EA fleshes out The Sims by adding a structured story format to its ordinarily freeform gameplay. How did it turn out?
For those who have heard of The Sims and are interested in the game, Electronic Arts has a relatively new line of games meant as primers for the ever-expanding series: The Sims Stories. Ironically, while the primary attraction of The Sims has always been the open-ended "sandbox" nature of the gameplay, The Sims Pet Stories imposes structure in the form of dueling storylines, with the standard gameplay model available in the background.
In the original version of The Sims 2: Pets, you begin the game by creating an individual Sim or a family thereof, here the primary jumping-off point is a pair of storylines. Alice has inherited her grandparents' home, but financial problems force her to look for new ways to make cash. For reasons known only to her, entering and winning a dog show with her prized dalmation is the key to success. Stephen, on the other hand, is a successful chef who must deal with an unexpected new family member -- his friend's poorly trained cat.
Each story has 12 chapters, with a focus in each chapter on training your pets and then achieving goals based on the lessons. And while the structure seems more suited to a handheld version of the game than a standalone PC release, it actually works quite well. In part, that's because you can break from the chapters at any point to simply tool around the city. And where The Sims 2 can easily become a black hole of arbitrary time-killing play, the chapters keep you on point and provide a good gateway into the various tasks and options available in the huge game.
Then again, time-killing play is exactly the point of The Sims 2, with experimentation coming in a close second. There's nothing quite as bizarre as being told how to play a free-form game, which is exactly what the two storylines try to do. The Sims Pet Stories is like The Sims for people who can't be bothered to imagine their own version of sim reality.
If the imposed storyline structure seems irritating, just ignore it. You can start a whole new family, make a home and essentially play the game just as if you'd purchased The Sims 2 and the Pets expansion, but with one caveat -- the content you make here is not portable to any other version of the game. So if there's a further Sims 2 expansion (which is virtually guaranteed) none of the Sims you make here will be able to take advantage of the new stuff. If you just want to play the game, the $40 price tag is better than buying The Sims 2 and the Pets expansion, though.
So, why pick up a limited version of The Sims 2 when the original game is readily available? The most obvious answer is that there are computers which aren't optimized for gaming, and Stories attempts to cater to owners of those machines. The graphics, while still retaining the feel of the original game, have been made less processor-intensive. That means home machines without graphics cards and laptops with their own visual limitations can run the game. Little things like an in-game battery meter and a default 'windowed' presentation are meant to make the game play nicely with a multitasking system, too. Indeed, we launched the game on a desktop with no graphics card and were able to play just fine while also browsing the web and writing in Microsoft Word.
The low system specs are a nice deal and The Sims Pet Stories is a well implemented gateway into the Sims world, but EA has definitely skimped on the full gateway functionality by not allowing Stories to play with other releases in the series. In other words, if you really get hooked, be ready to cough up for the full-sized version.