Review: The Sims 1 & 2 Legacy Collection Harks Back to a Simpler Time

For the 25th anniversary of the series, Electronic Arts releasedThe Sims 25th Birthday Bundle, which compiles the Legacy Collection versions of the first two games of the long-running life sim franchise. You can also, of course, purchase each one separately. Aside from the overall dated nature of the unmodded games (especially the first one) and some occasional hiccups with resolution and odd bugs, the remasters play well despite the horror stories floating around on the Internet.

While the classic stereotype of a Sims girlie features unhinged save files full of breeding farms, mpreg, and human experiments that would make an ethics board soil themselves, I’m actually very kind to my virtual families in The Sims 3. I meet their every need, fulfill their life wants, and make sure they have a dream home to raise their children in. And let me tell you, I am trying my best to make sure my Sims and Sims 2 families receive the same royal treatment. But no matter what, it’s like they’re opposed to the very idea of happiness. Over a decade of playing The Sims 3 really spoiled me when it came to the older games. I have no idea how I had happy and accomplished Sims in these games as a kid or teenager.

The Sims (the first one) didn’t hold back in denting my confidence. This is a game that I don’t believe aged well at all if you’re serious about playing The Sims, and are used to the later entries in the franchise. It’s fun if you want to have a little trainwreck of a family, since it’s hard to keep these guys happy even if you’re trying your best. Between the lack of basic QoL features, no proper direction outside of making more money or speedrunning death, and poor screen resolution optimization, it doesn’t feel good to play at all. I’m playing The Sims on my laptop rather than my PC, and even on the smaller screen, I’m having real trouble reading a lot of the descriptions or seeing the lots on the neighborhood map. I’m sure it looks worse on a larger monitor.

I never realized just how uppity the sims in The Sims are. I’m used to The Sims 3, where they’re a lot more open to my directions, even if they’re not exactly happy at the moment. Chess and painting are activities that raise fun, so they usually do them without complaint, even if they’re in the red. But in The Sims, I had to let my sim goof off and nap for about two hours before they were okay to paint, and by then, bedtime rolled around. That’s pretty annoying, since that means they hardly have any time to maintain relationships with other sims. My sim was buttering up Bella Goth for days before she was willing to come over, because I could only call her in between trying to get him married to his intended belle while keeping him fed and clean.

After getting enough money to build a nice mansion (a more difficult task than I imagined thanks to the lack of modern Sims conveniences like even the eyedropper tool), I figured that surely, it would be easier for them to make friends and fall in love. On one hand, it did. Better furniture recovered motives faster and kept them happier, which meant I could give them more tasks per day. On the other, it just felt so hollow. I’m basically stuck playing the same sims forever and ever. If I’m not helping them with their 9-5 and social lives, I’m watching them goof off with the luxuries I bought with their hard-earned money. It got pretty boring, but switching to a new family didn’t appeal to me either, because I knew I’d have to start that grind all over again.

As a kid, building the dollhouse was really fun. But nowadays, if I wanted to focus more on the building than the actual life sim aspect of The Sims, I can just pick up The Sims 4. Despite all the scorn it receives from the community (and me), fans agree that its robust Build Mode is the best in the series. Even if I reach the top of my career in The Sims, the game will arbitrarily stick me into another job to climb the corporate latter again. There’s no aging, so I can’t start a family and try to keep it going for as many generations as I can. I can’t even create a love dodecahedron, let it implode, and laugh at the drama and tears because the game’s AI was simply not that advanced back then. It feels empty.

That’s kind of the point, though. In a recent interview with the New York Times, series creator Will Wright said, “I never really thought of The Sims as inherently optimistic. I always thought of The Sims as slightly sarcastically nostalgic for a past that never really existed.” Technological constraints aside, it’s pretty brilliant to play a game where you can seemingly accomplish the American dream, only for it to be a hollow and unfulfilling victory. While The Sims certainly occupies a fond spot in my memories, I’m not sure if it holds up compared to other similar games in the genre. Life kind of sucks right now. So I’m not too enthused about playing a life simulator that seems to hammer home how futile the pursuit for happiness and wealth is.

And on that depressing note, that’s all I have to say here about The Sims. Maybe I just need a bit more whimsy in how I play, but I haven’t been the “be mean to your sim for shits and giggles” or “make sims of people I know IRL or characters from other media, and watch them do stupid things” type of player since I was in elementary school. Playing generations and specific families in a legacy style is all I know now. The Sims 2 is wacky, though, isn’t it? And I remember loving this game as a kid! So surely, nostalgia hasn’t tainted my memories about this game.

