Customer Reviews

The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I'm going to try to give a fair review of this pack for those of you considering it. But this is going to be hard, so please bear with me.

This "Stuff" pack, released less then a month after "Open for Business" came out, is minimal at best. I bought this, going against the advice you see here by other reviewers. I was sorely lacking for some kids room ideas, having done "Alien Rooms" and "Soccer Rooms" to the hilt. As a long time Sims fan, I generally don't like downloading objects from the internet fan sites, as I've heard stories of viruses being in them, and also them ruining your saved games. This stuff pack seemed to be a happy medium. I would be able to get new objects for my Sims, without introducing a entire new part of the game, as in the previous expansions.

Something about the best laid plans - they never work! I bought this today, luckily at a less expensive price then Amazon, at Target. I installed it, and made a "Sea" and "Castle" theme room for my Sims. That took all of 15 minutes. This is the problem with the pack. Those rooms are neat and spiffy, but to totally go through an expansion pack, trying all the different options within 15 minutes, means to me that it's not worth the money. The clothing options for adults are limited to 3 outfits each in the Hawaiian style. There's no new adult things, just a few minimal decorating objects. This pack would have been better named "Kids Fun Stuff" because it's truly about the kids.

My opinion comes down to save your money. I know people are going to be miffed with this pack and probably sell it in Amazon.Com marketplace for alot less then it's selling for now. If you must have this pack to complete your collection, my advice is to wait.

If Maxis/EA wants to release stuff collections like this one, I would think a downloadable pack on the internet for about five dollars would be reasonable. 20 dollars for a pack like this just isn't fair to your die hard Sims fan. Considering that an average Sims player forks over 50 for the original game, 30 for each expansion, this was an unfair move to capitalize on a weakness of the game. (Weakness being lack of good kids stuff)

Just my two cents :o)

Originally when stuff packs were mentioned as an option in the Maxis surveys I was quite excited. The idea of buying a CD chock full of objects sounded like a great deal. But here's my problem. Family Fun has 60 objects, that's it. For $19.99 here at Amazon. That's not such a great deal to me. That's .33 cents per object. I think the face masks, the floor globe and the Hawaiian clothes are nice. The other stuff is plain icky. I like realistic furniture, crayon green, hot pink or purple is not my idea of realistic.

And apparently there are bugs with this stuff pack. If you choose a Family Fun outfit in Create-A-Sim the outfit will disappear from the outfit choices. You have to have the sim buy the outfit at a clothing store until the patch comes out. It's pretty disappointing that a patch is needed for a stuff pack.

If this pack drops $10 perhaps then I'll think about it. Otherwise with the beautiful custom content made by sim fans out there and most kindly shared for free I could easily pass on this pack.

Before issuing this pack of new items for Sims game, Maxis ran several surveys on their web site. The question always was would you spend 14.99 for 40 items or 19.99 for 80 items. Somehow they decided on 60 items for 19.99. How they decided on that I don't know.

Second, there is every indication that most of these items should have been and would have been part of the Open for Business expansion pack until EA got greedy and decided to release this as a separate set.

Clue number one: Open for Business was the first expansion pack to only require one disc instead of the usual two. Why? Do you really need me to answer that?

Clue number two: in Open for business there was a "Fantasy Items" folder but only a very few items for it in the expansion pack. All of the Fantasy items for that folder are in this twenty dollar rip off.

To make matters worse, this pack was released with a major bug in it where if you dress your Sim in CAS then insert them into the game, you lose all of the new clothing items from the Family Fun Pack. A patch has yet to be issued. (04/22/2006) It seems more and more software developers are using their customers as beta testers.

I know that EA poured a massive amount of money into The Godfather game, but it would seem as if they are trying to recoup some of that investment from the loyal Sims players who have supported all of the expansion packs. Well, not this guy.

I cannot believe this!!! I am a Sims 2 addict, and I am stunned with this new way to make a little money on EA's part! This Family Fun Stuff is a joke!! You get three clothing items for women, three for men, 9 for teens, and a bunch of useless costumes for the kids! And the "MUST HAVE items" it claims on the box are ridiculous. Yes, they are cute, yes, they could be useful at some point....BUT I dont think this was worth the $20 I had to put out for it, and you can download a bunch of custom content on most sites for FREE. The worst part is I can't get my money back. I can only exchange for the exact same thing. I am aware that this was not a full expansion, but give me a break! I will NEVER again buy one of these "add-on's".

