The Sims 2: FreeTime

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• Discover new activity types
• New group activities
• Hobbies offer lifetime rewards
• Requires The Sims 2, The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition, The Sims 2 Holiday Edition, or The Sims 2 Deluxe to play.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000VSEF52
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 1 inches ; 7 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: February 26, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,357 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #20 in Video Games > PC Games > Simulation > Life
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Edition: Expansion Pack only

Amazon.com

Now your Sims can rediscover the joys of leisure time. Awaken your Sims' true passions in life as they discover and excel at all-new activities. Whether they're tossing a football with the family, practicing ballet, restoring cars with friends or building train sets, your Sims now have more ways to build skills, enhance friendships and make their lives more successful. Craft new items for your Sims to use in their daily lives including clothing and pottery. Make your Sims unique as they discover secondary goals and expanded aspirations in life. Your Sims can unlock secret rewards by mastering their hobbies and advancing all-new careers. Explore a variety of new hobbies that will change your Sims' lives.

Features:

• All-new hobbies include basketball, soccer, restoring cars, ballet or searching for alien life in outer space
• As your Sims master new activities they'll unlock new aspirations, earn rewards and uncover secret lots
• Once your Sims build up their skills, they can sell their arts and crafts or see how they stack up against the competition by entering dance, food and video game contests
• Hobbies can be full of unexpected moments, especially for Sims with low skill levels. Your newbie Sim might sew a bear with one eye, make a lopsided jar on the pottery wheel or get poison ivy while hiking
• Requires The Sims 2, The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition, The Sims 2 Holiday Edition, or The Sims 2 Deluxe to play.

Product Description

The Sims 2: FreeTime PC

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun Freetime Activities - and Sim telemarketers, March 31, 2008

By 

CDR Shepard "...and this is my favorite store... (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Sims 2: FreeTime Expansion Pack (Video Game)

Freetime, like all of the previous Expansion Packs (EPs) adds new and interesting functionality to The Sims 2. Sims as young as toddlers can stumble upon an activity that they find particularly appealing and get additional fun and perks while engaged in it.

Hobbies include science, nature, music, cuisine, tinkering, sports and fitness. Now considering the different activities and career paths that were already present, these add many new possibilities for finding a fulfilling lifetime of fun for your Sims.

New careers have also been added, new objects, such as the restorable car, the basketball and soccer nets, and new functionality to old objects like the newspaper and computer and career 'chance' cards that allow your Sim to take part in and share their love for their hobbies and gain enthusiasm.

Your sims can now pick their hobbies as a topic of conversation, and impart knowledge to other sims for relationship building and enthusiasm gain.

Sims also gain lifetime aspiration points for milestones that take place in their lives. Starting with toddlers who get points for learning the three primary growth skills of their age group (walking, talking and potty training), your sims will gain points to put towards perks such as a secondary aspiration, slower need decay, better luck at chance cards, the ability to make three way calls and give financial advice for cash, and much more. Of particular use is the ability to make Grandma's comfort soup, which drastically shortens the time your sims have the flu.

But, there is something annoying that happens once you install Freetime: Spam. Your Sims are spammed at every turn by the game announcing via a pop-up that a particular sim has gained or lost enthusiasm for one hobby or another. Once you get to higher levels, the spam increases, with your sims getting incessant phone calls from various hobby clubs and sims offering magazine subscriptions related to your sims hobbies.

Eventually, the NPC sims just barge in to your sims homes and give them membership cards to the new secret hobby lots of their interest area. There they can share their hobbies with other like minded sims and compete in contests for simoleons and build enthusiam even more.

The spam starts to encroach on your enjoyment of the game, as the phone ringing is not likely to be a buddy any more, but a hobby club telling your sim about their enthusiasm level. It makes you wish for Sim caller ID or phone screening. Even if you cancel the action of your sim answering the call, you still get a pop up about it. And if you have a full house of sims, it gets maddening, pop-ups filling the entire right side of the screen.

So, great EP if you can overlook your sims getting spammed to death. If simulated telemarketing reminds you too much of telemarketing in real life that prompted you to put every phone number you have on the National Do Not Call List, maybe this EP will get on your nerves.

