The Sims Stories
‘The Sims 2’ was the first Sims game that I ever played. I don’t exactly remember how I discovered it, but I DO remember trying to hide all the naughty stuff that goes on in that game from my dad. In my opinion, The Sims 2 is the best game in the series. There is an attention to detail that simply just isn’t present in its successors, and the stories that come baked into the gameplay is unmatched by any other Sims game. When I heard about The Sims Stories, I was intrigued. You’re telling me there’s OTHER versions of my favorite Sims games with ACTUAL, GUIDED story modes?! You’re joking! That sounds like it would be right up my alley!
I first heard about these elusive The Sims Stories games from you guys, actually, in the comments section of my ‘The Sims 2: Castaways’ video. Viewers questioned if I had ever heard of a game called ‘Castaway Stories’, and at first, I thought that they were just talking about regular old Castaways. No, in fact, they were referring to an entirely separate game. That got me excited, as Castaways is one of my favorite Sims spinoffs. The developers got really creative on that one, and you can tell due to how unique the gameplay is.
So, The Sims Stories. We’ve got three games: Life Stories, Pet Stories, and Castaway Stories. Life Stories was probably my favorite, then Pets, then Castaway Stories. I thought these games were all pretty great, but the actual STORIES in Life Stories were a little bit more cohesive, fleshed out, and just in general made more sense at the end of the day.
Since EA no longer sells these games, they are considered abandonware, and are available to download from oldgamesdownload.com. Don’t worry, there’s no viruses, and this is perfectly legal. Their downloads are hosted on archive.org which “has DMCA exemption for vintage software archiving.” Check out their FAQ page if you’re still skeptical. But I highly recommend downloading and playing these games yourself.
Creating this video was super fun. I have the video-making process down to a nice little formula now, specifically the long-form videos. I don’t want to get too comfortable, however. I felt that my Moonstone Island video dragged a bit. I was attempting to do something similar to the ‘Stardew Valley 100 Days’-type of videos that I created, but in general, I think it could have been cut down even more for brevity’s sake. See, getting too comfortable means you get lazy, and that definitely comes across in your work. I never want to put out a video for the sake of putting something out or meeting a sponsor deadline ever again. Not that that was the case with Moonstone Island, but in general, I wish I had more time to trim off the fat.
Just two more Sims spinoff videos left: one on the GBA games, and the other on the DS versions. Those videos will be a true test of how entertaining my scripts can be. I don’t necessarily want to create a play-by-play of each moment in those games, but I do want to write out some really good summaries and make a better, more lively product. If that makes sense. With the format of this ‘Stories’ video, I think I’m on the right track. A ton had to be cut out to keep this one flowing well. But boy, am I excited to finish up these Sims videos and move onto the next series.
