lives as normal...except for an incredible intolerance to sunlight. The same can be said for zombie sims as well, as they do not eat brains for sustenance and can't kill living sims. Sims with high points in [[NiceGuy Niceness]] are even literal Friendly Neighborhood Vampires as opposed to just "Harmless" Neighborhood Vampires. |
| 238 | * FrothyMugsOfWater: Kegs and Bars are always described as "juice." Juice that under the hood reduces the relationship value needed for romantic interactions to succeed. |
| 239 | * FunctionalMagic: ''Apartment Life'' lets Sims become witches and warlocks. |
| 240 | * FurAgainstFang: |
| 241 | ** Averted. Vampires and werewolves don't seem to have any particular built-in antipathy towards one another in this game. Same goes with all the other available creatures. |
| 242 | ** The one exception is good vs evil witches, who naturally start with much worse relations than normal. Which isn't to say that it isn't possible for good and evil witches to become friends or even lovers - the player just needs to work harder to get them on friendly terms. While the opposite is true amongst two good or two evil witches; since they have the same witch alignment, they'll start off with good relations. |
| 243 | * GameBreakingBug: Many and varied. Examples include: |
| 244 | ** Deleting Sims from the bin, despite repeatedly debunked rumours that it corrupts the neighborhood or even the game, is actually completely safe, though a bit wasteful as it's only a "soft delete" which leaves stub references to the deleted Sim in the neighborhood's data. Those "soft deleted" sims count towards the population limit of the neighborhood, which is 32,767 (due to the signed 16-bit integer used); trying to create more Sims in a neighborhood beyond that limit simply crashes the game. Deleting files from the "Characters" folder outside the game ''can'' corrupt the neighborhood, but this isn't something the developers intended. Properly deleting unwanted Sims can be done, but this is an elaborate process which requires third-party tools and mods. |
| 245 | ** If a tombstone/urn is sold, deleted or otherwise destroyed (a bug sometimes causes them to disappear if a lot is saved while ghosts are around), the deceased Sim's character file gets unlinked, making it impossible to resurrect them. A mod exists to stop that behavior. Like deleting Sims from the bin, there is no truth to the common rumours that deleting tombstones/urns corrupts the neighborhood. |
| 246 | ** Turning universal [=NPCs=] ([=NPCs=] that appear in all neighborhoods, such as the Grim Reaper and Mrs. Crumplebottom) into supernatural creatures, adding them to a household, or just in general trying to make them do something outside of their intended purposes will corrupt the entire game and not just the neighborhood, requiring a full reinstallation of the game to recover from the game corruption. Though most of these cases are entirely avoidable unless you deliberately mess around with cheats/hacks or tamper with files. Save for one; the most dangerous scenario, which could happen to any player even if they never use cheats, is when you visit a downtown public lot where Mrs. Crumplebottom and a vampire NPC may spawn. Mrs. Crumplebottom ''can'' be bitten and transformed into a vampire by the Vampire NPC. If this happens your entire game is probably toast. Luckily there's an easy fan-made fix found online which prevents NPC vampires from biting sims while on a community lot, eliminating the chances of this game-killing freak occurrence from happening. Alternatively there's other fan-made mods which prevent Mrs Crumplebottom from spawning, ever (if you can bear with the [[SarcasmMode lovely old lady]] no longer visiting your public lots). |
| 247 | ** When an occupied or previously occupied lot is added to the lot bin, stub references to every Sim the household knows (or leftover data from previous occupants) are packaged with the lot. When that lot is then placed in a neighborhood, those stubs are added to the neighborhood, and just like Sims deleted from the bin, they count towards the population limit. If the lot is placed back in the same neighborhood it came from, it will effectively create duplicates of those Sims. This does not apply to the premade occupied lots that come with ''Pets'' as those are completely self-contained. Again, the rumors that this causes neighborhood corruption (outside of creating overpopulation problems) are baseless. |
| 248 | ** Resurrecting deceased Sims from the premade neighborhoods will corrupt the game. This is because the Sims in question usually have incomplete or outright corrupted data. The Sims in Olive Specter's graveyard are an especially severe case, as traits like their age or gender don't match their models. Already-dead Sims from neighborhoods introduced after ''University'' tend to be safer as they were already created with the possibility of using the Resurrect-o-Nomitron in mind, but already-dead Sims from Pleasantview, Strangetown or Veronaville are too risky to resurrect (since you couldn't do so without cheats in the base game). |
| 249 | ** Two pre-made families, the Ottomas family from ''Seasons'' and the Crittur family from ''Pets'', have pregnant members. Before it was fixed in the ''Seasons'' patch, their unborn babies had incorrect father [=IDs=], leading to some random Sim or pet (which can even be an universal NPC!) being shown as their "father" in their family trees. This could allegedly corrupt the neighborhood, but there is no clear evidence that it actually does so. Instances of the families created before the patch (which happens as soon as the neighborhood loads in the stealth neighborhoods) can still be salvaged by terminating the pregnancies with third-party mods. |
| 250 | ** The Mac version has problems with the Mac file limit, as every time the game runs it needs to open every file in its installation folder and its Documents folder, which can lead to the OS hitting the file limit while the game is running, resulting in corruption. This was more of a problem with older (10.13 and earlier) versions of macOS, as newer versions (10.14 onwards) have increased significantly the file limit. |
| 251 | ** In games with both ''[=FreeTime=]'' and ''Apartment Life'' installed, if a family takes too long to pick an apartment Rod Humble will show up, but since there is no valid "home" where he can place his gift, he will get stuck in an endless loop of error/reset and hang the game, and the only way out is to either quit without saving or turn on the testing cheats and click on "Delete" on the error dialog that pops up to delete Humble. The only ways to circumvent the issue (other than a "No Humble" mod so he won't ever visit) is to either be quick enough with moving families into apartments (Humble shows up two hours after a family moves in) or use the "setHour" cheat. |
| 252 | * GenerationXerox: The nature-loving John Burb, like his father Brad, has a fashionable wife who (depending on the player's interpretation) doesn't care much for suburban life. |
