Tutorials

Below you can find a number of tutorials about unlocking and using special features available
in the Sims 2 and expansions. Please be aware that there are spoilers in this area.
You can either scroll down to read all, or select a topic of your interest from the index to take you
straight to it. I hope that this proves helpful and entertaining to all. :)

The Sims 2

Basics on Motives

Sims, like humans, have various needs such as sleep and hunger which must be upkept for them to remain, happy, healthy, and most importantly; alive. This guide will briefly explain what each motive is, and how it works.

The Catalogue
Within the item catalogue, in the description of each item you will see a number from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest), next to a need, for example, '10 Comfort'. Generally speaking, the more expensive items will provide much quicker fulfillment of a sim's needs. For example, sims will need 8 hours of sleep in the cheapest bed to fill their energy bar, but the most expensive bed will fill their bar in around half that time.

Most items only offer their benefits while they are being interacted with. The exception to this is decorative items that will effect the Room score simply by being within the room.

Energy
Sims, like people, need energy to stay awake. If this bar is depleted, your sim will fall asleep anywhere, anytime. This can be especially dangerous in a swimming pool which will cause drowning. There are several ways to increase the energy bar; you can allow your sim to sleep in a bed, nap on a sofa, or - for a small boost - drink coffee and espresso.

Hunger
Your sims need to eat to stay alive. If this bar is depleted, they will die of starvation. The only way to fill the hunger need is for your sims to eat. Each food item will fill the bar less or more depending on a variety of factors: the cooking skill of the sim, the food that is being cooked, and the quality of the kitchen counters and the stove.

Fun
All sims like to have fun. This is the most flexible of the motives as there are many ways to fulfill this need. The quickest and easiest way is by watching the TV, or playing games. While the depletion of this mood bar is not life threatening, it will cause your sims to complain and refuse to follow orders. 

Comfort
This bar measures how comfortable your sims are. Sims can gain comfort from sleeping in a comfortable bed or sitting on comfortable chairs. Sims can also fill their comfort bar by bathing in a hot tub or a bubble-bath.

Social
Sims are very social creatures and even the least outgoing of them will require social interaction at some time. You can allow them to interact with one another face to face or talk on the phone. This need is generally the most awkward to fill if you have a sim living on his/her own. Sims can also fill their social bar slightly by writing in their diary.

Hygiene
Nobody likes a stinky sim, and like (most) humans, sims will have to wash to remain socially acceptable and happy. You can identify smelly sims by the green stink lines emitting from them. Sims can wash in a shower or a bath to keep clean. For a small increase, sims can also wash their hands at a sink and 'gussy up' at any mirror.

Bladder
The bladder bar is without doubt the most mundane need both in real life and within the sims world. You can fill this bar completely by allowing your sims to use a toilet. If this bar is depleted completely, sims will pee themselves and take a massive hit on their Hygiene mood. They will also get a memory of this embarrassing event and cry about it for years to come.

Room
The room score indicates how happy a sim is in their current surroundings. Fancy decorative items and clean areas will raise the room score, while dirty plates and piles of rubbish will bring down the room score. This mood fluctuates massively from room to room and it is especially difficult to keep high whilst outside.



Birthing an Alien

As the front of the box will reveal, you can now create alien sims. These sims have a particular set of genetics, their most obvious features being their green skin and black eyes. Getting an alien can be quite difficult, but if you follow these steps, you should be
hearing the pitter patter of tiny green feet before you know it:

1) Giving birth to aliens requires a MALE ADULT sim to be abducted.

2) To be abducted by aliens, you will need to make your sim stargaze with a telescope between midnight and 3:00 am. The following details have been known to increase your chances of abduction:

- Use the large expensive telescope.

- Use a 'Knowledge' sim.

- Maximize the logic skill.


3) If you are persistent, your sim will be abducted by aliens (along with a pretty cool cinematic).

4) A few hours later, your sim will return, and they will be impregnated with an alien.

