The Sims 2 Hands-On

Speaking Simlish

Associate producer Michael Cox talks about the PSP version of The Sims 2.

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Currently scheduled for release early in December, the PSP version of The Sims 2 is somewhat unusual in that it lets you take direct control of your customized sim in much the same way that you'd expect to control a character in a conventional third-person action adventure game. You won't be double-jumping between platforms or using stealth moves to kill enemies, of course, but you will have the freedom to roam around Strangetown at your leisure and interact with anyone that you meet there. We recently had an opportunity to play through the early stages of The Sims 2 in the company of one of the game's producers, and we are pleased to report that we had a lot of fun with it.

The first thing that you'll get to do when you play The Sims 2 on the PSP is create a sim for yourself. The editing tools available are pretty comprehensive and they let you customize everything from his or her nose shape to the outfit that you'll be wearing at the start of the game. Since the game is set in Strangetown (where fans of the series might recall that the delectable Bella Goth was abducted by aliens), you'll even be able to create a sim who looks like he or she is the offspring of at least one parent from another planet. Once you've created and named your sim (and some of the "neighbor" characters in the game if you wish), the storyline will get under way with a cutscene that shows you driving through the desert in a beaten-up car that breaks down just outside of Strangetown. After pushing your car to a local garage and meeting a mechanic there, the game properly begins with a conversation over which you have a limited amount of control.

Conversations in The Sims 2 take two different forms. There are text-based dialogues (voiced in simlish, of course) in which you'll get to choose your questions and responses from a handful of different options, and then there are "social game" conversations. Social game conversations--which come in chat, flirt, and intimidate flavors--are a way for you to attempt to win over and extract information from other characters, including secrets that can be sold for profit. When you engage another sim in a social game conversation, you'll see speech bubbles containing pictures appear above the other sim's head, and then you have just a few seconds to hit the button that corresponds to that picture. The topics tied to each button change constantly, and if you ever find that the exact same picture isn't available to you, you'll have to pick the one that most closely matches it. If the sim you're talking to is interested in sports, for example, as denoted by a picture of a tennis racquet, you might have to opt for a soccer ball. Other examples that we've come across thus far include using a cruise ship icon to respond to an airplane, and using a spatula to respond to a frying pan.

Think of Mamba Loa's store as a classroom the first time you go there.

After befriending the mechanic and convincing him to work on your car, you'll be encouraged to visit the curio shop next door and have your sim's personality and aspirations determined by your responses to some pretty intense questioning from the owner. The owner of the store is Mamba Loa, a helpful woman with a penchant for all things occult. She'll encourage you to experiment with your newfound social skills (Bella Goth happens to be in the store and, as luck would have it, is a particularly easy target), give you a few simple tasks to complete, and will even let you use her bathroom if there's a small "need" icon in the upper left corner of the screen signifying that you have the urge to do so. After playing through a number of linear tasks involving the consumption of food, the locating of hidden donuts, the purchasing of a mansion, and the befriending of a police officer, you'll be transported to the "Paradise Place" residential area of Strangetown and given much more freedom to do what you please.