Sims can travel to community lots in order to purchase things like clothing and magazines, and to interact with NPCs and townies.

Sims can throw parties to gain aspiration points or invite the headmaster over for dinner in order to enroll their children in private school.

[13][14] Various other expansion packs introduce supernatural characters which Sims can be turned into, such as Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, PlantSims, and Witches.

[8] Babies, toddlers, children, teens, and adults can be advanced to their next life stage at any time during the 24 Sim hours before they will grow up automatically.

There are 25 careers (counting all expansion packs) that come with the game that require skills and a certain number of friends in order for promotion.

These worlds are Pleasantview, a continuation of the playable neighborhood from The Sims, featuring many of the same families, such as the Goths and the Pleasants – Strangetown, a small desert town themed around the supernatural, with aliens, mad scientists and haunted graveyards.

The final neighborhood, Veronaville, is a European-themed town based on the works of William Shakespeare, with its central plot being a loose, modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

[9][32] Expansion packs add several new neighborhoods, such as university towns, a shopping district, a downtown area and several vacation destinations.

There are cutscenes featuring first kiss, woohoo, child birth, going to college and graduating in The Sims 2: University, and alien abductions.

[42] A teaser trailer was provided on The Sims: Makin' Magic CD, released October 2003, which was later uploaded to websites all over the Internet.

[48][49][50] On August 7, 2014, Aspyr Media released The Sims 2: Super Collection as digital download exclusively available at the Mac App Store; the game was updated for OS X Mavericks, 4K, and Retina.

Aspyr stated they were unable to include the remaining packs for the game due to licensing conflicts with EA.

By the time Maxis gave up on bringing out expansions for it they had pretty much given you everything you could have ever wanted the game to have, and a whole heap of stuff you never considered but are grateful for anyway.

The game also features original Simlish-language songs on the radio, provided by Jerry Martin, The Humble Brothers, Kirk Casey, and others.

In later expansion and stuffpacks, well-known recording artists provided Simlish versions of their songs for the in-game radio stations, including Depeche Mode, Kajagoogoo, Lily Allen, Datarock, Plain White T's, and Katy Perry, among others.

[54][55] "Pressure" by Paramore, "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls, "Good Day" by Tally Hall, and "Like Light to the Flies" by Trivium were among the songs re-recorded by their original artists in Simlish for the console version of The Sims 2.

[69] The Sims' creator, Will Wright, was recognized by being nominated at the Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards for Visionary and Game Developer.

Charging money for custom content is considered a violation of the game's EULA,[89] which prohibits the commercial use of Electronic Arts' intellectual property.

On July 22, 2005, Florida attorney Jack Thompson alleged that Electronic Arts and The Sims 2 promoted nudity through the use of a mod or a cheat code.

The claim was made that pubic hair, labia, and other genital details were visible once the blur (the pixelation that occurs when a Sim is using the toilet or is naked in the game) was removed.

In its review, Macworld wrote: "All told, The Sims 2 is a technically impressive game that adds many new features to an already proven formula.

The player must earn aspiration points to unlock rewards by filling up the Sims goals, which would also be needed to complete story mode.

The PS2 version of the game, as you'd also expect, fares the worst, and it has a slightly blurrier look and shows a few more jaggies, especially in wide shots of houses and open lots.

"[98] In his review for GameRevolution, Mike Reilly wrote: "Balancing such plusses and minuses while keeping the species afloat is the stuff life is made of, and as The Sims 2 for the PC proved, also makes for a damn good video game.

Unfortunately, the new console versions feel more like weak clones of the original rather than the vivacious offspring we hoped would carry the line into our PS2s, Gamecubes and Xboxes.

There's still a ton of content and some interesting new features here, but the complex sense of manners and familial intellect were lost on these three red-headed stepchildren.

Another feature unique to this and the Nintendo DS version are "Secrets", which the player can find scattered around Strangetown or by socialising with characters.

The player is then free to roam around the gas station, and after being introduced to some more NPCs, including Bella Goth, who claims to be abducted by aliens, completing tasks and being taught the basic objective of the game which is "Secret Hunting" for the store clerk.

After having bought Bella's house for pocket change and getting donuts for Deputy Duncan (which happen to have been found in the trash), the player finally gets a lift into Strangetown's Paradise Place, only to find more tasks and mysteries.

As the tool is intended for use by experienced modders, the SimPE interface is not considered intuitive,[120] and users risk corrupting the game files.