As a whole, I’m right about that. I really loved the blast to the past, as well as how well it ran on a modern machine. When I was in elementary and high school, I played The Sims 2 on a Toshiba laptop with less storage than my friend’s iPod. The loading screen to move between lots could take five minutes, and the game stuttered every time my sims did anything. Ironically, that’s kind of how I still live today when playing The Sims 3 thanks to Reshade and my mods, but I digress.

The Sims 2: Legacy Collection boasts fast save and load times, as well as smooth animations, even when on max speed. I’ve done basically everything I can think of—vacations, university, kids, pets, ghost murder, and businesses—without encountering problems like crashing or whatnot. Short of doing things I know would hurt my game (like reviving Knut Futa or marrying in a Hula Zombie), I’ve not personally encountered major bugs with The Sims 2: Legacy Collection. While I ran into odd glitches here or there, they didn’t actively take away from my experience.

At this point, I kind of expect the occasional hiccup from The Sims, though. One could argue Electronic Arts should’ve perfected the code for the remaster, but if modders—a community that fixes issues faster than EA can get to them—couldn’t work out every kink in this game, I don’t know what EA could’ve done. I’d also like to note the majority of my playtime was on a Windows 10 laptop. Since The Sims 3 had issues with Windows 11 if you didn’t run the Alder Lake patch from LazyDuchess (or install a later build from Electronic Arts), the performance problems other users reported could stem from that.

The Sims 2 feels a lot more manageable after The Sims. I’d installed The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection ages ago, and found taking care of everyone a lot harder than in 3. It feels a lot closer to the life sim I’m used to. I just had to remember that the AI in The Sims 2 is a lot more stupid than in The Sims 3, and motives decay much faster. This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way, as I had a pregnant sim straight up die on me while I was watching her ugly husband play with the family dog. I didn’t even notice she died until I wanted to send her off to sleep thanks to how small the UI. She was asleep, alright, but alas, ‘twas a slumber she would never wake from (until I exited without saving).

I’ve long advocated that Electronic Arts should’ve implemented the personality, memories, and turn-ons/turn-offs systems of The Sims 2 into The Sims 3. A combination of Traits and personality points would’ve opened up a lot of fun combinations and possibilities. The terrible attraction system in Sims 3 only made Sims 2’s seem so much more polished in comparison, even if it can feel shallow. I also really missed the little “Yay!” or “Ugh, really?” animations they’d sometimes do when directing them, even if they sometimes contradicted with what their actions and Wants panel tell me. Like, why are you complaining at me? I’m telling you to flirt with the guy you’ve wanted to fall in love with for the past three days.

There’s something so The Truman Show about these little movements that makes them feel visibly alive in a way beyond the new games, which rely so much on flavor text and windows. 2 captures life as the average person knows it. Though it lacks the bombastic presentation of 4, as well as the open world and customization of 3, it does its main conceit of presenting a life sim so much better than the others. Not everyone’s going to own a guinea pig planning world domination or travel to the future. But the experiences of opening a home business or passing out into your pasta while cramming for an exam are much more relatable. The world in The Sims 2 felt richer thanks to the details and care put into the interactions and content, and I’m glad the Legacy Collection can give newer players the opportunity to experience that.

The one thing I really don’t like is the missing IKEA pack for Sims 2. Apparently, Electronic Arts couldn’t renew the license for the re-release, so it’s not a purposeful snub or oversight. If some day in the future, it decides to do something like this for The Sims 3, I’m guessing that the Katy Perry pack may suffer the same fate. Unlike the Katy Perry pack, though, the IKEA pack featured a lot of really useful items when decorating your home. The ubiquitous Swedish furniture store is a place I love going to and shopping at in real life, so it’s too bad that I can’t use its items in the base version of this re-release.

The Sims 25th Birthday Bundle is a nostalgic blast to the past that gives newer players the chance to explore more options beyond the third game, as well as offers older players the opportunity to relive their childhood. Compared to the conveniences of modern entries, some of the older titles might feel frustrating to navigate. It’s almost like a metaphor for real life.

The Sims: Legacy Collection and The Sims 2: Legacy Collection available on Windows PC.