Welcome to DexVille, a place where love is in the air, fit ladies kiss other fit ladies, the sun always shines and there's not a care in the word for its inhabitants - it's a place where everybody wants to live. But then, like all good things, they come to an end. Ladies start to see another sex, namely the male of the species, it starts to rain and people start to get troubles on their plates. They even start wanting to go to the toilet and have things like showers! DexVille is officially corrupt by evilness.

But it's not really evilness, it's more real life. [Ah yes, that evil! Ed] The sooner I understood what life actually entailed; work, problems, bills, problems, work, problems and then more work, the better I understood my Sims and their needs. Sims could put me off life for life! But then, behind that cloud of work, bills and problems lies a whole new world of coolness just waiting to be unveiled, a whole new world of romance just waiting to be uncovered and a whole new world of interactions just waiting to be exposed - are you ready to take on DexVille and all its residents?

Well, meet single long-haired dad, Larry Propane and his son, Ricko. They just moved into DexVille and took on an ambitious project of buying a plot of land and building their own home from scratch. They managed to get the four walls right but when it came to buying furnishings they fell short of money. Now they sleep on the couch, with Larry working as a test subject - let's hope he comes home without any adverse side effects! Right across the road lives Melissa and her baby boy, Bobby. She's having a hard time on her own, with her baby, but luckily she has enough money to keep above the water - but with the constant baby nursing, will she ever find a man? Then there's the old couple across the way, an example for the rest, Norris and Mary-Anne. They've been together for ages, they are stinking rich, they have nobody to leave their money to - they have a big house, oh and it's nearly time for them to meet Elvis. [Why, are they going into hiding? Ed]

Did somebody mention a Will? Well, Cindy and Wendy, the hot twins of DexVille, might be able to lend a helping hand, if you catch my drift. If there's money in the air then there are always fake relationships to follow. It's what they do best! The last large family of DexVille consists of Possum, Betty and their five kids, Possum Junior, Baby Possum, Possum Senior, Michael and little Betty. They lack imagination but there's always plenty of love to go around. So, welcome to DexVille, population fifteen, but as long as Possum and Betty are around, that number will continue to grow and grow, and with love just around the corner for our number one dad Larry, who knows, DexVille might be overrun by kids before you can say "Roll on The Sims 2 expansion packs" - oops, too late, make that sixteen, Baby Betty has just popped out!

So, The Sims 2 then - where do we start? Well, so much has changed from the first Sims that it's quite difficult to get your head around it. I mean it's 3D for crying out loud, 3D! One number and one letter can mean so much to a Sims fan you know, sure, it has been 3D on the consoles before but this is the PC - and it's 3D! So the whole making characters side of things has become a lot more involving. First of all you can select from what life stage your Sim starts from. There's a toddler, then a kid, then it jumps up to a teen, then an adult, before retiring to last stage before the box. So, onto the actual design, which lets you choose a head type right off the bat.

After choosing one of the heads, you start to get onto the more advanced stuff. You are asked to pick a certain hairstyle and colour. There are loads and loads of hairstyles, ranging from long, to short, to just plain wild - no more Sims looking the same! There are only four hair colours to choose from but if you dig deeper into the game's mechanics, you'll be able to customise your own - and I'm sure expansions will add to this later. Still, we have the most popular colours here, Sweet Blonde, Autumn Brown, Kinky Black and feisty Red. Meow. Oh and it's the same for creating males' hair too - just remove the word before the colour. [Men can be kinky and feisty too you know, wink wink! Ed] Configuring the face can be as simple or as complicated as you want it - you can configure everything including the shape of the nose, forehead, eyes and jaw, adjusting the width, height and a whole manner of other things with sliding bars. You can even slap a bit of makeup on too and, if the male is feeling fruity, why not stick some eyeliner and lipstick on!

Then we come to the clothes, where you can pick outfits for every occasion and even mix and match top and bottom halves to create totally unique looks for your Sims. Formal, casual, clothes to work out in, swimwear, underwear and even PJs - not to be worn in court. And then my friend, we get to the best part - the star sign where one significant change has been made - you can still select your Sims traits, Outgoing or Shy, Friendly or Grouchy, by allotting points to traits, but now we have this wonderful, wonderful aspect they call aspiration, available to Teens and above.

Basically you can select what you want your Sim to achieve in life, what you want them to aspire to. Do you want your Sim's goals to revolve around romance, thus making them a 'Player'? A romance aspiration can do just that! We have a popularity aspiration where goals revolve around making friends, keeping them and socialising a lot. A family aspiration can be a nice one, making goals more long term, having kids, settling down and lots of things circling kids, such as teaching them to walk the walk and talk the talk. A knowledge aspiration is all about knowing things and being clever. Seeing ghosts, helping your kids with homework, gaining skills and being saved from death are some of the goals that could have an impact. The last aspiration is the fortune aspiration, where money comes first. Getting bonuses from work, marrying rich Sims and just making money can account to a better future. Kids and toddlers have the 'growing up' aspiration, which is pretty much a nice mix of everything until you hit the teen years.

