What keeps The Sims 2 fresh after all these years.

I got The Sims 2 as a Christmas gift when it first came out, which I believe was 2004. I'd already been playing the original (The Sims) on my laptop, but the difference between The Sims and The Sims 2 was HUGE, so I was very happy to upgrade when I got the gift.

I've talked to many adults who had a Sim addiction, and they nearly all say the same thing--they played like mad men and women for a week or two, maybe even a month, but then they were done with the game. My addiction is still going 5 years later, so sometimes I wonder--is that a reflection on my being more juvenile than most folks, or just that I have put more time and energy into keeping the game fresh so that I am continually excited to play it?

Perhaps the answer is a little of both! However, I do think that I have spent a good bit of time and energy continuing to change and try new strategies to keep the game fun and interesting. For example, I went from building just plain old boxes as houses for my Sims to building elaborate multi-level and multi-shaped mansions.

A few years ago, I decided it might be fun to try to hook up people of vastly disparate physical characteristics ('looks') and have them procreate, to see how good the game was at passing on those genetic codes. I created Sims with huge noses and no chin, etc., and then married them to a Sim with a huge chin and tiny nose, to see if it would balance out in the kids. Boy, did I make some ugly babies that way! LOL But it was fun and interesting--to me at least.

I just realized in the past few months that I have nearly always maintained the family unit once a couple was married and had children. That's not to say that people didn't cheat on their spouses with other Sims, but they always stayed married despite the affairs. So my most recent change in gameplay is to break up families, remarrying some "divorced" Sims, have parents living in 2 different houses sharing "custody" of the children (though Sims kids can only LIVE in 1 house at a time), etc.

This has brought me to a very strange (and, what would be terribly awkward in real life) situation. I had a white man named Chad La Mer married to a black woman named Brooke Towers. They had a young son (Brad) and Brooke was pregnant with their second child (Cookie). During her pregnancy, she began an affair with 1 of 5 adopted Beechwood brothers, 3 of whom were named Alec (UGH, that dratted Social Services!). Alec and Brooke's chemistry was much better than Chad and Brooke's, so I decided to break up the marriage so that she could marry Alec. Brooke had the baby, Cookie, and immediately left Chad, taking the baby but leaving her son Brad with Chad. She moved in with and married Alec and had a baby with him.

Chad later rekindled a flirtation he'd had earlier with Alec's gay brother, also named Alec, which lead to THEM getting married and adopting children together. So now we have a family in which 1 brother is married to the ex-wife of the other brother's husband, and both Beechwood brothers are step-fathers to Chad and Brooke's 2 children. Wow, it has been dizzying trying to keep it all straight. To add to the confusion, the youngest Beechwood brother, Alexander, has been dating Cookie La Mer! Yoikes! Talk about your awkward family reunions!

It sure makes for some interesting family trees and keeps me on my toes remembering who is related to who and how, and who is who's child and who is dating who. In the game, the fact that the "husbands" of both couples are brothers doesn't seem to make the children family also! Otherwise, the game wouldn't allow Cookie La Mer and Alexander Beechwood to have romantic feelings toward one another!

So that's how I keep The Sims 2 fresh after five years of daily playing. I just keep dreaming up new experiments to carry out among my hundreds of Sims. Oh, and yes, I do know that The Sims 3 is out now; but, from what I've read, it has such major changes that I'm not sure I'd enjoy playing it as much as I do Sims 2. Maybe you could let me know how you're liking it?