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De Sims 2 for PlayStation Portable
The Sims 2 for PlayStation Portable begins with car trouble and an unexpected stay in Strangetown. You create your own Sim and investigate a place where strange residents and secrets hide behind ordinary houses. Conversations, tasks and searching for clues form the main thread. Meanwhile, your character also needs food, sleep and relaxation. You move your Sim through the surroundings yourself, rather than only issuing orders to a whole household from above.
The Sanity meter tracks your Sim's state of mind. By fulfilling wants and taking care of daily needs, you try to prevent a breakdown. Making contact with neighbours helps you obtain new information, while skills and earned money expand your options. You can furnish your home and use objects to look after yourself. A conversation or task is therefore rarely entirely separate from everyday life: sometimes you need to eat or rest before continuing your investigation.
The adventure gives you goals within a fixed location but leaves room to talk to residents and further shape your own Sim along the way. Collecting secrets makes exploring houses and neighbourhoods important. The original PSP edition also includes local wireless exchange of items including secrets and possessions. For local exchange, you use two PSP systems with wireless networking, with each system running its own copy of the game. This does not turn the story into a jointly controlled household or add the computer game's expansion packs.
Region and language
Our PlayStation Portable games are European editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
You receive the physical UMD edition. You need a PSP with a UMD drive to play it; a PSP Go cannot play this disc.
Manual
De Sims 2 for PlayStation Portable includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of De Sims 2
Electronic Arts released The Sims 2 for PlayStation Portable in late 2005. The name refers to the 2004 computer game, but the handheld version received its own structure. At the European launch, EA described the PSP edition as a game built from the ground up for the portable system. Strangetown became the central setting for a story full of secrets. Creating a Sim and looking after daily needs were retained, while exploration and personal tasks gave the adventure much more direction.
That approach fits the development of The Sims beyond the PC. Earlier console and handheld games had already recast the idea of a controllable everyday life in other forms. For PSP, EA and the development team involved combined those familiar habits with a permanent leading role for your custom-made character. Rather than following the free growth of multiple families across generations, you get to know one peculiar setting. The Sanity meter connects personal wants and daily needs with progression, underlining the focus on that single Sim.
The other handheld editions sharing the name also took different approaches. The PSP release is therefore not an interchangeable copy of the Nintendo DS or Game Boy Advance game. Its three-dimensional neighbourhoods, direct movement and collecting secrets define this version. Local wireless exchange matched the capabilities of Sony's then-new handheld. Playing this edition therefore gives you a separate story within The Sims, not the later PC collection or a package containing all the computer expansions.
Similar games for PlayStation Portable
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for PlayStation Portable also lets you move directly through a three-dimensional place and accept tasks from residents. The similarity lies in getting to know locations and characters. GTA, however, focuses on crime, driving and combat, while The Sims 2 makes conversations, needs and your Sim's state of mind important. Strangetown is primarily a strange neighbourhood to investigate, not a city for a criminal career.
Ratatouille for PlayStation Portable gives its hero tasks from a central rat colony and has him investigate different areas. As in The Sims 2, conversations and collected objects point you towards the next goal. Remy mainly overcomes obstacles by jumping, climbing and fighting. Your Sim is more likely to solve a situation by getting to know residents, building skills and balancing daily needs.
Daxter for PlayStation Portable connects tasks with exploring Haven City and fighting pests. Both games give a supporting or custom-created character an adventure of their own within a familiar universe. Daxter has a fixed appearance and an action-focused job. The Sims 2 instead lets you create a Sim and influence their home and habits. Its pace therefore comes less from jumps and battles than from conversations and everyday choices.
Secret Agent Clank for PlayStation Portable builds its story around a suspicious event that you investigate further. That search for what is really happening connects with Strangetown's secrets. Clank approaches it with spy gadgets, platforming and rhythm challenges. The Sims 2 starts from conversations, personal wants and ordinary living spaces. You do not have to be a secret agent there to discover strange things among your neighbours.
Archer Maclean's Mercury for PlayStation Portable asks you to think carefully about a route, but turns that question into separate maze puzzles involving liquid metal. The Sims 2 places choices within an ongoing life with residents, a home and personal needs. Mercury focuses above all on solving the course; in Strangetown, a detour can also lead to a conversation, a new secret or a practical break to eat.