| 253 | * GlitchEntity: Improperly deleting Sims (i.e. deleting their files in the neighborhood's "Characters" folder outside the game) will cause Sims created or born afterwards to inherit the data (wants/fears, relationships, memories and such) that belonged to the deleted Sims. This leads to neighborhood corruption, so many Sims 2 forums and strategy sites have warnings about deleting sims unless a special hacked object made by Pescado of "More Awesome Than You" is used. Even then, [=SimPE=] is required and the process can be a bit complex. |
| 254 | ** The universal [=NPCs=] can show up where they're not supposed to. For instance it's possible to get the Social Services lady as a blind date, which can corrupt your game if you don't immediately quit without saving or delete her with "moveobjects on". Having child ghosts also spawns random universal [=NPCs=] as the game believes these children are "freerange" and need a parent from their household to come pick them up, but the only available adult Sims to them are the universal [=NPCs=] because they are technically in the same "default" family that deceased Sims are sent to when they die. |
| 255 | * GoMadFromTheIsolation: Played for laughs. Socially-deprived sims can interact with the Social Bunny, who is only visible while the sim who is hallucinating them is selected. |
| 256 | * GrandmasRecipe: With the ''Freetime'' expansion pack, sims with the family focus can unlock the ability to make Grandma's Comfort Soup, a special dish capable of curing all diseases. |
| 257 | * GRatedSex: "Woohoo" is a substitute word for intercourse, even though it's blatantly clear that they're having sex. Alternate option is "Try for baby". |
| 258 | * GRatedDrug: The bubble blower in the ''University'' expansion is a Hookah-looking psychedelic contraption that allows up to 4 Sims to blow bubbles together at once. This makes them [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything giggle]] and eventually [[StealthPun makes them float]] in the air. |
| 259 | * GuideDangIt: A somewhat unorthodox example: actually obtaining the Origin-only ''The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection'', which includes every expansion and stuff pack for the game, could be this. Unless you received it during the promotion mentioned above, the only way to add it to your Origin collection was through contacting EA customer support and providing them with proof that you own a physical copy of ''The Sims 2'', and that's if you were lucky enough to know about it before October 11, 2018, when EA quit offering the collection that way. |
| 260 | ** Then there's a meta example of this trope where the game struggles to run on modern hardware [[note]]The game engine dates back to 2004, and was made with Windows XP/Mac OS X 10.3.8+ in mind and with graphic cards from 2004. The problem is that it can't recognize modern hardware and so falls back to minimal settings to avoid "overtaxing" the computer, even if said computer is perfectly capable of running the game.[[/note]] and will default to the most basic settings (low resolution textures, 800x600 resolution, etc...) and have a variety of visual bugs (the most infamous being rectangular black boxes under Sims feet, the result of a bug with shadows). The Origin release doesn't account for newer hardware, or explain how to fix these bugs. Thankfully there's a legion of helpful guides online explaining how to edit the relevant files (which is easier than it sounds once you know how). |
| 261 | ** Yet another meta example involving [[GameBreakingBug game corruption]] (or more specifically, [[https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Game_guide:Avoiding_corruption avoiding it]]). While a lot of the supposed ways of corrupting the game (''especially'' the infamous "deleting Sims from the Sim bin will corrupt your game!") are but mere myths that have persisted for decades despite repeated debunkings by several experienced modders, there are some genuine causes of corruption that are not obvious at first glance, such as the "Mac file limit" for macOS users or messing with the universal [=NPCs=] outside of their designated purpose. |
| 262 | [[/folder]] |
| 263 | |
| 264 | [[folder:H-N]] |
| 265 | * HalfHumanHybrid: Alien Sims in ''The Sims 2'', as they are the half-human offspring of an alien pollination technician and the sim who was abducted. Technically any children that those alien sims go on to have fit this trope as well. |
| 266 | * HandbagOfHurt: If two Sims kiss on a public lot when Mrs. Crumplebottom is around, the one who initiated the kiss gets this. |
| 267 | * HappyHolidaysDress: The MrsClaus outfit in the holiday packs. |
| 268 | * HasAType: With the addition of ''Nightlife,'' Sims acquired Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs, allowing them to have a thing for certain hair colors, fashion styles, levels of success or skill, supernatural life states, etc. This has in-game effects in establishing a Sim's chemistry with possible partners. |
| 269 | * HeroicBSOD: Aspiration failure. When a Sim's worst fears come true, they'll have a gibbering breakdown from which they have to be rescued by an imaginary psychiatrist. Who gives them a brief pep talk and then [[HypnoFool gets them to do something silly]]. |
| 270 | * HomeEarlySurprise: One of the premade household scenarios. The husband is having an affair with the maid, if the player follows the onscreen suggestions, they, and a rigged [[LuckBasedMission chance card]] will lead to the wife being fired or demoted and coming home early to catch him in bed with the maid. Of course it's easy enough to [[DefiedTrope avoid the entire thing]] by not having the man get in bed with the maid or by ignoring the chance card. |
| 271 | * HospitalHottie: Don Lothario, Pleasantview's local womanizer, works in the medical career path. |
| 272 | * HotterAndSexier: This game introduces Woohoo and Try for Baby as a necessity instead of just a special object interaction. And in the default settings, doing it for the first time for a particular Sim will have the game play a cutscene, although it's mostly PlayedForLaughs. |
| 273 | * HouseInspection: Getting your child into a private school requires undergoing House Inspection by the headmaster. This is one of the more challenging things to do in the game; not only should your house be good-quality and clean, but the kid and all house residents need to be on their best behavior. Being rejected from a private school is the most likely outcome. |
| 274 | * HumanoidAbomination: Several cut or dead Sims have incomplete or corrupted data, and if resurrected or otherwise spawned they often come with [[FacialHorror horrifying facial distortions]], have a different age and sex than what their model suggests (such as a little girl actually being an adult male), and their very existence will very likely [[GameBreakingBug corrupt the neighborhood]]. |
| 275 | * HumbleGoal: In ''University'', it's possible to change a Sim's Lifetime Aspiration to "Grilled Cheese", which centers around [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin eating and cooking certain amounts of Grilled Cheese]]. ''Nightlife'' introduces the "Pleasure" Aspiration, which revolves around simple joys like putting on pajamas, drinking "juice", and jumping on the couch. |
