21 yrs of Sims - Walking Down Memory Lane

playermarko456 · January 2021

Post screenshots or videos of a cherished memory you've had playing the Sims. Let us reminisce the 21 yrs of the Sims.

For me, it would be when I was around 8-10 yrs, waking up early in the morning, booting up that Windows 95/XP, plopping that scratched up CD, launching the game and listening to the amazing soundtracks composed. My favorite go to families to play were the Goths and the Newbies. I enjoyed every expansion pack, but my favorite top 3 were Makin Magic, Hot Date, and Vacation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKnkQdsITUE

Sallycutecat · February 2021

I haven't played the Sims for 21 years, I was only 2 when it came out, but I have played all 4 iterations. I started Sims 1 when I was about 9. I've made myself in all 4 games at the different stages in life I was at at the time, child in Sims 1 and 2, teenager in Sims 3 and 4, and more recently a young adult in 4. I made my cat in Sims 1-3, each iteration getting closer to her real life look. Sims 3 came real close, just missing the white tip on her tail.

My favourite packs from each iteration are:
Sims 1: Vacation, and Unleashed.
Sims 2: University, and Pets.
Sims 3: Pets (the only pack I had, but Showtime sounds like it would have been a lot of fun).
Sims 4: Island Living, and Snowy Escape.

texxx78 · February 2021

I've started playing in 2000, when i was 20.
At first i always played as Bella Goth. Always! For years

My favourite expansion pack was hot date. I played that one so much! My Bella was always on the disco having drinks and dancing in the dancing cage 😅

TARDISgrade · February 2021

My first Sims game was TS2, I started playing in the mid-noughties, which means at the time I started there were already several EPs available. I remember I had Pets, Seasons, Open for business, University, Bon Voyage and Apartment life. I only have vague memories of TS2 but I remember I used to love all the occult characters and that OFB and BV were my favourite EPs. I also used to download a lot of custom content back then, but it often messed up the gameplay so when TS3 came out, I made it a point never to use CC, nor use mods anymore.

When TS3 came out I was disappointed that I would "lose" everything I had created on TS2. I wondered whether I should continue playing with both. But as soon as I got it and started playing with it, I lost all interest in TS2, the new gameplay being so good. I loved the open world and all the new features.

I had 5 EPs, World Adventures, Ambitions, Generation, Pets and finally Seasons, and I loved them, especially WA. Until Pets came out, most of my game play revolved around WA and exploring locations in Egypt/China/France. There was a quest in France that I never completed - but I completed all the ones in the other locations. After Pets came out most of my gameplay revolved around creating cool pets and roaming around with them (they were playable characters back then), in search of collectibles. I also loved the horses and I remember you could befriend a unicorn from the wild horse herd. The Open world, playable animals, exotic travel locations and the quests you could undertake there, and the jobs from Ambitions (especially the firefighter) were my favourite game features. They are definitely the gameplay elements I miss.

I kept playing until about 2012, which was when I stopped using a PC and got a Mac. The PC broke down and I lost everything. Then I stopped playing any Sims game until earlier this year, when I got TS4 for Mac. I took advantage of the bundles offer first, and the 1/2 price discount these past days and so got a few expansions and gamepacks. Snowy Escape and Seasons are my favourite packs.

Oldeseadogge · February 2021

Started with Sims 1 on day 1 and not looked back. Had all the packs, especially liked the ability to tell my own stories via the household connected album. Even posted a few on the website. There was great creativity, both by Maxis and the various players, and Maxis even provided the tools to make stuff.

Sims 2 the same deal, and it remains my favorite of the series for too many reasons to list. It's, for me, more immersive and flexible in what I can do.

Sims 3 was a later start and couldn't really get into it. Lots of great features, but loss of the album and look-alike sims really dampened the enthusiasm. Still have it, and go back on occasion.

Sims 4 Got it early on, believing/hoping it would be a blend of the best of 2 & 3. Sorely disappointed in that, but play from time to time depending on mood. Lots of great features, and beautiful to look at, but shallow, boring, and still no proper album.

