Deg-Deg, Sims... Deg-Deg Forever
by Scott Hardie on August 9, 2006
I really want to enjoy playing The Sims 2. I've logged thousands of hours on the first Sims and hundreds on the sequel. The problem is that I can't even play it in the first place in order to enjoy playing it.
When the first Sims encountered a bug, which wasn't often, it would crash the whole game. Mildly annoying, but I'd reboot and start again and everything was fine. Maxis built a very stable game engine for the sequel, but now when a bug occurs, you don't notice at first and you wind up saving it into your save file, and it becomes permanent. Sometimes I can lose it by switching to a new neighborhood, but it re-occurs before long.
What kinds of bugs do I suffer? Some of them are mildly annoying, like how a fourth of the clothes I buy in town have disappeared by the time I arrive back home, or how the "auto-lights" won't turn off in the bathrooms even though there's no one in there. Other times are a more serious nuisance, like how my house got stuck in some kind of party mode and neighbors would just walk in and eat my food and watch my TV. Then there was the time two of my Sims got into the taxi to visit town and the others wouldn't get in, and days passed while the two in the taxi continued to sit there starving to death while the others went on with their lives, and I only narrowly saved them with the moveObjects code and deleting the taxi. One house I played as a "dynasty" concept in which the children inherited everything from the parents and repeated the cycle, but by the second generation, their lone daughter got permanently stuck in her second trimester of pregnancy and refused to go to work or have the baby and kept throwing up every few hours – followed quickly by a glitch in the same house in which Sims refused to fall in love no matter how high their relationship or how intimate their behaviors to each other, thus preventing the other children in the house from marrying and having kids. I moved on to another neighborhood, but what's the newest glitch I encountered just yesterday? The Sims refuse to have queued items; as soon as I add multiple tasks, they drop everything and jump to the final task in order, forcing me to juggle all eight at the same time.
It's unplayable, and the official patches from Maxis have not solved this or any of the other problems I've had. This breaks my heart, because The Sims in its many forms is a dear game to me. I'm done wasting money on future expansion packs. Here's hoping the faraway release of The Sims 3 will at last come out without bugs.
Two Replies to Deg-Deg, Sims... Deg-Deg Forever
Jackie Mason | August 17, 2006
[hidden by author request]
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Bad for Business
CNN Money published an interesting look at the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business in the year 2006. Go »Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Facial Reconstructive Surgery
When Roger Ebert took ill last fall, I thought it would pass in a week like his previous cancer scares, and he'd barely mention it. Then he didn't come back to work for months, and I thought he'd announce his retirement, because it's really hard to go back to doing something full-time when you've rested too long, even if you love it like he does. Then he announced that he'd be present at his annual film festival this month, and I thought the recovery was done and he was about to return. Go »Eulogy for Two or Possibly Three Restaurants
Dining in Sarasota at 10:30pm on a Friday night is not the easiest proposition. I took my friends Miah and Ines downtown to the only non-franchise I knew would still be open, an upscale sports-themed bar & grill called Patrick's. I've had fifteen or so great meals there, but not last night. Go »De-Gifting
I'd like to think I'm getting better at white elephant games since I play them every December, but evidence proves otherwise: After losing out on a crock pot, a board game, a video game, a sushi kit, a yoga mat, and a nightrobe, I finally took home a Z-grade zombie movie on DVD, and a Ben Franklin t-shirt. Woo! On the other hand, I scored a quesadilla maker at another party that has been pretty good so far. Go »Trial of the Century
I served on my first jury last week, for the gripping case of the Walmart Protein Bar Bandit, accused of a $1.46 theft. Voir dire was oddly focused on whether grazing (eating groceries before you pay for them) was acceptable, whether eating protein right after a workout is important, and whether any of us had strong feelings about the Walmart corporation. Go »
Anna Gregoline | August 9, 2006
Scott, I totally agree. There are a TON of bugs in Sims2.
Some of my playing problems involve the fact that my system simply can't handle Sims 2 - I believe that I desperately need new memory but that is a problem in and of itself (my current computer case has old school slots for memory - modern day memory will not fit, meaning I have to get an entirely new case before I can get new memory, a headache and an expense I'm not willing to do right now, since I am POOR!). So I often don't play Sims2 simply because it takes so long to even load.
Buggy games are depressing, aren't they? All you want to do is play, and you can't play the way you want, which is supposed to be the entire point for games like that.
I only have University though, none of the new add-ons. I decided to stop getting them for now because they are expensive and would slow me down further, most likely. Of course, that limits my 3rd party downloads now as well. Bummer.