ManagerJosh
07-17-2003, 02:20 AM
Courtesy of The Sims 2 Station (http://www.freewebs.com/sims2)
Tim LeTourneau: "Initially, The Sims 2 is about going back into the house, and we have to take the gameplay to the next generation. There is certainly more of a variety of things available at the household level, but this is about the house, rather than adding new areas. This is a brand new game."
Concerning the 3D element, Tim LeTourneau said: "The 3D card is the primary required equipment - right now we're targeting the GeForce and Radeon series. The Sims 2 is a fully 3D world - it's more state of the art in that respect, and it has to be, because the gameplay makes a generational leap."
"...facial animation...something at which The Sims 2 almost rivals Half-Life 2."
Rather than inertly waiting for your attentions, your Sim physically reacts to the presence of another person - they flash smiles at friends and scowls at disliked peers.
Locations also look more believable - if you wasted hours of your life picking wallpaper in the last game, wait until you get to play with the full 3D lighting in The Sims 2.
- "Create-A-Sim will be released for free before the game is launched, so look out for it on a future coverdisc."
The Create-A-Sim technology creates the Sim at all ages, and 'rather than letting your hormonal teenager play the field and go through the ups and downs of 21st century romance, you can switch families and groom the neighbours so that one day they may produce a kid that would become the perfect spouse for your original Sim.' The producer states: "The whole idea of playing as the neighbour gets greater in The Sims 2 because you need more families to build more relationships."
The producer, Tim, states also: "They actually progress from adult to geezers. Your career options change and you don't necessarily have to work. You build skills throughout your lifetime, starting from when you're a toddler, so you can get a jumpstart on the career ladder."
Also, on the next page, there's the interview with Will Wright. When asked how The Sims 2 was coming along, Will said it was going very well. That it was a complete rewrite of the game - they looked at things that the players wanted and they've done a lot of things that they've wanted to do in The Sims; things they couldn't do because of the technology. He said they wanted full 3D, more diverse characters, facial animation and a free-roaming camera. Then, Will said - I think this is pretty important - "...right now, you probably can't buy a PC that won't run it, so by the time it comes out, our target audience will be able to run it very well." That sounds like good news - hopefully we'd be all able to play it. Then, when asked if he felt that hey'd done everything they could with the original Sims, he said: "With that architecture, yeah. We made the first one expandable to a certain level, and we exploited that with all the expansion packs, but there are a lot of things we just couldn't do because of the limitations of the technology. That's what we looked at with The Sims 2 - what the characters could do..."
Then, when asked about the limitations in the first Sims, Will said that it had a lot to do with the dimensions of their emotions, how elaborate their relationships were, etc. he said that it took a whole house fire before the Sims in the first one noticed anything was wrong, whereas in Sims 2, if someone walks into a room, the Sims glance over and if they're a friend, they smile at them.
Another important bit - when asked if in an ideal world, and everyone had 3Ghz processors and a 256Mb 3D card, how far would he go? Will Wright: "The graphics stuff is already there, I don't feel as though that's holding us back....that's what we're really working on - how we can develop more believeable AI."
Tim LeTourneau: "Initially, The Sims 2 is about going back into the house, and we have to take the gameplay to the next generation. There is certainly more of a variety of things available at the household level, but this is about the house, rather than adding new areas. This is a brand new game."
Concerning the 3D element, Tim LeTourneau said: "The 3D card is the primary required equipment - right now we're targeting the GeForce and Radeon series. The Sims 2 is a fully 3D world - it's more state of the art in that respect, and it has to be, because the gameplay makes a generational leap."
"...facial animation...something at which The Sims 2 almost rivals Half-Life 2."
Rather than inertly waiting for your attentions, your Sim physically reacts to the presence of another person - they flash smiles at friends and scowls at disliked peers.
Locations also look more believable - if you wasted hours of your life picking wallpaper in the last game, wait until you get to play with the full 3D lighting in The Sims 2.
- "Create-A-Sim will be released for free before the game is launched, so look out for it on a future coverdisc."
The Create-A-Sim technology creates the Sim at all ages, and 'rather than letting your hormonal teenager play the field and go through the ups and downs of 21st century romance, you can switch families and groom the neighbours so that one day they may produce a kid that would become the perfect spouse for your original Sim.' The producer states: "The whole idea of playing as the neighbour gets greater in The Sims 2 because you need more families to build more relationships."
The producer, Tim, states also: "They actually progress from adult to geezers. Your career options change and you don't necessarily have to work. You build skills throughout your lifetime, starting from when you're a toddler, so you can get a jumpstart on the career ladder."
Also, on the next page, there's the interview with Will Wright. When asked how The Sims 2 was coming along, Will said it was going very well. That it was a complete rewrite of the game - they looked at things that the players wanted and they've done a lot of things that they've wanted to do in The Sims; things they couldn't do because of the technology. He said they wanted full 3D, more diverse characters, facial animation and a free-roaming camera. Then, Will said - I think this is pretty important - "...right now, you probably can't buy a PC that won't run it, so by the time it comes out, our target audience will be able to run it very well." That sounds like good news - hopefully we'd be all able to play it. Then, when asked if he felt that hey'd done everything they could with the original Sims, he said: "With that architecture, yeah. We made the first one expandable to a certain level, and we exploited that with all the expansion packs, but there are a lot of things we just couldn't do because of the limitations of the technology. That's what we looked at with The Sims 2 - what the characters could do..."
Then, when asked about the limitations in the first Sims, Will said that it had a lot to do with the dimensions of their emotions, how elaborate their relationships were, etc. he said that it took a whole house fire before the Sims in the first one noticed anything was wrong, whereas in Sims 2, if someone walks into a room, the Sims glance over and if they're a friend, they smile at them.
Another important bit - when asked if in an ideal world, and everyone had 3Ghz processors and a 256Mb 3D card, how far would he go? Will Wright: "The graphics stuff is already there, I don't feel as though that's holding us back....that's what we're really working on - how we can develop more believeable AI."