SimmerGeorge · February 2021

I remember when I got all the packs for the Sims 2 late 2009 and I deleted all my previous saves and started fresh. This is when I started combining all the packs together and I was having a blast. I would wake up every morning during summer break only to play the Sims. I played a lot of my own families at the time but I also loved replaying Pleasantview with every new pack that came and have them do the stuff from the pack.

This is when I got Dina and Nina to go on a winter vacation along with their boyfriends Malcom Landgraab and the chinese food delivery guy:

And here are the Pleasants at a graduation party:

Ersa_Middleton · March 2021

It was 25 years of Sim City for me.

Sue_D_Nim · August 2021

For me it was when I got Unleashed, my first DLC for The Sims, in 2002. There was one prebuilt mansion where an elderly college professor and his wife lived. They had two siamese cats and a parrot in a large cage, with all the possible cat furniture and interactables.

I thought the pets, in particular those cats, and the realistic way they looked and behaved, were the cutest things I'd ever seen. I didn't care a jot about the college professor. I would fire up the game and zoom in on that house, and spend hours simply watching the antics of those cats.

SimsILikeSims · August 2021

Sims 1: I miss the stuff the newer games don't have - custom content was SO easy to make anyone could do it with the Transmogrifier - all they needed was pictures in 4 directions of stuff for objects/furniture, sized to the right scale. (This is how one custom content creation site created a "broken escalator" that functioned like a stairs, and other cc creators added other board game options besides chess with the same chess animations, and things like decorative sewing machines.) Heads and bodies weren't hard either, you just had to draw/paint basically a flattened version of a head or body with everything lined up correctly. The indoor sky diving thing has never made a return, nor has the beach volleyball nor half pipe nor snowball fort from Sims Vacation. There were even vacation souvenirs. The hotels/resorts with check in returned for Sims 2 and 3, but never have yet returned for Sims 4.

Discussion interests added a lot of depth to the game as well. This made it even more challenging to be social, as well as basically being ostracized if you had not socialized with someone in too long. (Not to mention, every single job required more and more friend references to get promoted, which added a huge amount of challenge to the game.)

Crafters: We need more crafting and activity objects. The woodworking table has been around since the beginning. The artist's easel has been around since the beginning. The diving tank from Sims 1 made a return in much better form in Sims 3. Makin Magic is probably the pack I miss most right now. Bookshelves that actually hid objects, the quirky hole to jump into that reminded me of Beetlejuice, and the vendor challenges and magic crafting. Sims 3 brought back the magic crafting through the alchemy skill. The knitting and embroidery are a good start on Sims 4.

Music and staff responsiveness: The staff actively acted on and implemented player suggestions, and the lead time on those was not huge. The music was absolutely wonderful, and still is. I would say I probably played the game for the music a lot of the time. The neighborhood music was a welcome sound after almost overloading my computer with custom content and hacked objects (ie object mods), then waiting about a half hour for everything to load up. Not to even mention the scary music when a raccoon was coming for your trash or a burglar was about to break into your Sim's home. It was actually even kinda cute having Clair the bear try to eat from your can or steal the honey, getting stung in the process more often than not.

Then there is the stuff developers don't seem to be able to get away with anymore...slot machines for Sims, gorillas jumping out of cakes, and the like.

SimsILikeSims · August 2021

Sims 2: I miss the skilling opportunities from university, though it took way too long to complete and as a result made the young adult stage way longer than any of the other life stages. But more than that, I miss the attraction system, the way they did family tree SO right, and the aspiration rewards. In Sims 4, your Sims just don't get rewarded for much of anything, unless they succeed in a career path. No "best garden" prizes, no lottery prizes (from buying ticket), no unusual gifts (like the box with the Mr. Humble computer in Sims 2 or the box of mysterious magic stuff in Sims 1.) I also really miss the cut-scenes, like the first kiss one, and the funky things Sims 2 did with animating the plumbobs. Not to even mention the dressing room shenanigans.

CARS were a huge new feature in Sims 2; they never brought back the feature to repair and fix up a car, to watch your Sim sit in a car and drive off the lot, or even a new woohoo spot in the car (aka Titanic love scene). I am sad that we have not even seen a drivable car for Sims 4.