5) The next few days will be exactly the same as an ordinary pregnancy, so be sure to keep his hunger levels up.

6) Soon after, your sim will give birth to a very strange baby. Although aliens have no particular special abilities,
they do look interesting.

7) You can find a few pre-made aliens living in Strangetown.

University

Building Dorms

During their University stay, young adults will live in either rented houses, or more commonly, dormitories. Dorms, like apartments, have individual rooms for use by each student for sleeping quarters, and common areas such as libraries, canteens, etc.

The bills payable are just like with a regular lot, and depend upon the size of the property and the value of the items within, so although your sims don't have to pay for their dorms directly, they do have to cover the bills.

Start off with an empty residential lot, and build to your heart's content. There are a few rules though:

Student Rooms
University comes with a new door featuring a space for a sim's photograph. These doors can be claimed by individual sims to mark their rooms. 
Each student room can only have one exit door, and it must be the claimable door. Inside the room, you can have as many or as few items as the space will allow, but you will need at least a bed. Bear in mind that only individual sims can claim rooms, though other sims may use them if they are not locked.

Common Areas
These areas are available for any students to use. You can build whatever you like, but below I have included a few useful additions that you may want to consider. I have listed them in order of usefulness.

Toilets/Shower Blocks - If you have not built toilets within the student rooms, these rooms will be essential. Build a public bathroom with toilet stalls, sinks, and community showers.

Library - A room containing some bookshelves, seating, tables, and computers are useful to allow students to study for their exams and carry out assignments. Chess sets are also useful for building logic skills.

Canteen - If you place the new silver University stove, a few counters, and a few tables and chairs, a canteen worker NPC will arrive on the lot every day to cook free meals for your sims; they will stay all day and serve three meals before going home. Your sims can also work in the canteen if they want to make a few extra simoleons. 

Music/Art Room - A few musical instruments and art canvases are useful for creativity skill building.

Swimming Pool/Gym - A pool and/or a few exercise machines are useful for body skill building.

Mini Cinema - If your students don't have their own TVs, a community television with adequate seating is very useful to keep the 'fun' level up.

Games Room - Somewhere for a pool table, poker table, etc.

Party Area - An open area that can be adapted for throwing parties with items such as a buffet table, chairs, somewhere for entertainment, etc.

If you have OFB, it is also useful to have badge building areas such as crafting rooms.


Rezoning the Lot
Okay, so now you have a lot that looks like a university dorm, but it cannot actually function as one until you have rezoned it.
This manual would lead you to believe that this cannot be done, but it can with this cheat.

To rezone a lot, you must press Ctrl + Shift + C simultaniously. If you do this correctly, a typing box will appear at the top of the screen. In this box, type "changelotzoning dorms" (without quotation marks) then press Enter. After this is done, you should save and exit the lot. Congratulations, you now have a functional dormitory. 


Creating a Zombie

Dr. Frankensim will love this one. These blue-skinned undead, although still controllable, will lumber around your lot, moan and groan in their best 'Dawn of the Dead' impression, and spend their eternal days thinking of brains. Zombies will never age, and they cannot transform other sims into zombies. They can be a great addition to horror stories and movies. It should also be noted that there is no way to cure zombification; once a zombie, always a zombie. If you want one of these undead creatures, just follow these steps:

1) You will need a university graduate in the paranormal career who has access to the 'Ressurect-O-Nomitron' career reward item.

2) Kill off the sim that you wish to become a zombie.

3) Use the phone to call the grim reaper. When he asks for payment, offer only around half.

4) The sim will be returned, but as a zombie. Their personality will also be reversed.

Nightlife

Building a Restaurant

Building custom restaurants has been known to cause some confusion, because there are a number of key requirements that must be met before a community lot can function as a restaurant, no matter how good it looks. I have listed the three requirements below. Aside from these things, you can create your restaurant as you like.