| 276 | * IAmTheNoun: Most of the law career that came with ''Seasons'' is about, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin being a lawyer]]. The top position has the sim becoming "The Law". |
| 277 | * IJustWantToBeNormal: Sims who don't have a knowledge aspiration react this way if you get them turned into a monster (such as a vampire, zombie, werewolf etc). Even a witch, which makes a Sim CursedWithAwesome and carries no harmful side effects whatsoever. |
| 278 | ** Hence the negative (red) memory when a non-knowledge sim gets turned into one of these creatures. However there ''are'' exceptions which have been spotted by players; a non-Knowledge sim turned into a vampire will occasionally be a green (positive) memory, usually when the vampire who bit them is their lover. Either it's a bug, or is it truly ThePowerOfLove showing, and the willingness to be [[EternalLove together forever]] as a never-aging vampire couple? Intentional or not, it's cute. |
| 279 | ** Oddly being turned into a witch is almost always a negative memory EVEN when it happens to Knowledge sims. Despite the fact that being turned into a witch is the least drastic life state change there is; Your skin tone doesn't really change unless you purposely become an extremely good or evil witch, and you can change your outfit so that you no longer look like a witch, whenever you like. What's the phobia regarding witches? Fear of witch hunts, perhaps? Which doesn't exist ingame, but [[GameplayAndStorySegregation storywise perhaps it does in a lore sense]]. |
| 280 | * IJustWantToBeSpecial: Knowledge aspiration Sims tend to have wants like this. See NightmareFetishist below. |
| 281 | * ILoveTheDead: You can choose zombies as one of a Sim's turn-ons. |
| 282 | * INeedToGoIronMyDog: If you call and invite a Sim you're not friends with to your house one of the excuses they give to not come over is they're waiting for the phone repairman. |
| 283 | * InstantBookDeal: All the books written by the sims are published when they're finished. |
| 284 | * InterchangeableAsianCultures: Asian-themed items in the base game are a combination of Japanese, Korean and Chinese decoration and furniture. ''Bon Voyage'' doubles down on this trope with Takemizu Village, the Far East destination, which is mostly Chinese but has real Japanese food. |
| 285 | * ImAHumanitarian: The Cow Plant ''kind of'' causes this. It eats people, then produces milk which can be drunk. Some Sims will express a desire to drink milk made from certain Sims they don't like. |
| 286 | * TheInspectorIsComing: Critics can review your establishment in the ''Open for Business'' expansion pack, and they can give you either positive or negative reviews. |
| 287 | * IntergenerationalFriendship: Mary-Sue Pleasant and Cassandra Goth (assuming Mary-Sue is meant to be 40-something and Cassandra a 20-something). |
| 288 | * InterspeciesRomance: Want your sim to be romantically involved with a vampire, zombie, werewolf, alien or plant sim? Go ahead. Mods allow you to romance up Bigfoot as well. |
| 289 | * ItsFakeFurItsFine: One of the expansions offers a fur coat for the ladies. |
| 290 | * IWasToldThereWouldBeCake: Overlaps with TheCakeIsALie - the cow plant reward taunts Sims with a slice of cake, only to eat them instead. It then produces milk that extends a Sims' life. |
| 291 | * {{Jerkass}}: The cow mascots (called "evil mascots" in the game files) in university neighborhoods are inarguably this. They'll usually pick fights with everyone [[ArchEnemy (especially if there are any llama mascots aka "good mascots" present)]], pull pranks (including making the sprinklers go off which creates a HUGE mess of puddles for sims to clean up), and even try to hit on sims (which could cause heartbreak if your sim's lover sees it, ''even'' if your sim rejects the mascot's flirt!). |
| 292 | ** The best part, and what causes their nastiness, is that each cow mascot has identical personality points; all of them will have maxed Playful but zero Nice points. This is impossible to configure (unless you cheat) by for instance reversing their personality points (if you apply a certain method of resurection after killing them), the game will automatically set their personality back to full playful, full mean. |
| 293 | ** Any Sim with a low Niceness score in their personality will be this. |
| 294 | * KissOfTheVampire: |
| 295 | ** Sims are hypnotised, and then visibly smile while being bitten by a vampire. The "Neck Bite" interaction also causes a major relationship boost. Or a relationship drop [[EpicFail when it fails.]] Vampire sims left on free will are likely to attempt to bite other non-vampire sims. Let's just say they'll attempt to bite sims even when they barely know them, ergo it will almost always fail, because you usually need to be at friend level or higher for this interaction to succeed. Seems stupid, but it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]] considering vampires are, well, thirsty for blood, and they might get restless so they'll chance a bite even when it's unlikely to work. |
| 296 | * LampshadeWearing: Sims with the Pleasure aspiration will wear a lampshade with a face drawn on it and start dancing while going through an aspiration failure. |
| 297 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The bio of the Broke family tells that Skip Broke died after a mysterious pool ladder accident. Removing the pool ladder, forcing a sim to swim until exhaustion, is a very well known way of killing a sim by drowning in the game and its [[VideoGame/TheSims1 predecessor]]. |
| 298 | * LethalJokeCharacter: The "Grilled Cheese" aspiration. Sure, you may laugh at first, considering that they are now revolving their whole life around a simple meal, but then you realize that this makes it very easy to keep them happy. Just have them make Grilled Cheese for every meal, and the Wants will be constantly satisfied, giving them loads of points, and an easy route to a Platinum aspiration meter. |
| 299 | * LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: Loading times are significantly increased due to the amount of content, and it can get worse with expansions and custom content. Not even machines released years after its last expansion helped much due to engine limitation. At least they kept the old "reticulating splines" joke in the initial launch. |
| 300 | * LongevityTreatment: |
| 301 | ** The game features a carnivorous plant (the cowplant) that produces a substance that, when drunk, gives a Sim five more days to their life. |
| 302 | ** There's also the most expensive aspiration bonus, Elixir of Life. It adds three days to the life of a sim who's in platinum aspiration. You don't want to know what it does if they're in the red. |
| 303 | * LoveDodecahedron: The [[http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Pleasantview default neighborhood]] starts with [[http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/File:Love_web.JPG one]] in place and constructing your own is simple and [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a lot of fun.]] |