I also miss that in Sims 2, you could choose whether or not to buy the cell phone, handheld gaming device, or mp3 player from the kiosk, and it wasn't just permanently attached and visible.

The Sims 2 did reservable apartment spaces, dorm rooms, and hotels right. They made the door only admit Sims that had been assigned to it by default (except the dorm rooms that were open to all visitors till they were locked...resulting in other university Sims sleeping in your Sims bed and hogging the computer in the room). They even made buildable elevators with the animations done right (door closes THEN Sim disappears inside the elevator rabbithole, not disappearing before the door closes as the player watches them vanish into thin air without an invisibility potion).

The Sims 2 store also had great objects like toddler swings, castle walls/doors/floors/furnishings, that I would love to see return. I was a bit sad not to see those things all included in the Sims 2 ultimate after the Sims 2 site and its store were long gone.

The "Unsavory Charlatan" pickpocket added challenge to the vacation pack for Sims 2, since no money meant vacation cut short. I also loved the local gestures and dances and greetings and collections.

The developers in Sims 2 still included great freebies just for visiting the website, just like in Sims 1 they did. Freebies like a downloadable holiday carol, Windows wallpapers, even random furnishings or Sims. Sadly, once Sims 3 came along, there was almost no more free content except what was offered through the Sims 3 store, and the Sims 3 freebies were almost without exception, either holiday stuff or branded sponsored content.

SimsILikeSims · August 2021

Sims 3: I miss the World Adventure pack, supernatural pack, and futuristic pack most of all here. Open world was also absolutely fantastic, but unfortunately relied on a number of rabbithole buildings just to let the game run on your average machine at the time. I loved the Servo that was around since Sims 1, and loved building the plumbots and collecting the parts to make them. I loved that cell phones did not work in the future while time traveling, but found it annoying that the screen remained cracked once they returned. (What happened to signal bars?)
I loved the junkyard and the huge venues for performers, and the horse ranches, but was sad that I could not fit all of these in the same world, nor could I have my Sims travel between the worlds.

Speaking of performers, the Sims 3 brought fame back (from Sims Superstar but reworked), and the venues depended on the performers fame.

I miss the personality issues with the different supernatural types - the fairy tendency to play tricks, the witches conjuring apples that matched their reputation, and so on. (I had a witch Sim whose reputation took a huge hit after she cast fireball on one zombie (and accidentally ending up with a gravestone in the yard) because she was tired of them munching on her garden. So I used a freeze spell instead on another zombie, but the more zombies she cast spells on, the more poisonous her apples.) I love the gothy stuff that Sims 3 supernatural added. Sims 4 vampire pack was empty compared to the Sims 3 supernatural pack, and werewolves and fairies have not even made a return in Sims 4. I also seriously miss the graveyard venue and its chance cards for visiting the crypt.

The underwater diving experience was unparallelled, as were the hidden islands to discover, and I am still hoping those might come back to Sims 4 or make a reappearance in Sims 5.

I miss actually being able to watch the cars, scooters, and bicycles drive around town on the town map, or even make my Sim jog for miles around the town, especially in a World Adventures setting. (That really should have increased their fitness skill, but did not even come close, nor did they get sore muscles from jogging.) However, you still never saw the Sim actually get IN to the car, which kind of broke the immersion.

I also seriously miss the hidden object game that was added during the last year or so of development on the loading screen of the game, after loading the world, but before loading a household. Maybe its meta, but I like seeing games IN games, especially minigames.

MoonlightGraham · August 2021

I was in my teens when TS1 came out. I first played it at a friend's house. He got the game almost as soon as it was released, and I think I played it first within a few weeks of its release. I got my own copy a few weeks later, sometime in the spring. I know I had it in time to enjoy playing it while my school year was ending. I found The Sims very relaxing, especially during exams.

My Sims phase wasn't very long, though. I know my younger sister played it while I was at university, and she still has her copy of TS2 displayed on a bookshelf.