1) Your restaurant must have a Restaurant Podium; this can be found in the misc section of the community catalog. This item should be placed near the entrance to your restaurant as it will be the diner's first port of call. The podium will spawn a host and waiter NPC.
The host will seat your sims, and the waiter will take orders and serve food.

2) For your lot to function as a restaurant, you must use the correct stove. If you look under appliances, you will notice a large 2-tile stove that cannot be bought on home-lots. This is the only stove you can use to make your restaurant function properly. This stove will produce a Chef NPC who will cook all food that is ordered.

3) Unless there are adequate tables and chairs, your sims will be rejected and will not be able to use the restaurant. You can place dining tables and chairs, or place barstools next to a counter. If you have both, you will be given a choice of whether you would like to sit at the counters or a table. You should bear family sizes in mind when you are planning your table layout. 

Aside from these three requirements, nothing else is needed, not even a fridge. You can be as creative as possible with the layout, but try not to place the kitchen too far away or it will take a long time for food to be served.


Creating a Vampire

Vampires, in my opinion, are one of the most interesting of the creatures available in the series. They sleep in coffins during the day or risk being consumed by the sunlight; they can turn into bats, their motives are frozen during the night, and they can also pass on vampirism by biting another sim. If you want one of these denizens of darkness in your neighborhood, just follow these few steps:

1) Take a sim Downtown after dark.

2) There is a random chance that a vampire or vampiress will enter the lot; they will be recognizable
by their pale bluish skin colour, and their peculiar stalking movements.

3) You must make friends with this vampire. Once the relationship level is sufficiently high they will bite
your sim and transform them into a vampire.

4) After your first sim is bitten, the grand vampires can autonomously transform 10% of townies into
vampires while you are downtown.

5) Vampirism can be cured with Vampirocillin-D, a potion available to be bought from the Matchmaker NPC.

Few people know that Vampires can survive out in the sunlight if they meditate.

Open for Business

3 Business Models

Open for Business allows players to build businesses around one of, or a combination of, three business models. I have listed these models below and explained how each of them work:

Retail Selling
Retail selling is probably everyone's first thought when it comes to running a business. You can place most items out of the catalogue and mark them for sale. Any customers will then look at the item and decide whether or not they want to buy it. A retail business simply requires a cash register and items to sell; the system is very flexible so you can sell anything from toilets to sports cars. 

Pay-Per-Hour
This type of business is exceptionally easy to run and can be massively profitable. Start out by buying the electro-ticket machine. You can set the price per hour for sims visiting your lot. The more objects on the lot of interest to customers, the more willing they will be to pay. Because customers are frequently coming and going, I would advise setting the price moderately so that sims will decide to visit on their own without needing to be pestered by salesmen. 
Most pay per hour businesses require very little maintenance, and sims can run them in their sleep; literally! Bear in mind, that sims will only pay if there are things of interest on the lot, so you will need to splash out a few simoleons on those items first.

Pay to Eat
Running a restaurant may sound like fun, but in reality it is the most challenging and generally least profitable business model. While I wouldn't say to avoid this model, bear in mind that 3 staff are needed for the smooth running of a restaurant; a host, a chef, and a waiter. You should have a fair amount of business capital available before you even decide to run a restaurant as you will need to buy - at the very least - a podium, an expensive double-stovetop, and tables and chairs for all customers. I would recommend running a family restaurant with family members working in each of the roles so you do not have to pay employees. I would also recommend placing snapdragon flowers around the podium and the kitchen stove. Good luck!
   

Building an Ownable Hotel

Building an Own-able hotel is possible, and you don't need the Bon Voyage EP to do so. Although, without hacks, it will not function entirely like a hotel (sims will not sleep in the hotel rooms) it can still be made into a profitable business and will 'look' like a hotel.

First of all, you can build your hotel as a home business or a community lot, but be aware that community lots will allow you access to more community based features.