| 304 | ** There is also one in the first ''University'' college neighborhood, Sim State University. The playable inhabitants of the two Greek Houses and the one normal household all have varying crushes on a member of another household. |
| 305 | ** One of possible lifetime wishes for a Romance sim is to have 20 simultaneous lovers. So, if you're going for it, you're building a very literal one with that sim in the centre. (Dodecahedron is a polygon with 12 faces and *20 vertices*.) |
| 306 | * LoveFloats: The cinematic that plays when a Sim gets their very first kiss has the kissing Sims levitate briefly[[note]]assuming that you have cinematics enabled, that is.[[/note]]. |
| 307 | * LuringInPrey: The [[ManEatingPlant cowplant]] can lure unsuspecting sims using a cake on its tongue. Anyone careless enough to grab the cake trap will get eaten; although, if the sim in question has low enough hygiene, the cowplant may spit them out instead of swallowing them. |
| 308 | * LuckBasedMission: |
| 309 | ** If you want your Sim to be anything besides a vanilla human, you've only got so much control; regardless of what you want to turn them into, some portion of the process involves waiting (sometimes in a specific place) and hoping that the RNG will smile upon you. |
| 310 | ** Career chance cards can be this as well. The player is presented with a scenario and must choose between two options or ignore it.[[note]] The outcome of those choices is random, although some options have bigger chances of leading to a good outcome than others. Knowing which ones, however, is a case of GuideDangIt, as it's obviously not hinted in-game (except for a few cases of simple common sense or picking the honest or morally good options).[[/note]] One of the Free Time career perks puts the success rate at 85% for all options. Interestingly there are a few chance cards where the success chance is higher than that, meaning they're now likelier to ''fail''. |
| 311 | * LuringInPrey: The Cow Plant can lure unsuspecting Sims using a cake on its tongue. Anyone careless enough to grab the cake trap will get eaten. |
| 312 | * {{Machinima}}: Fans of [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender popular TV]] and [[Manga/{{Naruto}} anime]] series use the create-a-character tool to recreate their [[{{Shipping}} ships]], no matter how [[CrackPairing cracky]]. |
| 313 | * MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: It's possible for the sims to "[[GRatedSex Woohoo]]" in bed, in a pool, in a car, in an elevator, in a fitting booth, in the shower, in a sauna, etc... |
| 314 | * {{Machinomics}}: Fans of the game gladly give EA free advertising creating their "original" works using the same software. |
| 315 | * ManEatingPlant: Cowplants are totally awesome. |
| 316 | * MeaningfulName: Angela means angel, Lilith is a [[Literature/TheBible biblical]] demoness. Many, many more, especially in Strangetown. (See below.) |
| 317 | * MeditationPowerup: Meditate for long enough and you can learn to teleport. |
| 318 | * MildlyMilitary: The military career track is this, having no real differences from more regular career tracks. |
| 319 | ** The level 1 job is Recruit, the level 2 job is ''Elite Forces'', meaning your Sim will go straight from boot camp to special operations. There are no grooming or hair regulations, one of their [[FourStarBadass generals]] wears football eye black to work. Not showing up for work means at best you will lose some job performance, and at worst you'll just get fired, instead of being punished for going AWOL. |
| 320 | ** Virtually all officers are promoted from enlisted personnel without needing a college degree. Discharges are granted immediately upon request, your Sim can literally phone and say "I quit" or "I'm sick" with no penalty, and so on and on. |
| 321 | ** There seems to be no psychological screening whatsoever, as any sim regardless of personality and aspiration level can join in with no problems. The chance card for "Flight Officer" has a sim and their squadron have sociopathic thoughts that are grounds for psychiatric evaluation in real life (they get bored with peacetime and lament that they are not allowed to shoot down commercial airliners or bomb peaceful protesters). |
| 322 | * MilitaryBrat: The Grunt boys in Strangetown. |
| 323 | * MissingMom: |
| 324 | ** Several cases in premade families, such as Lyla Grunt and Darleen Dreamer. Bella Goth might count, too. |
| 325 | ** [[DisappearedDad Inverted]] with Skip Broke, since he had a suspicious pool ladder accident, widowing his wife, Brandi. |
| 326 | * MisterSeahorse: |
| 327 | ** Adult male Sims who are [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong abducted by aliens]] always return from the ordeal pregnant. |
| 328 | ** A popular mod exists which allows same-sex couples to impregnate each other...which, of course, would lead to this on the male end. Even if you don't have the mod, it can be done without a mod if you turn on debug mode via a cheat code and spawn a special item. |
| 329 | * MortonsFork: The Want and Fear system sometimes gives the player a Morton's Fork by making a Sim have simultaneous wants and fears that contradict each other, like a Want to "Stay Home from Work" and a Fear to "Miss the Carpool." If you have them stay home from work, they don't get the aspiration points from the Want, because they lose them from the Fear activating (unless they have a way to stay home from work ''without'' missing the carpool, like calling in sick). Better just send them to work unless the Fear re-rolls before the Want. (It's also not unheard of for Sims with a secondary Knowledge aspiration to Want to "Become a Witch" while their primary non-Knowledge aspiration makes them Fear to "Become a Witch.") Also, Family Sims with multiple young children may both want and fear having another, and Romance Sims sometimes want to get engaged on a date, even if they also fear it. |
| 330 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: |
| 331 | ** The inhabitants of Strangetown. Except maybe the Smiths. |
| 332 | ** The Curiouses might be weird, but they're nice people. The Beakers, on the other hand... |
| 333 | * NeatFreak: Any Sim with a high Cleanliness stat in their personality. |
| 334 | * NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: A scheduling conflict can let your Sim [[TalkingToThemself meet themself]] and gain a memory from it, possibly even a relationship. However, [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing if this happens]], [[GameBreakingBug very bad things will happen to your game]]. |
| 335 | * NiceGuy[=/=]NiceGirl: Any Sim with a high Niceness stat in their personality. |
| 336 | * NightmareFetishist: |
| 337 | ** Knowledge Sims can roll wants to make zombies, get abducted by aliens, have a NearDeathExperience, and become various types of supernatural creatures. |
| 338 | ** If you have ''Seasons'', they can roll wants to ''get hit by lightning''. |
