Prior expansions to The Sims 2 have been, in a word, complicated. Adding layer upon layer of extremely goal oriented stuff, like owning a business or going to university, certainly gave players reason enough to dig out their copy of The Sims 2. It’s funny that Seasons, a seemingly innocuous addition to the game, has turned out to be one of the most compelling expansion packs in the series.
There is a Season… Turn, Turn, Turn
Obviously, the focus here is on the four seasons. In true “sim” fashion, players can customize the seasonal flow to their liking at the outset. So if you want nothing but fall and winter, go for it.
Once in the game, the feeling that the world is indeed changing with the passage of time is ever-present in Seasons. Each season lasts a number of “days” in the game with one season slowing turning into the next. During winter, family-related activities are king. Build a snowman with your kids. Or maybe just hunker down indoors during a blizzard. The coming of spring brings rain, new romances, and new life. Summer is all about fun in the sun with your friends, while the fall rewards those who get busy with a renewed work ethic. Seasons puts the finishing touch on many of the familial themes that were introduced in The Sims 2.
Fun in the Great Outdoors
There’s also plenty of new stuff to do here. There are obvious activities tied to each season. The most fleshed out of these are gardening and fishing, both of which are a hoot and have an impact on the rest of the game. Go ahead; cook up that fish you just caught. Or if you’d rather work on your green thumb, you can build out your own garden and, provided you work at it, tend to all kinds of plants.
Rounding out the new stuff are seasonal clothing items. Your sims now have body temperature so they need to dress appropriately. This isn’t quite the chore that it may seem as they will automatically get into winter clothes before going outside.
There are also a few new career paths with the obligatory materialistic reward should they climb to the top of the vocational ladder. Many will be no doubt pleased at the new “Gamer” career.
Just the Right Amount of, er… Seasoning.
Because Seasons isn’t about a new place to visit, this expansion pack doesn’t bother with the hullabaloo of packing your sims into a car and bringing them to a different locations. Frankly, we never felt this worked terribly well as the game time would always go out of whack with their needs. Really what Seasons is, is an elegant addition to an already great game. It takes the core idea behind The Sims 2 and adds gameplay elements that serve to enhance, not distract.
So instead of a frantic scramble to achieve some crazy goal, Seasons almost appears to ask the player to slow down; to stop and smell the roses (during the spring, of course). Because of this, I found myself content to futz around with my sims in small, more personal ways. I wanted to help them get the most out of their short little lives. I guess what Seasons does is it puts the whole game in perspective. Jeez, that’s kind of a downer, isn’t it?
A Sim for All Seasons
Seasons is a great expansion pack to The Sims 2. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s the best one out there. No, it doesn’t have the volume of changes and additions that some of the other ones have, but everything in Seasons fits so very well with The Sims 2 that it’s hard to imagine playing the game without it.
Article by: Greg Bemis
Video produced by: Michael Benson