You should set up your hotel as a Pay-Per-Hour business with the electric ticket machine. Many of my ownable hotels earn around $35 per hour, per customer. If you can imagine 8 customers for 10 hours a day, the profit works out at around $280 per hour, and $2800 per day.

Hotel Rooms
Without you have hacks to allow your sims to sleep on community lots, these rooms are just for show. I usually build a simple bedroom with a small en-suite bathroom attached. Although these rooms are just for show, the value of the items within will allow you to charge more for ticket prices.

Common Areas
These are the most important areas of an ownable hotel, as they are the only places that customers - without hacks at least - will actually make use of. You should try to make areas that are interesting and entertaining, but try not to deviate too far away from the hotel theme. A small self-serve restaurant with a buffet table is a good place to start, as well as a gaming room for items like the snooker and poker tables, and if you're really fancy; a swimming pool and gym area. Be creative; everything that you add will make guests stay longer and allow you to charge more for your hourly rates. Huge ownable hotels can sometimes be set to charge $150+ per hour on 'Average'. That's approximately $12.000 profit per 10 hour working day.

Zoning
Ownable hotels must be set simply as community lots. If you have Bon Voyage, do NOT be tempted to rezone it to a hotel lot; if you do so, the hotel will no longer be ownable.

Creating a Servo (Robot)

Servos are robots that some players may remember from the Livin' Large expansion pack for the sims 1. Servo robots have a number of needs including sunlight (to recharge their solar battery), social interaction, and a few others. Servos are very weak against water and will malfunction if they attempt to swim, take a shower, or bathe in the hot tub. They can be repaired by a sim with high mechanical ability. To make a servo, follow the next steps:

1) Creating a Servo requires a robot building bench, and a gold badge in robotics.

2) Create the servo on the bench, once made, it will be in an inactive state.

3) While in this state, you can sell or give away servos to other families.

4) Once activated, servos become a permanent member of the family and cannot be deactivated.

Pets

Creating a Werewolf

Every night, a sim infected with lycanthropy will turn into a werewolf. During the night, their motives will drop much slower than usual. They can also be commanded to infect other sims by biting them. If you want one of these furry frighteners in your neighborhood, just follow these steps:

1) Place lots of trees and plants around your lot, and also allow weeds to grow.

2) Some nights, you may hear a howling, and you will find an ordinary wolf outside.

3) Greet the wolf and create a relationship with it in the same way that your sims would with a dog.

4) After a few nights, once your relationship with the wolf has increased, the pack leader - a wolf
with glowing yellow eyes - should appear one night.

5) Your task is to become friends with the pack leader. This can be quite a challenge due to the rarity of the visits, 
and the fact that the relationship score will drop slightly every day. 

6) Once you have made friends with the pack leader, the wolf should 'nibble' your sim and turn them into a werewolf.

7) After this happens, you can use this werewolf to infect other sims.

Seasons

Creating a Plantsim

Becoming a Plant-sim is quite restrictive because only adults may do so. Plant sims need sunlight, water, and love (social) to live. They do not have any other sim needs, so they are quite easy to take care of. There is a special sunlight available (albeit expensive) to deliver artificial rays of sunlight to sustain a plant-sim through the night. If you want a plant-sim in your neighborhood, just follow these steps:

1) Plant orchard trees or gardening plots.

2) Wait for the plants and plots to become infested by insects.

3) Use the pesticide option on the plants.

4) There is about a 5% chance that your sim will become a plant-sim each time they use the pesticide.

5) As with most supernatural creatures, the Matchmaker has a potion available to cure them.

Bon Voyage

Building a Hotel

To be functional, a hotel needs a number of essential components. A check-in desk, and at least one hotel room.
As a guide to building hotels you can also see the existing hotels for reference.

To begin, create a community lot to give you access to all of the hotel items.

Hotel Rooms
Hotel rooms must only have one door leading to the rest of the hotel, but you are welcome to have doors within the room leading to sub-rooms.
The main entrance must use the Bon Voyage hotel door, no other entrance doors will work.