| 339 | ** Can be done literally as well, if you have the Nightlife expansion pack, which allows you to choose your Sims turn-ons and turn-offs. By choosing certain turn-ons, you can make your Sims romantically attracted to creatures such as werewolves, zombies, and vampires. |
| 340 | * NinjaPirateZombieRobot: ''The Sims 2'' allows the player to have aliens, zombies, vampires, werewolves, plant/human hybrids, and combine them as he/she deems [[RuleOfCool cool]]. Vampire/werewolf/zombie ''robots'' are even possible. And add to this the fact that you can learn to teleport from a ninja... |
| 341 | * NoFlowInCGI: Averted with the majority of hairstyles. Played straight with the clothes and many fan-created hairs. |
| 342 | * NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Even if you choose the more honest or morally good (or simple common sense ones) options in the career chance cards you can still suffer penalties and lose money, skills or your job. |
| 343 | * NoodlePeople: A cheat code, 'stretchskeleton' followed by a numerical value, allows you to make your Sims as noodly as you want them to be. [[GameBreakingBug Just don't put it too low.]] |
| 344 | * NonhumanHumanoidHybrid: Technically any child of a relationship between a human Sim and a supernatural, although they will either inherit their supernatural parent's appearance and powers or be a straightforward vanilla human: there's no chance, for example, of a vampire-human child who has all the benefits of an extended life-span but can still go out in sunlight. |
| 345 | * NoSell: Literally, in one case; if you have a sim-run business, there will very rarely be a shopper who will be completely immune to all your sales tricks and abilities. |
| 346 | * NotQuiteDead: In the [=PS2=] version of ''Pets'', Sims and pets can't die at all in any circumstances not even for starvation. Instead either a paramedic or a Sim revives the starved Sim or the pet. |
| 347 | [[/folder]] |
| 348 | |
| 349 | [[folder:O-Z]] |
| 350 | * ObfuscatedInterface: Later expansion packs use "Simlish" on signs and stuff, making them unreadable. |
| 351 | * OfficeGolf: The career reward for the Business career track is a small golf hole. |
| 352 | * OneTrueLove: The Nightlife expansion introduced the chemistry system which uses lightning bolts to indicate a character's potential compatibility with another. Many players interpret three bolts (the maximum) as being this. |
| 353 | * OppositeSexClone: Cloning your Sim a baby (using hacks or cheats) will always result in a child of the opposite sex but with identical genetics to their one biological parent. Unless her pregnancy is modified, Brandi Broke's third child will always be this due to the fact that Skip's DNA is not used in the pregnancy. |
| 354 | * OurGhostsAreDifferent: Their method of death determines the behaviour of the ghost and its effect on the game, as does personality: |
| 355 | ** Drowned Sims turn blue and leave puddles and may leave bubbles in bathtubs. |
| 356 | ** Electrocuted Sims randomly jitter with electric shock. |
| 357 | ** Sims who burned to death turn red and occasionally leave piles of ash. |
| 358 | ** Sims who starved to death will attempt to raid the refrigerator. |
| 359 | ** Additionally, the ghosts in the Sims are haunters who can scare other Sims badly enough they wet themselves. Or ''die of fright'', which produces a pink ghost. |
| 360 | ** And rather than call a ghostbuster or someone of that nature, simply moving the gravestone to another lot can get rid of a Sim Ghost. |
| 361 | * OurVampiresAreDifferent: Vampires sleep in coffins, smolder in the sunshine, and potentially live forever, but they eat regular food like everyone else instead of drinking blood. They are also eligible for the Undead Scholarship. |
| 362 | * OurZombiesAreDifferent: The ''University'' expansion pack can let Sims bring back the dead by cheap resurrection. Teen zombies can even get an undead scholarship for university. |
| 363 | * {{Panacea}}: The Science career reward is a home laboratory that can create medicine which can be taken to instantly cure any disease. Be careful not to accidentally create and catch a nasty virus. |
| 364 | ** Introduced in ''Freetime'' is the "Grandma's Comfort Soup" Family aspiration bonus, which enables a new recipe, the titular comfort soup, which also cures all illnesses. |
| 365 | * ParentalSexualitySquick: Teens will react with disgust if they see their parents doing any type of romantic interaction, be it a simple kiss or a full-on makeout session. In addition, if they are on the same lot when their parents engage in [[MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces public woohoo]], rather than cheer or jeer like other sims, they will run to the edge of the lot and cover their face in embarrassment. |
| 366 | * ParentWithNewParamour: Jules O'Mackey does not get along with Patricia Wan, her father's new girlfriend. It's not specifically stated why this is the case, however, and it's mentioned that the two are more alike than they realize. |
| 367 | * PhonyPsychic: There's no real psychic powers in the game, but a Sim can pick up a career as a Psychic Phone Friend. |
| 368 | * PivotalWakeup: Vampires do this when waking up from the coffins, complete with thunderclaps. |
| 369 | * PlantHair: In the ''Seasons'' ExpansionPack, Sims have the potential to be transformed into [[PlantPeople Plant Sims]], which in their adult state have green leaves for hair, or a large flower for toddlers. Plant Sims are also included in the ''University Life'' expansion of The Sims 3 as well as the stuff pack ''Cool Kitchen Stuff'' in ''VideoGame/TheSims4''. |
| 370 | * PlantPerson: [=PlantSims=], who are [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin sims who have plant characteristics]]. |
| 371 | * PlayingWithFire: The witch spell "Inflammo" sets things on fire, which is an easier option for [[VideogameCrueltyPotential flame-based torture]]. (Un?)Fortunately, you can only use Inflammo outdoors and only on home lots, which greatly limits its potential fun. |
| 372 | * PokeThePoodle: "Evil" magic spells are not very harmful and are mainly just annoying, even the ones that the most powerful evil Witches and Warlocks can cast. |
| 373 | * PollyWantsAMicrophone: In ''Pets'', a Sim can teach a parrot to talk, and then Sims can have full-on conversations with it once it learns. Of course, it, like your Sim, will still be SpeakingSimlish. |
| 374 | * PoorMansPorn: The romance sims often have a wish to study "physiology" (read: anatomy). |
| 375 | * PoweredByAForsakenChild: By regularly drinking Cow Plant's milk, which temporarily prevents aging, a Sim can live forever. [[ImAHumanitarian As long as you keep feeding the plant...]] |
| 376 | * ThePowerOfFriendship: The two sims in the event mentioned below can just be very good friends with each other to save the one in danger of death. |
| 377 | * ThePowerOfLove: If two Sims love each other enough, it's trivial to plead with the Grim Reaper. |
| 378 | * PrettyInMink: One of the expansions offers a fur coat for the ladies. |
| 379 | * ProductPlacement: |