But how does all of this affect the gameplay? Well, it's a fantastically simple concept that actually adds a lot more dimension to the 3D world of The Sims 2. Each Sim has four wants and three fears, the wants normally reflecting on the aspiration you choose in the first place. Every Sim has one big main goal they want to achieve, so it's always nice to work towards that goal slowly. However, at any one given time all your Sims will have these Wants and Fears. They can range from small Wants like buying a fridge or meeting somebody new, to bigger Wants such as making a best friend, flirting with somebody, having a first kiss, accumulating a certain amount of money, having a party and even pleading with Death if you've just lost a loved one. Fears are normally counters of the Wants. For example, you might want to have your first kiss but your Fear to counter this would be getting rejected for that first kiss. Other fears might include losing a loved one, having a fight with a family member or falling out with a close friend.

Wants and Fears change every morning, or, when that certain Want or Fear has been acted on. If you see a Want that you know you'll be able to achieve in the near future, or a Fear you know will never happen then you can lock one down so it will never change until it actually happens. So if you see your Sim wanting to fall in love, you know it will happen but it's not appropriate yet, then lock it in till it happens. Doing what your Sim wants gives you aspiration points and puts your Sim in the green on the aspiration mood metre. Some Wants earn you more points than others and, of course, fears take away your points if you are unlucky enough to mess up. You can buy lots of unique objects from the aspiration catalogue, such as Money Trees, Baby Milk makers and wearable helmets that magically increase your mood.

Now, this aspiration mood meter is green if you are steadily earning aspiration points. If you manage to pull a few off then your meter becomes gold plated, which means that you can to use your aspiration items without any side effects. Using the Money Tree while you're not in a golden mood will probably result in you picking blank notes and because money only grows on trees a few times a day, you want to be getting the most out of that tree. If you manage to score big with aspiration then you might be lucky enough to have a platinum coated meter, which basically puts you in a superb mood regardless of hygiene or bladder and makes you feel on top of the world - until you manage to come back off your high, by which time, your Sim should be in a good mood anyway, providing you look after him well enough.

I think the million dollar question is - 'Is it just as tedious as the last?' and the answer to that is 'Not quite'. See, with all this aspiration going on, it distracts you from the tediousness. Of course, there is a time to crap, a time to shower and a time to have fun - but you can entertain yourself in the process, turning The Sims 2 into more of a game! When you settle down and eventually have a kid, DNA comes into play. Now, by using powerful tools, you can create DNA when you make a family, or the mainstream choice, let The Sims 2 handle the entire DNA for you. Basically, when a couple has a baby it selects characteristics from both sides and creates a new sim. How cool is that? What if one half came from out of space, thus having some alien DNA in the old pipe? What if she's pregnant with an alien baby?!

For me, The Sims was 50% about the building. I used to love making weird and wonderful dwellings, octagonal houses, houses with pools in the middle, houses with pools going all the way around, balconies, the works. Well, in The Sims 2, the whole building aspects is an architect's dream come true. You can build houses in true 3D, zooming in and out on everything, panning around and just getting a fantastic view of this piece of art you have created on screen. Sculpt hills in your land, build decking and patios, have large glass doors, multi story houses not just limited to two floors and let your imagination run totally wild. You can build houses without people living there too, so you can, in essence, build loads of houses that are fully furnished on the street, for Sims to move in to, as and when they can afford it. Not only can you build residential homes, but you can build community lots, which are basically like shops that you can visit by taking a taxi there.

Build restaurants, game shops, arcades, entertainments and bars for a good night out. The three areas that come with the game already have a few community lots, houses and all of that - with tons of room for you to build more, but if you did what I did and created a new neighbourhood from scratch, then you're going to have to get that construction hat on and build, build, build! But because everything feels fun to build, there are absolutely no problems here.

Back to the gaming side of things and taking a taxi to one of the community lots with a friend, a lover, or a partner can be essential for getting yourself back into the right mood. Failing that, why not throw a party - and don't do all the cooking, hire some people to come and do it for you! Oh, what about ordering some fast food - under an hour or your money back! Don't forget to restock your fridge though, because it's no longer bottomless like in the old Sims - no, you have to call the food men to bring you your shopping! All these little things add to the amount of fun The Sims 2 delivers - it's a fantastic game, it really is.

A new dimension has been added where work is concerned too. You still get jobs from newspapers and the Internet and you still get promoted by earning skills and having friends, but now you often get little multiple choice messages on screen - that tell you a story before asking you a question. If you choose the right one then you might get rewards, bonuses, skill points and other things that just make the game that bit more interesting. By sticking to certain careers and doing well in them, you can bring home career rewards that liven up the home environment by bringing some neat, relevant item home from work.