I rediscovered The Sims this spring, when I was looking for a new game to enjoy while another school year wound down. I'm a teacher now, rather than a student, but the stresses are still real! I bought TS3 first, and then TS4. My daughter and, now, my wife enjoy joining in, so it's become a family pastime.

So my Sims story is a long one, but there's a two-decade break in the middle.

ckrulesinak · August 2021

It hasn't been 21 years for me lol but I am also only 23!

Sims 1: I do remember being like 8 or 9 and at a church event at someone's house and all the girls were playing sims and I found it sooo cool. My mom didn't like video games and wouldn't buy it for me cause I was too young.

Sims 2: When I was 10 I met my childhood bestie and she owned Sims 2 and we created our crushes and ourselves, I mean we were 10 lol of course we did! I was never good at building so I remember she would build all my homes for me. What is absolutely HILARIOUS is her mom took sims 2 away from us for like 2-3 years I think because sims woohooed AHAH we didn't hide that they did that but when she found out she was horrified lol even tho we explained like we see nothing lol.

Sims 3: Finally her mom let us play again and by this time sims 3 was out. We were animal obsessed so we had lots of fun with horses and dogs. Years later I finally got it for myself and started a blog (That I sadly can't find) and I remember only having the pet's expansion pack and the generation's expansion pack. But with sims 3 you had sooo much gameplay like I wanted other packs but I just didn't have the money.

Sims 4: I literally posted to my Instagram the day I got sims 4 in the mail. I was soooo excited! But very bummed they took away toddlers especially since I wanted to blog them. I started a simstagram and got to 1,000 followers but then college got crazy and I moved out and no longer had a computer to use. I was also blogging and had about 5-10 regular readers.

Now-I just got a mac from a friend and I am finally playing sims after not being able to for about 3 or 4 years. I have started blogging again, maybe I'll restart my intsa- see if my 1,000 followers remember me lol and I just started a youtube channel! Lots on my plate but Sims is such a fun way to destress and I still love it despite the improvements needed.

SnowBnuuy · August 2021

Here's my mundane borderline-life-story-that-nobody-asked-for Sims-playing history. In spoiler tags for neatness.

Sims 1/ Bustin' Out

I started with TS1 on the PS2 and The Sims Bustin' Out when I was about 9 or 10, but didn't play it properly until I was about 15-16. I used to play it when my friends and partner at the time came over, we'd have a brilliant time just messing about, trapping people in 1X1 houses, setting everyone on fire, locking them all in and watching them drop trash everywhere, proper old school Sims cruelty. : P I plan to go back to Sims 1 soon, complete the 'Get a Life' mode and then move onto Bustin' Out and do the same. I love the nostalgia and comparative simplicity of the older games. And the old music is great. I need to find and try out the old PC version eventually.

Sims 2

I've played a fair bit of Sims 2 on PC, but not as much as the other titles; (Sims 2 on PS2 is my least favourite Sims title I've ever played. The 'actually being able to walk around as your Sim' was the only interesting part of that game for me.) I started playing it on PC when I was about 17-18 and going from Sims 1 to Sims 2 was a big leap, it was good fun. I remember that one of the popular girls in the class overheard me and my nerdy friends discussing it. Clearly she'd never had a chance to talk videogames with her friendship group, so she awkwardly just chimed in like '...I love the Sims...' I love seeing people who don't get the chance to talk geek, talk geek. : P She mentioned to me that she had all the discs but never played them anymore. She offered to sell me the lot but I didn't have the money at the time and so I just took the basegame, Pets and Seasons. It was decent fun, having actual seasons was amazing and has always been a favourite expansion across titles...but I had a very buggy experience back then. I since have the Ultimate Collection and some mods that will help combat the long-term save corruption issue, I hope because I'd like to play it long-term. I love TS2's premades, especially the Strangetown bunch and the Pleasant family. I had a lot of fun with the aliens, and also playing as the Curious family. The storybook option was something I enjoyed.