| 380 | ** By default, the only video game your Sims can play in ''The Sims 2'' is ''VideoGame/{{SSX}} 3'', though ''VideoGame/SimCity 4: Rush Hour'' and ''VideoGame/TheSimsBustinOut'' can be purchased and added to your household's library. In ''Free Time'', each family is presented with a computer preloaded with ''The Sims 3'', plus they can buy ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'', ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer3TiberiumWars'', ''[[VideoGame/FIFASoccer EA Sports FIFA 2008]]'', and ''VideoGame/MySims''. ''[[VideoGame/TheUrbz The Urbz: Sims In The City]]'' could also be downloaded from the Sims 2 Store. |
| 381 | ** Plus, if you look closely at the scenes in some of the paintings you can buy, you will see places of even a character from the ''[=MySims=]'' games. |
| 382 | ** Not to mention the IKEA and H&M item packs. |
| 383 | ** Ford vehicles were once downloadable from the official EA site as add-on custom content. |
| 384 | ** In the German version, the newspaper is identified as infamous tabloid ''Bild''. |
| 385 | ** Hidden as an EasterEgg and accessible with debug tools are a bunch of shirts for Gamespot and Gamespy you can wear. The [[https://sergeantaegis.tumblr.com/post/643887209275179008/i-was-hanging-out-on-discord-with-my-girlfriend Gamespot ones]] even have [[{{Fanservice}} hot anime babes]] with fake [[PlayboyBunny bunny ears and tails]] on the back. |
| 386 | * PropellerHatOfWhimsy: The propeller hat accessory is exclusive to teenagers. |
| 387 | * PsychoExGirlfriend: Vincent's Story in ''The Sims Stories'' is partly about his attempts to put his relationship with an AxCrazy woman named Samantha behind him. She tries to spring a "surprise wedding" on him in Chapter One and then [[spoiler: simultaneously floods his house and sets in on fire]] when he breaks things off with her in Chapter Nine. Other characters refer to her having a SlasherSmile, too, although the game's graphics are (mercifully) not up to showing that. |
| 388 | * PunnyName: |
| 389 | ** Olive Specter's multiple dead husbands (e.g. Hugh Thanasia), all of whose names are puns for things related to death or murder. |
| 390 | ** Olive Specter herself's name may be a pun on "I love specters", as she had an affair with the Grim Reaper. |
| 391 | ** Several of the deceased ancestors have these. For instance, Daniel Pleasant's paternal grandparents are named Les and Kynda, while Lola and Chloe Curious have grandparents called Notzo and Zo. |
| 392 | * QuirkyTown: Strangetown, a town with aliens, mad scientists, a military family, a family closely associated with death and a family of three brothers for which [[MisterSeahorse one is pregnant with an alien child and another has a heightened/automatic chance to also get pregnant]]. |
| 393 | * RandomEncounters: |
| 394 | ** Community lots will be populated at random by Townies, playable Sims from other households or various [=NPC=]s, the type of which depends on what kind of sub-neighborhood you're in, or what expansion you have installed. For instance in the Far East vacation destination a {{Ninja}} can appear, while [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] only appear on Downtown lots, and Witches will only appear if ''Apartment Life'' is installed. |
| 395 | ** Your home lot will similarly spawn passerbys or stray animals (with ''Pets'' installed). This is to simulate a lively neighborhood with activity, and some passerbys will [[{{Jerkass}} kick your trash can]] ForTheEvulz. |
| 396 | ** Sims returning from work or school sometimes bring back a colleague or classmate that can be befriended. |
| 397 | * RapeAsComedy: also DoubleStandardRapeMaleOnMale where it is played for laughs that men can be impregnated by aliens. |
| 398 | * ReallyGetsAround: |
| 399 | ** A sim with a romance-oriented ambition will want to have sex with as many sims as possible in their life. This is not explicitly stated in-game, though; more stated as a flingy sim who wants as many romances as possible. One possible lifetime want can be to have 20 lovers at the same time. |
| 400 | ** Canon examples include Don Lothario (who, to his horror, is engaged to Cassandra Goth) and Daniel Pleasant (who cheats on his wife with their maid), both living in Pleasantview. |
| 401 | * RidiculouslyHumanRobot: Roberta Rossum in the PSP version, particularly when compared to the '50s sci-fi design of the other robots in the franchise. |
| 402 | * RobeAndWizardHat: Witches and Warlocks. If you get turned into one, your everyday clothes automatically morph into a set. |
| 403 | * RomanticSpoonfeeding: This action is available under the flirt menu when two sims are having a meal together. [[IncestSubtext Earlier versions allowed this between siblings.]] |
| 404 | * RubberForeheadAliens: Alien sims are just like regular human sims, except for the green skintone and completely black eyes. |
| 405 | * RunsWithScissors: A large pair of scissors was available as a downloadable item. If you forced the Sim to run with them, they would be killed. |
| 406 | * SanityMeter: The Aspiration Bar, which goes up when they get their wants fulfilled and goes down when they get their fears fulfilled. They receive a mental breakdown when it gets too low, to the point where they hallucinate a therapist to help them get back up their feet. |
| 407 | * SanitySlippage: Played for laughs. During a mental breakdown, Sims will turn into LaughingMad gibbering wrecks, while doing an Aspiration-related lunatic act; for example, a Family-minded Sim will drop to the floor and start cradling a burlap sack with a face scrawled on it, cooing maniacally and treating it like a real baby. This can encourage players ''further'' to [[VideogameCrueltyPotential be total dicks towards their Sim]] [[ForTheEvulz just to see them driven to madness]]. |
| 408 | * ScaryJackInTheBox: Sometimes while crafting toys, a Sim from will build a black version of the Jack-in-a-box toy which, unlike the normal ones, is rather sinister looking. It will scare most of the Sims that play with it, leaving them with a bad memory, |
| 409 | * ScaryStingingSwarm: |
| 410 | ** The spell "Melliflera Attackum" sends swarms of bees to attack a Sim. |
| 411 | ** You'll also randomly be chased by bees while trying to catch bugs, or out on hikes. |
| 412 | * SchoolGradeHacking: Young adult sims who become members of the university's secret society can hack their grades. This does, naturally, carry a risk of getting caught by the police and fined (which can be mitigated somewhat by having high logic skill). |
| 413 | * ScreamingBirth: How births work, for both women and [[MisterSeahorse men]]. They'll do a dramatic belly hold while moaning, then do a cartoonish scream, and then the cutscene will play (if enabled) and the baby will be born! |
| 414 | * TheScreamParody: If a sim becomes a vampire, one of the random portraits of the Sim (in the interface, Friends list, phone directory, or when an action is taken with them) depicts them holding their head while their mouth is wide open. |