The hotel room must feature at least a bed and a phone. Things like sitting rooms, bathrooms, and kitchen units are optional but useful.

The daily price of the hotel is not decided directly by you, but by the size of the hotel room and the price of the items within. Therefore, I would recommend making a hotel with a variety of room sizes to suit the family sizes of tourists; you don't want a single sim staying in a room designed for four people. 

It is also interesting to design a penthouse suite. This would be the biggest and most luxurious room in the hotel. Some penthouse suites of my own creation can cost up to and including $5000 per night!

Common Areas
Hotel rooms are the private sectors of your hotel. Common areas are places that any sim can use, such as a swimming pool, sauna, bar, restaurant, etc. 
While you don't HAVE to make common areas, it can be useful for sims who want to spend their holiday at their hotel.

Rezoning the Lot
Okay, so now you have a lot that looks like a hotel, but it cannot actually function as one until you have rezoned it.
This cheat can also be found in the manual.

To rezone a lot, you must press Ctrl + Shift + C simultaniously. If you do this correctly, a typing box will appear at the top of the screen. In this box, type "changelotzoning hotel" (without quotation marks) then press Enter. After this is done, you should save and exit the lot. Congratulations, you now have a functional hotel.


Finding Bigfoot

Bigfoot is an interesting one. Unlike other creatures in previous EPs, sims cannot become Bigfoot. However, he is very intractable and can be befriended, moved in, or even married. Bigfoot lives on a secret lot within the mountain holiday resort. The only way to access this is to:

1) Be on holiday, it doesn't matter which destination you go to.

2) Start digging around. Most of the items you find will be useless, but you can find treasure maps
which will give the finder access to the secret lots. There's no easy way around it, but if you keep
digging then you will come across the treasure map eventually.

3) Once found, choose to walk to another lot. There will be a lot with a question mark next to it; this is a secret lot.

4) There are a number of secret lots, only the mountain region one leads to bigfoot.

5) Once you visit the lot, you will find that Bigfoot lives in a heavily wooded area in a little hut (which he no doubt funded by selling blurry pictures of himself to tourists). You can befriend him to get a tourism perk. Once this is done, you can ask him to move in if you like.


The Voodoo Doll

For those unaware of the concept of voodoo and voodoo dolls; voodoo is a brand of tribal magic practiced most commonly in tropical regions of the world. A voodoo doll traditionally has the power to take control over someone by collecting something that belongs to that person, such as a hair, and implementing it into the doll. 

The sim's Voodoo doll is a little more simple in the way that it works, but it entitles any sim who has it in their inventory to cast powerful voodoo magic which can have both a positive or negative effect on other sims. The voodoo doll is one of the more fun objects in Bon Voyage so I won't tell you everything it does, only how to get it. That way you can discover its powers for yourself. To obtain the voodoo doll, you must:

1) I would recommend using a sim with a high mechanical skill as repairs will be required later.

2) Be on holiday, it doesn't matter which destination you go to.

3) Start digging around. Most of the items you find will be useless, but you can find treasure maps
which will give the finder access to the secret lots. There's no easy way around it, but if you keep
digging then you will come across the treasure map eventually.

4) Once found, choose to walk to another lot. There will be a lot with a question mark next to it; this is a secret lot.

5) There are a number of secret lots, only the tropical region one leads to the Witch Doctor's House.

6) Once at his lot, you will find that the poor Witch Doctor is having a problem. Apparently the repair man can't find his house, and there are a LOT of repairs to be made. The Witch Doctor will go and take a nap while you get to work fixing everything. 

7) Once all the work is done, he will give you the voodoo doll as a gift. Beware, however, as all spells have the ability to backfire! Use it carefully. 