I've skated around the subject of death thus far, but now, I'm going to have to face the fact. Your Sims will grow up and eventually die. So you will see that toddler grow up alongside the parents, until the parents die and that toddler grows up and goes on to start his own family. I always wanted my Sims to grow up on the original, I was sick of the kids always being kids - but when your favourite Sim snuffs it, it can often bring a small tear to your eye. That's why you should live for the moment and buy as much junk as you can from the catalogue of items in the game.

Back into build mode and you can select from lots of items ranging in price. People who had the previous Sims with all the expansions installed are going to feel a little cheated in the sense that there aren't a lot of items in comparison. There's normally a budget item and a more expensive variant - at least where things like stereos are concerned! There is a lot of focus on chairs, beds, couches and things like that though and you'll be glad to know that most items can be different colours, so you can have the budget fridge in any colour you can think of. Pink fridge, oh how I laughed. Items are something we will see more of in upcoming expansions, you can almost bet your right hand and trust me, I wouldn't bet that unless I was absolutely sure…

To make up for the slight lack of items, each one has plenty of interactions you can perform with the item you have just purchased. Take the stereo for example - your Sim can change channels, dance solo, dance with other people and generally have a good time around a cheap radio on a cheap table. It's clear that lots of effort has been devoted to interactions for every object. Also, social interactions have been given a lot of attention, with plenty of things to do, such as playing pranks, having games of kick bag and whole new romance elements have been added that will blow your mind. Yep, blow your mind. What, you didn't think I made those twins just to add a new twist to the money story, did you? And the expressions your Sim pulls on different occasions too, they are priceless.

The Sims 2 also sports a fantastic video capture mode, which is readily available with just a click of a button. This allows you to capture up to a minute of video at a time, so you can share your stories with your friends, capture the priceless moments and even upload your videos to the thriving community online, where you can download other people's stories, new content and a bunch of other interesting stuff. By default, the video capture is low quality, but you can turn this up to output your videos in super-smooth, resulting in a bigger file, but one that's easier on the eyes.

The system requirements game are surprisingly low. It even runs on my steam machine - which came as a bit of a surprise actually! Providing you have something around the 1.0Ghz mark, with 256Mb of ram but preferably 512Mb then you'll be alright. My graphics card is only 64Mb and it's only a GeForce 2, but it runs The Sims 2 like a dream.

With all the graphical aspects on full, I got a good chance to see the top of the mountain where the graphics are concerned and the view is great from up there! Even if the graphics are set to low in every respect, The Sims 2 still looks miles better than the original. The characters look fantastic in 3D, very realistic and they all move fluidly too. The expressions they pull such as smirks, smiles, laughs, sad faces, angry faces and many more are very well done and can be seen clearly from both up close and afar. Just being able to zoom right into the action and pan around from every angle means a lot to a long-time Sim player like me, but to be able to see everything looking like you could touch it is even better - and the best thing is that it even runs on machines like mine, super-smooth, without any slowdown! Fantastic.

The sound is always something that shone before, with Sim speak - and now everything has been redone, it sounds absolutely great. Some familiar phrases are here from the first, recorded and re-mastered, to give long-time players a familiar feel. But then we have all sorts of different sounds for different conversation, with so many different made up words; it's all very well done. You can sometimes even get a drift of what they are saying, as the tone of voice they talk in during certain situations gives a lot away. There are a lot of different voices and tones for each life stage too; I have yet to hear my Sims say the same thing twice, excluding 'hello' and 'see you soon'.

Then we have the music that appears in menus and when you are creating characters - which I could listen to all day. I think the music in The Sims 2 is so relaxing and jazzy that building isn't as tedious as it perhaps should be and you don't feel rushed to escape the menus because of tracks you don't like. On the off chance that you don't like certain songs, you can disable them on the options menu too. The sound effects are great as well - and songs on the radio are as comical as they always have been, with Sims singing in Simish and even some Sim rap! There's only one thing that annoys me where sound is concerned and that's those buzzing little flies that fly around dirty plates and trash cans. They really freak me out! [It just seems so unhygienic… Ed]

The Sims 2 improves upon the original in every respect and adds a whole lot more too. The aspiration side is probably the best thing that has ever happened to The Sims, because you will go out of your way to achieve goals to score points and buy unusual objects. Then we have a super-high level of character customisation, great tool to build with, lots of things to do - plenty of challenges and an ever-changing 3D story that you are in control of. With the Sims growing up, passing on DNA and advancing in a way that was never possible before, it's going to be a while before you get bored. And even if you do, having a long break and the return will make it feel like a new game again. The Sims have a purpose now, a reason for living, with goals and offspring - and with that kind of purpose, it gives us, the players, all the more reason to play The Sims 2.

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).