| 415 | * SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Sherman Boggle, one of Vincent's two best friends and head of his company's R&D department in ''Life Stories'', talks like this constantly. Greg Chomsky, the third member of the trio, understands him perfectly and often acts as translator between him and Vince (and therefore the player). When Greg isn't there, Vince claims to be consulting a dictionary/thesaurus to decode Sherman's emails and phone calls, although obviously this isn't reflected in the animations. |
| 416 | * ShortTeensTallAdults: Teen sims are shorter than those at the adult stage. Though young adult sims (seemingly about 18-21) are just as tall as normal adults. The teen stage does include all of puberty, though, and since the sims don't grow within individual stages, it would have to be somewhere in the middle of the range (so it wouldn't look weird growing from Child or to [=Young Adult/Adult=]) and is thus [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality reasonably]] justified. |
| 417 | * SiblingSenioritySquabble: Mentioned in the biographies of two twin pairs: The Davises (Almeric is older by two minutes and actively uses his seniority to win arguments against Aldric) and the Larsons (Jodie is older by three minutes and thus believes it's her duty to be in charge, even if it overwhelms Jason). |
| 418 | * SilverFox: |
| 419 | ** Olive Specter is known for genetically being one of the most beautiful pre-made Sims in the game, despite being an elder. It wouldn't hurt to get her to buy new clothes and put eyebrows on her, though. Sadly, although Olive does have nice physical features, her personality isn't exactly beautiful, being an implied SerialKiller decorating her home with dozens and dozens of graves. Even if she isn't a mass murderer as her storyline suggests, she's still a highly unsettling person. Of course [[InLoveWithYourCarnage some people are into that.]] |
| 420 | ** Jennicor Tricou, the matriarch of the mysterious deceased Tricou family, is also quite a looker. |
| 421 | * SirVerbaLot: It has a [[CompanionCube "pet brick"]] called "Sir Bricks-a-lot". It can be build as a toy in ''Open for Business''. |
| 422 | * SheetOfGlass: Subverted in the outcome of the Paramedic chance card, if your sim chooses to drive the ambulance over the side-walk. |
| 423 | * SkipOfInnocence: Children can do this. Some Sims can do it in adulthood if they have enough playful points. Oddly enough, they do it with a very stoic face. |
| 424 | * SmartPeoplePlayChess: {{Inverted}}, as playing chess raises your Logic skill (the closest analogue to intelligence). |
| 425 | * SneakingOutAtNight: Teenage Sims can "sneak out" using a phone to be picked up by an unknown Sim at 1:00 AM and stay out until 4:00. It gives them a positive memory unless they're sent home due to being caught by their parents or the police. |
| 426 | * SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: The relatively short baby/toddler/child life stages compared to the teen life stage can cause this. For example, your first kid might be nearly a teenager when you get around to having your second child, but the odds are still good that both children will be in high school together for a while, due to the teen life stage being as long as the previous three combined. Even more noticeable if you have ''The Sims 2: University'' installed. Once your college-aged kids have moved out they won't age until you play them again, meaning that you can have a baby after your other kid has left for college and still have them be Freshmen together. |
| 427 | * SociopathicSoldier: The chance card for the level 6 Military career job (Flight Officer) mentions that your Sim is bored out of their mind since "peacetime restrictions" means they can't dog-fight commercial airliners, buzz private control towers or [[BreadEggsMilkSquick launch laser guided missiles into peaceful civilian protests]] (the chance card is the same for every Sim regardless of personnality, making this quite jarring). Of course, this being Sims, this is played for laughs rather than drama. |
| 428 | * SoupIsMedicine: In the Free Time expansion, family sims gain the ability to make Grandma's Comfort Soup, which cures all illnesses. |
| 429 | * SpaceMarine: {{Downplayed}}. The astronaut job is the level 9 job for the military career track. A [[TruthInTelevision significant]] number of real-life astronauts and cosmonauts (notably Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Buzz Aldrin and Alan Shepard) had military backgrounds usually as pilots, with pilot also being the level 6 job for the military career. |
| 430 | * SpeakingSimlish: The TropeNamer. Sims speak in a made-up language called "Simlish." This "language" was made up on the spot by the recording artists. There's even a sound clip that's supposed to sound like the Sim is speaking a French variant of Simlish. ''Written'' Simlish is usually represented by Zodiac symbols, a little Greek, and a few that seem to have been made up by the creators. |
| 431 | * SpellConstruction: In order for Witches to cast spells, they need to make them using [[EyeOfNewt eccentric ingredients]]. |
| 432 | * SingingSimlish: Also the TropeNamer- any songs played on a radio or CD player will be like this. |
| 433 | * SoundOff: Parodied in the description for the "Recruit" position in the military career: |
| 434 | -->''I don't know but I've been told, scrubbing latrines gets mighty old.'' |
| 435 | * StudentsSecretSociety: All pre-made campuses [[note]]It's relatively trivial to create one with the "changelotzoning secretsociety" cheat when on the lot itself[[/note]] in the ''University'' expansion have a Secret Society, complete with a uniform, a secret handshake, and a hidden lot filled with expensive (and questionably legal) appliances and décor. Befriending three existing members will see your Sim inducted into it -- after a good ol' [[InitiationCeremony "getting handcuffed and shoved into a limo in the dead of night"]] routine, of course. |
| 436 | * SummonMagic: The spell "Appello Cattus Amicus" summons a cat familiar[[note]]But only if you have the ''Pets'' expansion installed.[[/note]]. You can also summon other Sims, even when they're at work. |
| 437 | %%* SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom |
| 438 | * SupermodelStrut: A Romance Sim with their Aspiration Meter in the platinum range, if directed by the player to perform romantic interactions, will close the distance to their romantic target with a smooth strut. |
| 439 | * SuperHero: The final stage of the Law Enforcement career path is this. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation The only Super power your Sim gets is flight and can only be used to go to work.]] What a rip-off. |
| 440 | * SupernaturalPhone: The Resurrect-O-Nomitron is a phone you can use to call TheGrimReaper and pay him to bring back to life a deceased Sim. |
| 441 | * TangledFamilyTree: |
| 442 | ** There is one in Strangetown: Glarn Curious married Glabe (either that or they are siblings), then he was impregnated by Pollination Tech 9. After having the twins Lola and Chloe, he left Glabe and married Kitty Hoglegs. After having 4 kids by Kitty, the oldest, Jenny, marries Pollination Tech 9 and has kids (Johnny and Jill) by him...which means that her kids are also her stepsiblings and Lola and Chloe are their aunts and half-sisters at the same time. It's also pretty easy to create one of these since the game does not recognize great-grandparents(if they're still alive), 2nd cousins, or stepparents as relatives. |