Freetime

The Genie Lamp

The Genie, in true Aladdin style, will grant your sim three wishes from a range of options. From wealth, to friends, and beauty; even sim revival. All of these wishes can backfire randomly, so be careful. After the wishes are made, the lamp will magically disappear.
First though, you need the lamp. How do you get it? Read on:

1) The Genie Lamp is a gift from the Gypsy Matchmaker; although she seemingly appears randomly, there are ways to increase the likelihood of her appearance.

2) To increase your chances of being given a genie lamp, you should have as many sims as possible, working on as many hobbies as possible. Hobby enthusiasm will greatly increase the chances of being awarded with this magical item.

3) I would recommend saving before and after every use. Three wishes aren't many, and you really don't want them to backfire on you.

4) If you don't want to make any wishes, the genie lamp can also be sold.

Apartment Life

Building an Apartment

One of the namesake features of Apartment Life is to live in apartments, and building them is pretty fundamental to it. Building apartments can be a little complicated because of the rules and restrictions. 

Restrictions
- Apartments cannot and should not be built on Beach lots; EA has warned against this officially.
- Apartments must use the new apartment door (with the door-mat) and it must be the ONLY door granting access to the apartment from outside. You can have balconies and gardens but these must be entirely fenced or walled off so that the only way to access the apartment is by the special door.

Apartment Units
When building an apartment complex, you have to take certain things into account. First and most importantly is the size of the families who will be residing in them. It's often good to have a range of differently sized apartment rooms to suit the needs of differently sized families.
    It's important that you don't make too many apartment units. Only 4 can have playable sims in them, and NPCs will be created to fill the rest, something that could quickly clutter the characters file and cause problems with your neighborhood. 

Your Apartment Unit should have all of the amenities of a regular house. A bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and living room. If you want to get a little fancier, you could add a dining room, utilities room, study/studio, games room, etc. The price of the rent is automatically calculated by the size of the apartment and the price of the fixtures inside.

When moving in a playable family, all of the furniture in an apartment will disappear except for fixtures. Fixtures include things like bathroom items, kitchen appliances, phones, alarms, and structural items such as columns. The only purpose of furnishing your apartments when you build them is for the NPCs to make use of, as their furniture does not disappear. 

Common Areas
These are areas of the apartment block where any sims can access and make use of the items within it. While living in an apartment, you cannot place or move any items in the common area which can be very problematic at times. Therefore, it is important that you check, double check, and tripple check that you are happy with your common areas before rezoning the lot into an apartment.
Here are a few themes for common areas:

Toilets/Shower Blocks - If you have not built toilets within the student rooms, these rooms will be essential. Build a public bathroom with toilet stalls, sinks, and community showers.

Library - A room containing some bookshelves, seating, tables, and computers are useful to allow apartment dwellers to perform a large number of tasks and will be most important for skill building.. Chess sets are also useful for building logic skills.

Music/Art Room - A few musical instruments and art canvases are useful for creativity skill building.

Swimming Pool/Gym - A pool and/or a few exercise machines are useful for body skill building.

Mini Cinema - If your simmies don't have their own TVs, a community television with adequate seating is very useful to keep the 'fun' level up.

Games Room - Somewhere for a pool table, poker table, etc.

Party Area - An open area that can be adapted for throwing parties with items such as a buffet table, chairs, somewhere for entertainment, etc.

If you have OFB, it is also useful to have badge building areas such as crafting rooms.

Secret Rooms - You can use the new secret door book-case to make secret rooms inside or outside your apartment units. Please be aware that these bookcases are counted as doors, and therefore cannot as a door leading to the outside of an apartment units, nor can they be used between apartments (even though the trailer suggests that they can).

Zoning
Residential lots must be rezoned before they can function as apartments, and this must be done while the lot is empty of sims. The rezoning cheat is as follows: Open the cheat window using Shift + Ctrl + Shift, then type "" without quotations. After that, you must save, and then exit the lot. You should re-enter the lot to make sure that the changes have taken place, and then you are free to move sims in. If your custom apartments are invalid for some reason (if you forgot to have only one entrance for each apartment for example), you should be told this when you attempt to rezone it.