I considered the Holiday pack to be overpriced, and that at least included 2 new NPCs, new objects with new interactions, a new way to die, fireworks, etc.

This pack? Gives you a minimal amount of furniture, some clothes and facepaint, and lots of bugs.

Frankly, for the same amount of money, I could easily get over 10 times the amount of new objects/clothes/hair from fan pay sites that do not mess up my game. Not to mention that the majority of fansites out there are free, and if you spend some time with google, you can easily find much higher-quality custom content.

(Incidentially, downloading new objects/clothes/hair has never screwed up my game. I've also never heard of a site that carried a virus. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that it is possible for mods - ie, files that modify how some aspects of the game work - to be packaged in with lots. Most custom content sites take care to provide clean lots, but not all of them do).

I love the Sims and was excited to read about this new fun pack, but when I loaded it I was very disappointed. It had some new wallpaper, flooring and decorating things but I was expecting much more for the 20.00 dollars I spent on it. Don't waste your money.

Although this game doesn't introduce anything drastically new, I knew what I was getting. So its not as exciting as the expansion packs, but its still there. I agree that I'm more looking forward to a "glamour pack" because that sounds more enjoyable, but Maxis actually enriched the family feeling with this pack. It's not as good as the expansion packs, but I'd still encourage getting it, just because you can.

First, the thing to keep in mind is that this isn't an expansion pack, it's a "Stuff" pack, so you're not gonna get anything really other than stuff. That said, I think it's absolutly worth the money to add this to your game, but I'd recomend getting it on sale. Particularly if you're sick of "Space Rangers" and bunnies in your kids' rooms. Just make sure that you have a video card that can support the addition, or you could crash the game. To review, worthwhile addition (on sale), make sure you can support it.

I already made the decision not to buy these "stuff packs" as soon as I saw the Family Fun Stuff Pack (FFSP) come out - I knew right away it was a rip-off. It is an insult to our intelligence. However, a girlfriend of mine thought it would be cute to purchase it for me since she knew I was into The Sims 2, but she didn't know any better and surprised me.

After installing it, my pre-observation proved true. Here is the rundown of what the Family Fun Stuff Pack offers simmers:

1. New music. If you run the game off the FFSP disk, you can hear new musical scores at the load-up screen, but not elsewhere.

2. New clothes. There are three everyday outfits of Hawaiian theme for each age group and gender to wear. (Nice hula shirts and cargo shorts.) The kids get new pajamas. Whoopee.

3. New decorations. Like ocean navigation? You get some nice looking sailing motiffe stuff to hang on the walls or place on an endtable. The best decoration, in my opinion, is the towel rack which I place in all my bathrooms. The wallpaper additions are for kids only (medieval/dragons and underwater/sea life).

4. New furniture. It's all kid stuff: dressers, beds, and lamps. (Anyone who uses the floor coverings (under the Rugs tab) are creating a ridiculous room, I'll tell you that much.)

The main problem with this Stuff Pack (SP) - besides the fact that all the material should have been included in the Open for Business expansion pack (EP) and NOT sold separately - is that you are extremely limited with what you are given. In all reality, you will make two bedrooms and use up 90% of the items to do so. Then you will wonder why you dropped $20 on such a rip-off perpetrated by the Maxis gang.

If The Sims 2 wasn't such a solid game, I'd recommend a boycott. Maybe just boycott the SPs and EPs.

My only recommendation is that you purchase ZERO expansions and stuffs for The Sims 2 until The Sims 3 is released a couple years from now. Then, when they offer "The Sims 2 Complete Edition" - which will include all their rip-off expansions and stuffs - you can buy it for $45 (guessing). Otherwise, if you don't like to spend money wisely, this SP is for you.

I love The Sims. I LOVE The Sims! But I don't love this "stuff pack." Sixty items for twenty dollars is just not good value for money. There are plenty of fan sites that will let you download their very best items for $5, and plenty more fansites that have great downloads for free.

I don't blame the Maxis people; I blame EA. They're getting greedy, and it's ruining a great franchise. Milk the cash cow too often, and it dries up!