| 443 | ** Not to mention how ''The Sims 2'' for PSP adds more relatives and more tangled-ness. [[http://images.wikia.com/sims/images/6/6d/Curious-Smith_Family_Tree.png Here's the family tree for those interested]]. |
| 444 | ** A relatively simple example also appears in Pleasantview: Dina Caliente married Michael Bachelor, the brother of Bella Bachelor/Goth, making her the aunt of Cassandra and Alexander. With Michael dead and Bella missing, Dina is now in a relationship with Bella's husband Mortimer; the pop-ups that appear upon loading the Caliente house encourage the player to have them immediately get engaged and married. If successful, she then becomes the stepmother of her niece and nephew. Complicating matters further is that Dina is also in love with Don Lothario, the fiancé of Cassandra; pop-ups at the Goth house encourage her to marry him immediately, although he's very likely to leave her at the altar. Don is also seeing Dina's sister Nina on the side and once attempted to make out with Bella. |
| 445 | * TeacherStudentRomance: Aside from proper studying, you can increase your class performance by successfully socializing with one of your professors, including boinking them. |
| 446 | * TeleportationWithDrawbacks: As of the last expansion pack, ''Apartment Life'', there are at least three ways of in-game teleportation. In the base game, meditating for 24 hours lets you teleport anywhere, even to places the next two types can't. The ''Bon Voyage'' expansion lets you learn teleportation from a ninja, complete with puff of smoke. The ''Apartment Life'' expansion lets Sims become witches or warlocks, and the spell Magivestigium teleports you faster than the first two, but still takes some time. Then there's the fan-made content... |
| 447 | * TertiarySexualCharacteristics: For the Servo robots. Females have eyelashes and pink bows. |
| 448 | * TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: Due to some kind of bug in the game, a guest might stay until three in the morning, and then the player would get this dialogue with the guest's portrait in it that says "You invited me to spend the night, but then you didn't let me get any sleep! I'm leaving!", just because the player didn't say 'goodbye'. |
| 449 | * TimeStandsStill: The spell "Tempus Interruptus" stops time for all but the magical kind. |
| 450 | * TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Lilith and Angela Pleasant, respectively. |
| 451 | * TropicalEpilogue: |
| 452 | ** One of the possible outcomes of the various ''Castaway'' [[GameMod Total Conversions]] on ''The Sims 2'' engine has the castaway choose to remain on the island; the other outcome is to escape and return home. |
| 453 | ** In a far more literal example, death from Old Age with a high enough aspiration score in ''The Sims 2'' sees a lei-clad Grim Reaper, accompanied by two Hula Girls (called Hula Zombies), beckoning to the deceased Sim to grab their suitcase and head off to paradise. |
| 454 | * TruthInTelevision: You can get your cat or dog a job, and the three possible careers include positions like "rescue pet" and "contraband sniffer". While these are tasks usually associated with dogs, cats ''are'' sometimes used as search-and-rescue animals as well as drug/bomb sniffers. |
| 455 | * TheUnfavorite: |
| 456 | ** Lilith Pleasant. |
| 457 | ** Ripp Grunt appears to also fall under this trope. |
| 458 | * UrbanSegregation: Belladonna Cove. There is an inner city area with run down, small apartments, a trailer park, and tower blocks, leading into the suburbs which are nicer and wealthier. Overlooking on a hill is a glossy, wealthy area. |
| 459 | * VampiresAreRich: Moving In a Grand Vampire will bring in §50,000. Plus, they are parodies of Dracula, with all of their names being preceded by Count or Contessa. |
| 460 | * VampiresOwnNightclubs: Not exactly, but the only way to find Grand Vampires is at Downtown lots at night. |
| 461 | ** If you also own Open for Business, you can guide your own vampire Sims to buying and running a nightclub. |
| 462 | * VideogameCaringPotential: Or VideogameCrueltyPotential depending on your style. The aforementioned Newson family is practically designed for the VideogameCaringPotential. The heartwarming balances out the sheer frustration managing them can cause. |
| 463 | * VideoGamePerversityPotential: There exist [[TheInternetIsForPorn entire sites]] dedicated to adult mods/custom content, from simply making females have nipples to adding hardcore sex to the game. |
| 464 | * VideoGameTools: In ''Castaway'', there are a ton of tools that can be made and are needed to make other tools, clothes, shelter, catch fish, etc. As well, they are often used to cut through the forest, repair bridges, or build boats. |
| 465 | * VirtualPaperDoll: It's Franchise/{{Barbie}}: The Next Generation! |
| 466 | * VocalEvolution: Simlish evolved heavily between the original game and the sequel. There are more lines meaning the Simlish is ''much'' less repetitive than before and it became more complex. The general sound of it also changed as well. |
| 467 | * TwoPersonPoolParty: Hot-tubs are a possible spot for [=WooHoo=]. The game provides the trope image! |
| 468 | * WackyFratboyHijinx: It's possible for your young adult sims to do so in ''The Sims 2 University''. |
| 469 | * WeirdTradeUnion: A "[=SimCity=] local 709 [[ThievesGuild Burglar's Union]]" is mentioned in the Cat Burglar Chance Card. |
| 470 | * WesternZodiac: Sims are now assigned an astrological sign depending on what their personality-point totals are. |
| 471 | * WhatTheHellPlayer: Should you kill the last adult Sim in a house, one of the possible [[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/88/84/b5/8884b54e28fca7d5052af3cc2e5859ff--funny-sims-sims-humor.jpg onscreen messages]] says that the game is supposed to be a LIFE simulator. |
| 472 | * WishingWell: The "Seasons" explansion pack introduces one as the reward given by the Gardening Club for a perfect garden. Sims can throw money into it to grant wishes for money, love or popularity. Beware, though, as using it too many times will cause some wishes to backfire... |
| 473 | * {{Zeerust}}: The "futuristic" decor option added with the ''Pets'' expansion pack borrows its aesthetic from shows like ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'' and ''Series/LostInSpace'' - basically, a '50s to '70s idea of what the 2000s might look like. It gets {{Lampshaded}} in the bios of the Kim family, whose home is the pre-made example of this style: they starred in a TV show set in the future that was cancelled once people realised that said future was rapidly approaching and looked nothing like the show. |
| 474 | * ZombieGait: Animations for zombies in the ''University'' expansion pack. |
| 475 | [[/folder]] |
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