Sims 3

I then went onto Sims 3 on the XBox 360 and enjoyed it a lot, especially the more realistic style and Traits etc. The first thing I bought with my first ever paycheck was the Sims 3 Starter Pack for PC. Since it wouldn't be me without the extended meaningless waffle, - I remember they forgot to give me the product key in the box, but of course I couldn't prove I didn't use it and had to settle for an exchange with another game (which was fine by me!), but the win-win of that situation was that I found it cheaper on Origin. TS3 on the PC was an amazing experience, I loved the open world, the mods, the romantic reputation system, the gigabytes of CC that slowed my poor glorious potato PC to a crawl- but it was all worth it for over 900 total hours of fun. I haven't touched TS3 in a long time. I also made my first CC for TS3, although that was just simple things like designs on basegame clothes, framed artwork, designs on objects, face paint, wall patterns and so on.

Sims 4

I'm 25 now. When I first played TS4 on my friend's computer in 2014, I hated it, so much. I hated the art style, no toddlers, no pools, it just felt absolutely awful and I didn't get into it. I never revisited it until I got it as a present for Xbox in 2017. At that point, enough had been added to the game that I actually enjoyed it enough even if getting used to the XBOne's controls for the game was a bit all over the place at first. It's been my main game since and it took me a while to get used to the overall style but I really like the cartoonishness and general vibrance of the game compared to TS3's more realistic look. Sure, there are changes I'd like to see made that I've already discussed ad nauseum across the entire Discussion side of the forum- but I do enjoy it, and it's what got me into SimLit which is a nice little distraction and got me back into writing.

For me every 'generation' of Sims has a special place in my heart for different reasons which is why I don't care to really rank any of them, they all have their pros and cons to me. And it's nice that the forum is a (mostly) chill place to chat about and share my love for the series with others. I think it's that community aspect that keeps me playing the game because it's fun to chat about it and then spam everyone with screenshots later on, and to see what everyone does with their games, stories, the premades etc.

83bienchen · August 2021

My most cherished memories are connected to the photo story I did back in the days of TS2.

https://youtu.be/D0BKHn6xty8

Lucy_Henley · September 2021

Sims 1: I got this on PS2 first. I had a Sim die in a fire. I forget how old I was, but I remember saying I would never play the game again... famous last words!!

I also had Bustin Out. I have completed the Bust Out mode 100%, mainly through the usage of cheats.
I did also get the base game on PC, and enjoyed it, but would have liked it more if I'd had the expansions. I mostly used the klapaucius cheat and built giant houses with expensive furniture!

Sims 2: I've played it on PC and PS2. I don't really like Sims 2 PS2 much because the Sims are kinda ugly IMO. Sims 2 Pets and Sims 2 Castaway is better in regard to how the Sims actually look. Again, I used cheats a lot, because I'm that kind of player

With regards to the PC version, I finally bought Apartment Life and Glamour Life Stuff last year, completing my collection. I also only started using mods last year, although I'd had CC before. Now I'm like "why didn't I use mods before???"

Sims 3: I have all the EPs and most of the SPs (not Diesel, 70s 80s 90s or Movie). I like all the expansions for various reasons... I love having a Sim master martial arts, smash space rock blocks and becoming rich off selling cut Tiberium gems

Again, I only started using NRAAS last year although I'd been playing for years before that.

Sims 4: I didn't get it until January 2016, apparently. Pools were there but toddlers weren't. This is becoming repetitive, but I didn't really use CC/mods until last year, because I thought patches would mess them up. Then someone on here reassured me that CC (hairs/clothes) don't get broken. So, I started downloading! The only mod I have that needs regular updates is MCCC, but I can deal with that and I appreciate being able to change certain things with it.
I have nearly all the packs; the only ones I don't have are Vampires, StrangerVille, Journey to Batuu, Dream Home Decorator and Moschino Stuff. I'm just not particularly interested in them, although I could possibly get DHD and Moschino in the future - I took a while to decide if I wanted Eco Lifestyle, but I do have it now and don't regret it. It's not my favourite, but I like what it adds.

Like others, I don't really have a favourite iteration, and enjoy Sims 2/3/4 for different reasons.

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21 yrs of Sims - Walking Down Memory Lane

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