(Supposedly, there is a user-authored mod that reduces in-game spam, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll update after I give it a go)

EDIT: I downloaded a user-authored mod that cuts the spam down to a reasonable amount. It's still more than I'd like. And Mr. Humble, wherever you are - I think it stinks that this EP has made the game so annoying. Does anyone there market test your stuff with real players? It seems like it never was, other wise you'd know how annoying this EP was.

73 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Freetime Expansion Adds New Dimension to Gameplay, February 28, 2008

By 

Ashley L. Sheppard (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Sims 2: FreeTime Expansion Pack (Video Game)

The Sims 2 Freetime offers just what the title implies; activities and goals for your sims when they are not busy with their usual day-to-day activities.
I was fairly impressed by this new expansion because of all the elements it added. When I first played expansions such as Pets and Bon Voyage, I got just what I expected. With this expansion, I not only got hobbies, but I got a new aspiration meter with rewards, and lifetime friends as well as "BFFs".
Not only does this expansion add all these elements, but the main theme of the expansion, hobbies, was incorporated seamlessly into the gameplay. This was done not only with a variety of new objects, but by giving new functionality and value to old objects. For example, I was impressed when I found out that my sims can now read a variety of books, or watch different genres of movies. They can also write a somewhat customized novel, and it is delivered to their door! And sims that enjoy "tinkering" will find that they can "tinker" with many items they already have in their house.
There are, of course, a few downsides to the new expansion. It seems like sim motives decrease at a faster rate than before, although there are now unlockable rewards that allow you to slow this. It also seems to take a very long time to earn badges. Hobbies are not always the easiest thing to max out enthusiasm for either; it takes a lot of time. The variety of ways to increase this enthusiasm helps, as does the fact that a sim has a particular hobby that they will excel in faster than any other.
Overall, it is a very enjoyable expansion. I enjoy it much more than the most recent expansions, and I feel that it does add a new dimension to gameplay, as well as gives your sims a new kind of personality.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FreeTime Takes Up All My Free Time!, March 4, 2008

By 

Benjamin Roberts (Louisville, KY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Sims 2: FreeTime Expansion Pack (Video Game)

I picked up Sims2 FreeTime last Thursday, and if I hadn't created a Sim that looked like my wife, I probably would have forgotten what she looked like. There is something postmodern about being up at 1:30 AM on a Thursday night with your wife saying, "Come on, put the game away", while a Sim that looks like your wife makes hand gestures at a Sim that looks like you who is playing The Sims 3 on HIS computer.

FreeTime allows you to have enjoyable hobbies, often with things you were doing already, such as cooking, working out, watching movies, etc. Now, those tasks translate into cuisine, fitness, or film and literature. All your sims will enjoy at least one of these activities more than the others, which will allow them to have more fun and do more activities. If your sim is really into cuisine, he'll enjoy cooking and watching the cooking channel, but he'll be able to do other things such as read cooking magazines, blog about cooking, talk to other Sims about cooking, get a membership in a cooking club, enter a cooking competition, and more.

Your sims may also enjoy sewing, pottery, etc. They can work on old broke down cars. And the expansion pack adds some items that will be familiar to those who enjoyed the first Sims game, including a basketball hoop, the hobby train, and the genie in the bottle (who grants three wishes!)

Novel writing is better than before as well. Your Sim can sit down to write his novel, and select plot points, the cover, etc. When the novel arrives and Sims read the novel, the plot points of the novel will appear over their heads in thought bubbles.

There are cool new career paths, as well. There is Oceanographer, with a Koi pond as the reward; an Intelligence Agent with a listening device reward; Entertainer with a Walk of Fame star; Architect with a drafting table reward; or dancer with a ballet bar reward.

Another great feature is the ability to take up to 3 friends with you as you age. That way, your Sim doesn't become an old man while the girl he shared his first kiss with remains a teenager in high school.

FreeTime may not be the absolute best expansion pack to date, but it will definitely take up YOUR free time.

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