Creating a Witch

Witches and Warlocks are, in my opinion, one of the more interesting creatures and have become my new favorite next to vampires.. There are 3 different varieties based on their alignment; good, neutral, and evil. All have their own default dress (but yoiu can change these outfits to normal clothes if you want.). Each alignment has its own set of spells. Strong alignment also causes changes in the sim such as green skin and glow for evil witches, and sparkly skin with a blue glow for good witches. So without any further ado, lets make some magic:

1) There are two Head Witches by default, a good witch and an evil witch. Head Witches appear at random on community lots, and they seem to appear very frequently. They are quite obvious from their clothing and they will cast a weather-changing spell as soon as they arrive. 

2) Once you see one of these witches appear, you must befriend them. Once the lifetime relationship is above approximately 25, a new interaction will appear; 'Teach Me the Ways of Light/Darkness' (depending on which witch you befriend)

3) If you are turned by a nice sim, you will become a nice witch, likewise, if you are turned by an evil witch you will become a 'mean' witch. Note that the special effects are not applied to your sim until they have reached the maximum of their chosen alignment. Neutral witches have no special effects.

4) Once turned, you will be given a spell book and cauldron. These are very personal items to the sim who owns them, and if their alignment changes, these items will change in appearance also. You can purchase more cauldrons and spell books from the head witches.

5) To cast spells you must have Regents. Regents can be made in the cauldron, or they can be bought from the Head Witches. New spells can be learned by either studying the spell book, or by using spells.

6) It is important to note that sims can only learn spells from 1 alignment. If, for example, they learn the evil spells, and then change their alignment to good, the evil spells will be forgotten (irritating I know). The use of neutral spells (even teleportation) can also take away from your alignment level. 


Technical Tips

Installing Downloads

Hundreds of simmers, including myself, work hard to create custom objects, clothes, and modifications to download and add to your game. This guide will teach you how to install them:

1) Open 'My Documents / EA Games / Sims 2'. Is there a folder named 'Downloads'? If not, make one.

2) Check the file type of your download. The most common are .zip and .rar. Rar files require WinRAR to open them. Think of these files like boxes containing your downloads.

3) Open the zip or rar. Inside there should be .package files.

4) Place the .package files into the Downloads folder. Only .package files should go into the Downloads folder.

Be aware that most downloads come in two parts; a mesh, which is like a 3D skeleton for the object, and the texture which is like a skin. If you download a colour for a custom haircut for example, it will not appear in your game unless you also download the mesh.

N.B. When you first install custom content, or when you install a new EP, you must start up your game, confirm that you wish to enable custom content, then exit the game and re-load it.


Disk Defragging

Now, imagine that you are baking a cake. You have the recipe, but the ingredients are hidden all over your house! It will take much longer for you to make that cake than if you had all of the ingredients in one place and knew exactly where they all were.

Disk Fragmentation works very much in the same way. For some bizarre reason, installing the sims likes to randomly place files all over your hard-disk, meaning that your computer has to do a lot more work to find them and use them. This can often be the cause of game slowdown.

But don't fret, because help is at hand.

If you are using Windows on your system, just go through the following steps:

1) Close all programs including antivirus.

2) Go to 'Start / Accessories / System Tools / Disk Defragmenter'.

3) Click the 'Analyze' button, this will take a few minutes and will show you how fragmented your disk is. If you have never performed a disk defrag before, you will see that the lines (which represent files) are all over the place. Ideally, they should all be grouped up at one end.

4) After the analysis, click 'Defragment'.

5) All you can do now is wait and watch. Defragmentation can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. If you are defragging for the first time, you should expect it to take around three to five hours. Done every day, a defrag will only take about ten minutes.

6) After the defrag is complete, restart your computer. You should find that everything is now running faster and more smoothly than before, including The Sims 2!